weeks five + six
I’m behind on everything, and I’m notorious for being late when writing is due. (But really, who is this writing for but myself?) I’m still working full time, and now living in a new apartment in London. I’m listening to the English rain and the English speak while I write this painfully short post — hopefully the photos will tell their own story, and there are a lot. I’m going to be brief and say my time in Paris was such a true delight, such a privilege, such an odd and memorable visit. I will carry it with me forever.
My life, like my writing, is jumpy and hard to track during the last weeks in the city of light. The pictures in my camera roll are fingerprints of the day, and they help me document each uniquely. From them, I remember we attempt socialization and share wine with strangers and coworkers, who sing together and tell stories of their engagements. I remember the mouse I saw run the length of a bookshelf in a new hotel where I was working. I remember lamenting that I cannot attend Alex’s fundraiser. I remember walking home from some afternoon stroll on one of my last days, snagging a set of colored disks from a children’s science set left atop a garbage can, and occasionally shooting through them for colored effects and experimentation. I remember using an old Diana camera and an entirely too expensive process to develop six precious photos on film.
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Jeremy turns 29 while we relish our last moments of Paris, while we keep telling each other stories of our lives — what we ate as kids and who we admired in high school and why — and while we watch a 0-0 women’s world cup game. I hope to delight him with a dinner at Chateaubriand, whose consommé is subtle and savory and my new favorite flavor, whose chef is one I know Jeremy admires. We drunkenly make memes about ourselves and send them to our closest friends. We can’t give the bartender the postcard we wrote Isaac, detailing the horrible cocktails he served us. Before dinner, we bathe in light and sound at L'Atelier des Lumières. On our last night, we find ourselves in a basement cocktail club whose influence no doubt contributes to our laughter when we get caught in a thunderstorm on our 3 a.m. walk home (the ordeal is less funny the next morning at 7 a.m. when I wake up drunk, my jacket and loafers still soaked, to finish packing and cleaning before I catch my train to London.)
Each day I attempt to dissolve the invisible barriers in my communication with myself. I take mindfulness very seriously. I try to cherish, cultivate, and ripen myself as a person, partner, friend. It may seem easy to the more confident among you, but for me, it’s an accomplishment.
A few notes from my phone too: I dreamed there was a lime scooter in the river and I had to pull it out in the rain. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but with olive trees. A woman gluing herself against my back to sneak through the turnstyle, a gentle “merci beaucoup” before she is gone. The whole of the Sein itself feeling like a cool drink of water when the breeze blows. Being lured into coat check only to be charged €8 before we’re allowed into the bar. More corgis with tails.
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I want to take a quick sidetrack here to talk about pain. How do you know how your own face looks when you go through a new or surprising experience? If you do know, how did you find out? Did you act it in a mirror, or do you imagine it? If so, how do you know that’s truly what you look like while the thing is happening? Would an acted version of your face ever be similar enough to the real thing that someone observing you would say it’s the same as when the feeling is genuine and unpredictable?
So, then, how does my face look when I knock my fingers against a glass window, mistakenly reaching for a napkin through an invisible barrier while I’m crying at my new jaw specialists office? How do I laugh at myself through this and fumble to obtain the paper comfort that I need to dry my face with? Could I replicate this laughter to myself, the emotion tied to embarrassment tied to humility tied to gratitude?
Every minute of every day, and especially excruciating every months or so, my jaw cramps and locks in an impossible contraction that leaves this writer listless and hopeless with pain and the insurmountable challenge of self-advocacy. Yes, okay, relax. Yes, practice anxiety reduction. Yes, wear a mouth guard. Yes, do push-ups and see a chiropractor and tell your dentist. *eyeroll emoji* I spend hours researching dental tourism, veneers, braces, jaw surgery, splints, hot compress, ice, botox, muscle relaxers.
A few times in life, I’ve encountered a person who thins the space between the reality that I subscribe to and other, more mystic realities. I believe Dr. S—— may actually be a mind-reader, an elf, a fae-born changeling, a naturally-talented healer whose office is its own ring of flowers or mushrooms. Never so intentionally has my face and neck been touched, never with such interest have my teeth and bones been examined. She asks me a million gentle questions, her accent thick somewhere between native Romanian, years of French, and a bit of Spanish when the word fits best. At one point, I actually think she might kiss my head and I think I see her eyes glistening with tears for me. She reports way too many things that I never told her or mentioned, or maybe she’s an excellent con. She calls my mouth a map. She listens, she holds Jeremy’s hands with both of hers, and tells him it’s going to be okay. She strokes my forehead and smooths my hair and tells me I don’t deserve this. For the nearly three-hour consultation, she’s entirely focused on my well-being.
When I leave, she tells me she’s given me a gift and I am to think about it. On the way home, it’s raining when I stop at the farmers market and buy two chicken slouvaki in a haze similar to that of a really good workout, a really vivid therapy session, a really tough massage, really hot yoga. I don’t hear from her for weeks, until I’m nearly leaving Paris anyway. Then, she quotes me $2,000 for a split to live between my teeth. I feel lost and hopeless and pretty confused often when it comes to this situation. I don’t have much to say about it other than that. The investment is too great and I reluctantly turn away from a possible solution. Someday, I tell myself, I’ll be more confident in the treatment, and I’ll heal.
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All my days at the base of the Eiffel Tower and I still got emotional every time I saw it, by the way.
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.
week two
Our neighborhood and the street we’re staying on is just the right shade of Parisian dirty — construction, gravel, graffiti, broken glass, oil stains, cigarettes of beautiful people with sunglasses and leather jackets. Maybe it was naive of me to be surprised to be so uncomfortable during our first few days in France.
Or maybe it’s because our arrival in the UK was so effortless. When we arrived in London, we were whisked away from the airport by a longtime friend and role model who is living in England for the summer. He and his girlfriend travel the world and sing songs together, both of them talented and ambitious with golden hair and flashy glasses. They’re surprised but accommodating when we want to tour the neighboring coast and visit the Seven Sisters, a series of chalk cliffs on the English side of the channel. I feel a strong desire to move my body and hike and breathe air outside of Idaho. We’re all delighted to encounter sleepy lambs and lazy sheep dozing under a tree while we’re on a walk to a crater left by a bomb in World War II, but by the drive home, I’m so tired I start to forget what I’m saying before the end of my sentences. We’ve stayed in this house before. It’s sweet to be back. I pat Precious the free-roaming cat and watch the rabbits busy themselves on the lawn. The day we leave, Joe cooks us a full English breakfast and we all eat together before Hannah excuses herself to digitally rendezvous with her English students, and we slip out the front door.
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We sleep for 16 hours the second night we spend in Paris. Jeremy and I are surrounded by so much beauty and goodness yet teeter on the edge of chaos: gloomy and grouchy with each other, each taking the other’s mood personally. I suspect Jeremy blames himself for not being born French. I feel guilty for being anxious and sad, so I do my best to show (and to believe) we’re not beholden to old patterns and behaviors. We share wine and enjoy cappuccinos and walk miles every day. We shyly talk to bartenders and vendors and I never know if their confused looks are because we’re speaking so quietly or because we’re speaking in a broken version of their language. French is an ongoing battle. I don’t really speak a word more than je suis desole, and I keep freezing and forgetting everything I’ve learned so far whenever someone speaks directly to me. Within a week of arriving in Paris, we’ve found our produce stand and our butcher. Both have windows the size of walls and more product than we have the vocabulary for. I practice small words: chou, oignon, avocat, roquette, un poulet entier. It’s endlessly embarrassing.
At one of the top 50 bars in the world, Le Syndicat, located half a block from our front door, we are finally and directly asked where we come from, how long we’re staying, and what we’re doing in the city. Later, we bicker over the best way to answer these questions. We try to not seem frantic. I think part of me is frustrated for not being able to offer myself or those we encounter a more clear idea of who I am. Despite the language barrier, Jeremy has secured a stage at a restaurant called Verjus in Paris. I am bursting with pride in him, though of course I downplay this and act like it’s normal and “of course you have something like this scheduled, why wouldn’t you?” casual. He works from noon until midnight, I think, so I’ll have plenty of time to fulfill the design requests that pour in from the Co-op. Through the pride is envy or maybe melancholy of another type. I’m still insecure at heart. I foolishly begin to think I’m failing at some essential thing. I miss my therapist. I miss my progress. My photos start to feel extremely flat and boring, and spending time looking at art and photography books in the Taschen bookstore doesn’t help. I don’t want to write, and I don’t want to talk. I’m not ready to say very much about that feeling just yet, but it’s there and I resent the entire idea of being myself. I still push away thoughts of impending death. It’s still exhausting. I try a distraction: I don’t have anyone to photograph so I photograph myself.
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Mixed with all the adjustment are moments of glory and joy. I find a store that makes me think of Angelene, terrariums sweating inside bell jars ranging from 12 to 36 inches and lining the front window. We visit the heavily-guarded and recently destroyed Notre Dame. We bask in a spring thunderstorm, take photobooth pictures at a modern art museum, and lust over Japanese design books. We navigate our tiny kitchen to eat cured meats and tiny oranges, we listen to jazz. I watch the neighbors across the courtyard of our apartment complex, their windows an odd mirror to my own. (One man near a rack of uniform jackets, on his computer every time I look. Two women living and showering together with matching pink towels. A home containing a family of three.)
We eat fois gras and duck and burratta and cabbage at Clown Bar, the beautiful restaurant done up in Belle Epoque decor so iconic it often shows up in Paris architecture books. Meals together are our love language and safe space. There’s no one I’d rather sit across from. Clown Bar is no secret. The New York Times and Eater frequently recommend it, and honestly the interior is stunning. To me, however, the bar is uncomfortably quiet. It was once a well-frequented watering-hole for the nearby winter circus, and legend has it Toulouse-Lautrec spent hours chest-to-chest with its zinc bar, but now it seems almost too revered to be easy-going. I selfishly avoid ordering the calf brains everyone considers essential - I’m comfortable enough with my favorite food being bone marrow to admit I have no interest in eating brains.
Last year, when I was visiting Paris for the first time, I sent my mom a photo of the Eiffel Tower. She said “I hope you see it so often it becomes boring.” I’m far from that, but I hope to get there someday too.
week one
We’ve spent weeks living out of suitcases and boxes, a small practice before we jump to living out of suitcases exclusively. While I’m getting ready to leave, I kiss Lou often, wrap up lingering projects, and try to spend hours working on my desktop computer before it gets packed away for good. I write desperate words to myself trying to affirm mental clarity and love’s abundance. Jeremy lets me be nervous and touchy-feely. At a party, strangers smile at me, Lou holds the center of attention, and I try to match each negative thought with a positive one. I walk the farmers market with my friend Kiel who reminds me to be brave, then I drink Manhattans at the bar by myself while Jeremy says goodbye to his friends. His last day of work at black cypress comes and goes. The bittersweet reality of the time we gave my hometown and this chapter in our life is palpable.
At the beginning of the week, I get on a plane headed for Minneapolis. Through my work at a grocery Co-op, I sit in conference rooms in a hotel and learn, and argue, and become frustrated and introverted. My colleagues discuss action items and we consider the practicalities of remote work. The days are exhausting and I feel like I’m buffering before a big change. Soon, I will have more than a week off work, and I’m eager for the time to begin.
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While I’m away, Jeremy drives to Seattle and cuts his hair. It’s ceremonious to everyone in our life. Our friends offer support by way of photos, sweet touches, and coos about its beauty. My sister and her partner (read: my sisters) selflessly offer their assistance for the odd loose ends we will inevitably leave untied. They gather his locks in a crumpled paper bag and make promises to mail it to someone in need.
I arrive in Seattle on the redeye, and I’m angry. Anxiety has filled every in-between moment, and I feel left out. Jeremy wraps me in a blanket of kindness and understanding, the welcome result of finally breaking free from a stifling life, and I think, maybe this year won’t be so bad. I’m upset right now but I will always be loved. I argue with myself to undo my unfair resentment. I learn, slowly, that it’s okay to reach for comfort.
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In the morning, Angelene sets a bowl of radishes on the table, and I dip them in butter and delight in her company. A week ago I was standing in the middle of an empty kitchen in Moscow and feeling waves of loneliness and apprehension. Now, I’m here and all I want is to bathe in the warmth of her cleverness, passion, and affection. I feel grateful to have a friend with such a good heart.
That night, we eat chocolate dipped strawberries in the park, our cold white wine making its bottle sweat. Alex, Michael, Angelene and I take turns telling stories, and then the stories turn dark and we discuss times we were taken advantage of by men, and the fears left behind by various negative interactions. I feel brave and tell them about the abuse and assault I experienced at the hands of an ex. I wonder aloud if I should publicize the story. These are things we typically like to forget. We touch base with each other, and offer support to one another, feel indignation for each other, and we wonder at the world we live in. I push away my fears of not fitting in and I try to talk myself out of feeling self conscious. I practice.
The days slip by in a haze of love as we drive and walk all over the city. Alex is a light, so fiercely creative and bursting with beauty everyone feels golden when they’re near her. Genoa is there, and I squeeze her and thank her for being my friend, and for slipping away from her life in Sun Valley for the weekend. I get to see and hold Lauren Jane too, my queen of conversation and my muse. We have a photoshoot, giddy and full of laughter. We eat tacos from a truck, thighs sticking to plastic chairs. We watch a burlesque show and I squeal with delight shoulder to shoulder with Angelene. We drink cheap dark liquor in a dimly lit downtown bar. I sleep soundly. I’m with my best friends, and we all do different things, and we all live different lives, but right now, everything fits and we’re in the exact same place.
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Our bags are packed. Clothing folded meticulously, jewelry in a small canvas bag, pens in pen-pockets, blank journals and walking shoes and memory cards and chef knives. We’re excited. I haven’t taken a long trip abroad since I was 17. The trip ends in New York and Maryland for the wedding of a dear friend at the end of November.
The day before we leave, we have a barbecue and I don’t take any photos. Our friends are gentle with us and listen to us with open hearts when we encounter and attempt to navigate a Mother’s Day pain. I love this place and the people who live here. It finally rains.
