Six months of French Living: goodbyes don’t get easier and the psychology behind the French girl haircut.
Next week we will surpass the six month milestone of living in France, and have just shared yet another round of ‘bon voyage et à bientôt’ beneath the backdrop of the forever breathtaking Alps with the people we have been so lucky to meet here. In this six month span I have now shared many goodbye hugs and given my best wishes to multiple strangers who quickly became familiar friends as we have together navigated the weeks turned into months of living in this unbelievably charming mountain city. From lunches on the docks along the lake lounging under the sun, to grammar debates turned inside jokes in French language class, the many “Santé” always with eye-contact, running carpool through the city to drive to the ski mountain every weekend, and the lengthy discussions of les hauts et les bas of life in general while promenading around the lake. The sentiment that has routinely become an expected experience for us yet, nonetheless, persists with a sadness that I feel achingly in my soul with each goodbye - has not come any easier. As we have fallen into nice routines with these pals and the good times roll on with ease until the dreaded final week creeps up again - once again reminding us that this journey is ultimately an isolating one. We, on our own journey, and they - on theirs, and I do hope that one day our paths will cross again.
After half a year of living in france ( which, half a year!! wow. ) I feel as though the way I move and exist as a living being in this world has transformed on a deeply cellular level. I have never before been so incredibly content and at total ease to sit and simply look, feeling no need to fidget and fret, but just simply be. I guess the magic of France has done its job on me. In my life prior, I always quickly grew restless with the advent of doing nothing - always reminding myself that it was time to get back at it, back to the grind, back to reality. Now, that nothing feels comfortable and normal, and it is a reality here. Do you remember the last time you stopped to smell the flowers? Because I have never before witnessed so many individuals who stop themsleves mid-step and turn to the flowers and press their noses right up against the flowering beauty. But it is not just roses - it’s the lilacs, the cherry blossoms, the flowers that I don’t even know what they are because also never before have I ever witnessed such an endless assortment of flowers that happen to bloom all at once. Spring was a season I previously was not that much a fan of - but here I have quickly grown to adore it, maybe even love it, the most...! During the peak of the lilac bloom I clipped two bunches from my garden and had them on my kitchen table, they are so lovely.
Scenes from my little French kitchen.
A vibrant blanket of green now sweeps across the valleys right up to the snow line. Last weekend we sat on top a grassy col in the mountains above a refuge and a flowering meadow of yellow flowers and listened to the distinctive ‘cu-koo’ calls of the cukoo bird - the one that sounds exactly like the cuckoo clock. I guess in the Alps the arrival of this particular bird signals the commencement of spring, much like the anticipated arrival of the meadowlark in Montana. Before this moment with the cuckoo bird we had walked right up on a pair of Ibex enjoying the buffet of green grass below a waterfall, and afterwards we hiked up above the col and sat on the mountainside as the Alpine swifts gave us a proper air show. Spring in the Alps is nothing short of magnificent - I think just about every day one of us says to the other “life is so beautiful here”, because it really truly is.
A moment with the Ibex’s!
Annecy has proved to be one of the most dynamically interesting places in the entire world - as a simple drive around the lake can feel as if you’ve traveled through dozens of unique climates and destinations within only a handful of minutes. One moment it feels as though you’re winding along the back roads of Hawaii, only to take a sharp switchback and be transported into the dense jungle of Thailand. Vertical cliffs jut out from dense green forests, paragliders suspended above, turquoise waters below. During the rainy days when the clouds form low, drifting slowly across the foothills above the lake, it feels like a postcard directly out of a quaint harbor situated on a remote corner of Vancouver Island, BC, holding my breath for an Orca to breech itself at any moment. When the sun comes out in strength, which has been most days lately - the water twinkles like the Bahamas. If you told me there were coral reefs in the lake, I would surely believe it. From the high alpine still in the clutches of winter all the way down to the villages dotted across the valley’s - the scene is bursting with color, texture and sweet smells - from the boulangeries to the plentiful bunches of flowers spilling out of properly patina’d wooden window boxes, sprawling from crevices in between stone walls, and draping themselves over mossy wrought iron gates. I am not sure that my senses have ever had to process so much beauty and sweetness all at once.
We also continue to experience immense beauty from humanity on a daily basis with each departure from our apartment in the morning promising a new adventure. Not only have I lost count of the ways in which people style beret’s with effortless ease here - a friend specifically recalling one moment she witnessed where an old man dawned a beret that looked as if the years of sunshine had properly melded it to his head, which I thought was a beautiful description - but with the changing of seasons the new appearance of some seriously immaculately tailored linen suits and straw hats. One man I recall in particular in a brown linen suit was wear a straw-styled hat that fit so impeccably, he was walking directly into the wind and the hat did not budge even a millimeter out of place. They do indeed know a thing or two about getting dressed here. Other notable sightings include the various methods of which men carry home bouquets of flowers including cycling with them tucked under the arm, strapped into backpacks, perfectly balanced in a basket and shielded under a poncho in the rain, and running with them in hand while wearing running clothing. But bouquets of flowers aren’t the only thing being frequently transported around this city by these methods. Other popular items include baguettes, bottles of wine and of course - dogs. My favorite regular occurrence being the grey corgi with the long tail who happily rides the bike in a backpack on their owners back.
I know for a fact that I have never before caught the corners of my mouth turning upwards into a smile so often over the moments where I witness someone else experiencing something. But here, it is quite often, One Saturday leaving La Clusaz after a day of skiing we passed by a scene at a gorgeous alpine style home situated in the lush green hills of the Aravis mountains, where it appeared that a group of friends had picked up the dining table arrangement from indoors and walked it out to the driveway where they dropped it in a sun-drenched spot to share good wine and good food together, as the French so famously do. Their laughs echoed and their glasses chinked, and I felt a slight envy that I was not a part of it. Last week, I peered up from my garden work and took notice to an elderly woman across the street with her elbows propped up on the balcony as she stood and soaked in the absolutely perfect weather. Minutes passed before she stood, stretched, and carried on with her day. She reminded me the importance of taking in the moments, which seems to be an effortless practice here. On a particularly pleasant afternoon when the clouds cleared and the sun returned after a couple days of heavy rainfall I saw my neighbor in her garden light a cigarette, turn her face directly up at the sun, and take a loooong drag. I felt the fatigue and stress leave my body right alongside hers - and it was after that moment that I feel as though I began to truly truly understand what life here is really about. In the short time as residents of the Haute-Savoie department we’ve managed to make some French friends of our own now, and it feels like a really special embrace to be invited into their culture. These nights carry on past midnight without a thought to even look at a clock, a notion that I have not felt in a very long time. To socialize with ease past midnight is hardly ever in the cards for me, but something about the conversations we have here makes it rather easy to not stop. Ending the soiree with a promise to hang out again sometime in the near future, which I know are genuine, as we walked out into a damp cold night lit by amber-colored street lamps.
Most days we don’t look at clocks, we actually don’t have a single screen that tells a time in our home - which is a wild fact as I can count at minimum of seven screens that gave the time back at our home in Montana. Not only do we hear the bell towers from our home but the general need to know time here just exists much less. Days flow easy and nothing ever feels rushed. For the last few weeks the first roses have bloomed in our garden and while I was never the biggest fan of roses before, something about a bountiful rose bush in a tranquil garden in France is just storybook perfect. It was only fitting that one day while the sun was bright and the weather was beautiful and the roses were perfectly pink, a man walked along our rue singing “La Vie En Rose” in beautiful harmony at the top of his lungs and it felt like something out of a movie, and of course - so very French. I once had a garden back in Montana that I adored but the HOA of the nieghborhood waged a war against me that I eventually lost. Last summer I stood at the window and watched the bushog erase all proof of my hours upon hours of the hard work I dedicated to that dirt, and I vowed to myself that my next home would have a garden that would actually be appreciated. Now, I have a French garden and while I trim back the shrubs and refill the bird feeders my neighbor jolts me out of the depths of my thoughts (which are mostly ruminating over French grammar) as she calls “bonjour!” to me from outside the gate. I look up and call back “bonjour!” and every time after a few short phrases exchanged, she always is sure to tell me “le jardin, c’est magnifique!” Before she goes on with her day. And each time I thank her greatly and smile, knowing that my hard work is indeed appreciated by others here. Which reminds me of another moment from earlier this winter, when I discovered that we not only have crocus and tulips, but some really gorgeous hyacinth planted and an elderly woman was walking along the sidewalk one crisp cold sunny morning when she suddenly stopped and threw her hands up to her cheeks with a passionate “OH!” and it was the group of freshly bloomed hyacinths she was looking at.
A blurry angle of my petit French jardin.
For living in close proximity to the downtown, we sure have a quiet neighborhood. These days, we listen to birds sing beautiful melodies late into the evening and early in the morning and sing some of the most tranquil bird songs that I have ever heard. I’ve grown to love when the metal shutters clap in the wind during the onset of a thunderstorm, when someone walks by whistling to themselves, when the bell towers toll at noon on Sunday through open windows. The beauty is endless, and the lifestyle sure does rhyme right along with it in perfect unison.
Last month I received my first proper French girl haircut - something I had been anticipating since my arrival. After a couple weeks of research I found the salon and booked three weeks out and then read every article on haircuts in France that I could turn up. While most were about popular stylists in Paris, I figured this one would be no different considering how many people have great hair around here, which is practically everyone. And while I had always adored every haircut I had received in the past in the States, I cannot deny that there was something objectively very different about getting a haircut in France. From the minimal use of product to stylings with only a round brush and a blow dryer and no curling iron in sight she achieved the greatest tousled curls naturally undone look my head of hair has EVER seen. I asked her a couple pointed questions about general hair care and hair styling techniques which allowed me to further solidify my theory that the French don’t even know they are so cool, they just simply are - which therein makes them cooler.
My stylist had spent some time in the States at one point briefly cutting hair and described most girls hair as long, boring, and lifeless - and you know, she is not exactly wrong. As I walk around Annecy, I notice everyone’s hair from men to women and kids - I’ve written about this before - but I am always surprised at the variety of cuts that exists and how each style seems to fit each person so perfectly as though they aren’t even trying. The emphasis on personalized hair in French is only fully backed by the fact that you can find a coiffeur on almost every corner and the haircuts are very affordable - I paid 75 euros for the best haircut of my life, and it is quite apparent that people here visit their coiffeur more frequently than my usual once a year cut. So, I guess I will too now.
At the conclusion of the haircut she said “well it looks like you better go out to dinner tonight!” and she was right, so that’s what we did. And there was something different in the way I walked - and there was a different movement to my hair as I walked arm in arm with my husband in the rain to get sushi. I wore that hair for three days after the cut, and with each day the texture and volume only got better.
Last month I shared a short lo-fi style Youtube video about March in the French Alps - if you feel so obliged, check that out below:
Nearing the end of our first ski season at LCZ, April 2026.
