weeks three + four
An impactful conversation with Alex (my life’s resident photographer and golden light) has left me determined to think more positively. She said, “I know you don’t want to look back on this time and just remember what was hard,” and she’s right. It’s embarrassing that through so many amazing experiences I’ve dared to be gloomy. I’ve made a promise to myself to highlight ten simple joys from the third and fourth weeks in Paris:
The restaurant/bar down the street from my house (from which I write this blog post) playing all the best indie rock from high school, complete with the National, Interpol, Arcade Fire, Spoon, Neutral Milk Hotel… Also their neon sign being perfect.
The fact that the French, like Jeremy and I, like their scrambled eggs with mayonnaise and no one is confused or grossed out when we order mayonnaise on the side of everything.
Successfully navigating an entire night hanging out with new friends and not letting my self-consciousness stall me. (A note: I want to give special attention to Jeremy’s temporary colleagues. They are all so wonderfully well-traveled and sweet, open-minded and determined in a way only expats are. I love that they are generous with wine, constantly cracking jokes, and inherently curious. They’re also strange: one has an antique-selling business on the side. One took selfies with a pigeon that flew into her apartment. One is only in Paris because (in his words) he ran out of places he wanted to see first. One is even from Maryland. I feel grateful to have been welcomed into their gentle, 1-4 a.m. evening so readily – they even tolerate me taking photos at the end of the night and uncontrollably gushing over the height of their ceilings and the art above their mantle.)
Cherry season! The air in Paris smells like fruit trees and every produce stand is bursting at the seams with cherries. They’re served with lobster and grilled lettuce at Verjus.
Our server forgetting for over an hour to place our order at Au Passage, then giving us two free glasses of wine, then eating my first snails (sea snails cooked in aromatic broth and served with green aioli.)
Les Nympheas and all of Monet’s work and Picasso and Van Gogh and Impressionism in general. Brushstrokes and light and texture. Abstraction and World Wars and the perfect round soft bellies of marble sculptures. The fall of old gods and watching Jeremy watch art. Art Nouveau woodwork and the miracle of set design on antique stages. The privilege I have to consume so much history and beauty.
The one single lil’ tear that fell from my right eye when I saw the Eiffel Tower do its light thing. I don’t even care if you think that’s mawkishly sentimental. I’m corny.
Flower shops, bouquets, unpicked cotton on the stem at my local coffee shop, and blooming fig trees in my courtyard all existing to remind me of Angelene every morning when I leave the house.
Having fully productive, fruitful work days hunched over terrazzo tables in restaurants where I hear at least six languages between 4 p.m. and midnight.
All French women and their inspirational style.
I’ve seen three corgis in Paris and they all had long tails.
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I’ve taken to spending hours at the Hoxton, super-hip British hotel with a patio and second story loft space that’s the envy of Soho Houses everywhere. That’s where I sit. I like the bird’s-eye view and the way the staff ignores me until I flag them down for a cortado. It’s great from 5 p.m. to 9, then the music — clubby and droning with bass — starts and I get a headache from the cigarette smoke.
This week I had lunch with an old friend. Marion and I met in Toledo Spain in 2012, the result of a coincidental hostel reservation. We spent a hot night photographing each other and getting piggyback rides from our boyfriends and drinking cheap Spanish beer, then didn’t speak for seven years. Marion is studying for her master’s in international political communication and lives in Amsterdam. So apparently whip smart it’s a delight to hear her talk, she tells stories of collecting tourists, listens to me complain about people who don’t vote, and asks me if I own a gun. She’s a wealth of knowledge who speaks five languages and patiently helps me translate the menu at the ramen restaurant where we eat lunch. Afterwards, she buys me one of the worst cappuccinos Paris has to offer and we lust over pens and art supplies at a nearby stationary store. She invites me to Amsterdam and I can imagine no greater joy than crashing on her couch and listening to more of her stories.
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For the sake of reality, I will say the beauty of the above isn’t without tough moments. I don’t want to pretend like my life is all easy and comfortable, especially when it feels like my own skull is too tight around my brain. While Jeremy works, I spend 60 hours by myself. Or is it 20, because I work 40? It doesn’t matter, and it never did. I am still anxious when I’m alone. Some residual fear of something happening to me and being alone at the end of it all. Or maybe fear of being forgotten. Or maybe I just never practiced and let myself be needy for 27 years. I am still committed to breaking down my habits and trying to rebuild in a new shape. I have to repeatedly learn and teach myself that being alone is okay. Why is it that when I am by myself, when I feel the most like myself – and when some alternative, comfortable version of me is hiding so clearly just under the surface – I still feel so afraid? It’s confusing and exhausting, especially because I have fun listening to podcasts, watching dogs chase pigeons, buying vintage French clothes, and eating bavette frites whenever I want.
I appreciate that Jeremy refuses to fret over me. When he returns each night, he’s the person I missed, not the person I’ve been negatively imagining; he’s full of stories and eager to talk. He answers all my mundane questions when we spend time together in the mornings too: What do you drink water out of? (a deli.) What does the bathroom look like? (small with plastered walls.) How do they order product? (every day, it comes in wooden crates.) What do you listen to? (podcasts, especially the daily.) What did you learn? (let’s look at my notebook.)
We spend another week between his shifts with our days and nights stretching on like one long quest. The picnics are my favorite part. I eat dried meat and hard cheese sandwiched between cucumber slices and pick the lettuce with purple and yellow flower petals adding splashes of color to my meal. I’m already distracted from spending time writing on this trip, but I have more photos this week. I do want to say thank you to everyone who has texted me or DMd me with kind words. I write this because I want my friends to write. I want to read their work and meet their thoughts and hear their voices in my head. Just in case anyone is listening, I would savor every word.
