The Long Arc
On French, Travel, and 2141 Days of Becoming
Some stories arrive all at once. Others take years to reveal what they were really about. This one unfolded slowly, five minutes at a time.
I didn’t intend to build a 2141‑day streak. I didn’t intend to reach Level 61. I didn’t intend to land at B1 proficiency or have Duolingo tell me, with great corporate confidence, that I can now claim “French proficiency” on LinkedIn. But here we are. And the truth is: this story didn’t begin with a streak at all.
The Real Beginning (2018)
I started learning French in 2018 with a very specific fantasy: I wanted to be able to buy a train ticket in French so I could go on a history tour. Paris to Poitiers — that was the imagined route. Not glamorous, not cinematic, just a small, ordinary moment of competence I wanted to claim for myself.
I pictured walking up to a ticket window, saying un billet, s’il vous plaît, and being understood. That was the whole dream. Not fluency. Not mastery. Just the quiet satisfaction of doing one simple thing in another language.
The First Version of This Story (2019)
In 2019, I wrote a Medium post about learning French. I had just read an article about small habits and James Clear’s Atomic Habits, which argues that if you get 1% better every day, you end the year 37% better. That idea — that tiny actions compound into identity — landed hard.
So I set a five‑minute goal. I learned about apples. I cursed my way through negatives. I practiced while drinking coffee. I overachieved at first, then settled into a rhythm. It was a tidy little productivity story, the kind that fits neatly into a hashtag.
But life rarely stays tidy.
The Streak That Began in a Different Life
My current streak didn’t begin in 2018. It began after my father’s death and funeral in early 2019. The owl was angry. I didn’t care.
I wasn’t trying to improve myself or build a habit or become anything. I just needed one tiny, manageable thing that didn’t collapse under the weight of grief. Five minutes of French was small enough to survive the wreckage. So I did it the next day. And the next. And the next.
Not out of discipline. Not out of motivation. But because it was the only thing in my day that didn’t ask too much of me. Grief isn’t the theme of this story, but it is part of the landscape I walked through.
The First Real Payoff (2022)
In 2022, I finally went on a history tour — not the one that required a train ticket, ironically. No train stations. No ticket windows. No cinematic moment of ordering un billet, s’il vous plaît.
But I did get something better.
In Angers, I ordered Indian food in French from a waitress who didn’t speak English. We made ourselves understood. We communicated. We connected. It was my first real “I did it” moment.
My second was at an airport information desk, asking where the taxis were — in French — and being answered without hesitation. These weren’t grand gestures. They were small, ordinary triumphs. Exactly the kind I had dreamed of in 2018.
The Quiet Accretion of Identity
Somewhere along the way, the streak stopped being a coping mechanism and became a form of continuity. I learned verb tenses. I learned how to order food. I learned how to read museum captions. I learned how to understand a sentence spoken at normal speed — sometimes.
And somewhere in that long arc, James Clear’s math stopped being theoretical. I didn’t become 37% better in a year. I became better in a way that only shows up after hundreds of days, then thousands — the kind of improvement you don’t notice until you’re standing in Angers ordering dinner in a language you once only dreamed of speaking.
Where I Am Now
2141 days. Level 61. B1 proficiency. A language I can actually use. A ritual that has outlived multiple versions of myself.
I still curse during certain lessons. I still forget things. I still can’t follow rapid‑fire conversations. But I can read. I can speak. I can understand. I can navigate a restaurant and an information desk in a foreign country. And I can claim proficiency on LinkedIn, apparently.
What I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Then
Small habits don’t just make you better. Sometimes they carry you through seasons you don’t yet have language for. Sometimes they become the scaffolding for a self you haven’t met. Sometimes they turn into the quietest, steadiest form of becoming.
The 2019 version of this story was about productivity. The 2026 version is about continuity, curiosity, travel, identity, and the quiet dignity of showing up for yourself in microscopic ways.
The Takeaway
Build the small habit. Not because it will make you 37% better. But because it might open a door in Angers. Or help you ask for a taxi. Or carry you through a season you didn’t see coming.
Five minutes is enough. Five minutes can be everything.
Filed under: an irregular series on art and resonance.
I love this. I am on a journey of learning Spanish, and the life lessons that journey is teaching me are vast. And now that I know you are a fellow lover of medieval history, I am keeping my eye on you!
Excellent read. Thanks for sharing.