So Tell Me, How Was Paris?

So tell me, how was Paris? It had been a few weeks since I returned and I had begun casually catching up with everyone I knew from before. This friend and I made a plan to catch up at the restaurant in a hotel nearby her place. She must’ve wanted to set the mood by choosing a French restaurant. A sort of immersive element to my storytelling so it seemed.

She pressed on with the question, a glow in her eyes that I recognized from the others but hers was nonetheless refreshing since I hadn’t seen her in person over the last year.

I never knew how to answer this question. To most people who asked I could get by with a generic response. I was tired of that though. However, no one that asks the question is prepared for an answer that is honest and potentially dreadful.

I eagerly packed up my belongings and left. No more bistrots. No more garden walks. No more metros. No more skies of gray.

Undoubtedly, you can’t love everything about a city and moving half-way around the world alone well, no one can prepare you for the lonesome feeling. I walked to destinations never to meet anyone, to then return home and rest in solitude.

The waiter seated us at our table in the center of the restaurant that was packed to the brim with people and plants. Unfortunately, this was one of the spots in the area that had gone viral on social media and was now overwhelmed with influencers and visitors staying in the hotel. “A little bit of Europe in Orange County,” it was designated.

Handing us our menus he took our drink orders and said he would return shortly.

I went on.

Coming down from your apartment you become so small out on the streets. You’re one of the many in hurried crowds. You do not stand out and neither you nor anyone else is very beautiful.

A restaurant on every corner, its patrons burst out the doors and flood the patio. They watch you pass by and their faces tell you that you have no effect on them. They just blow their smoke.

Bringing over glasses of water, an orange juice and a soda, the waiter explains their lunch specials and takes our order. He thanks us and adds a few compliments which we reflexively thank him for.

I continued.

What does it mean to belong, anyway? Is it about knowing the people existing around you? Is it about being able to navigate without a map? Does a sense of belonging come from having a routine?

How long can you stay in a place where you don’t belong?

The table next to us was a group of four adults and two small children. One child, a girl appeared to be drawing on a small notepad, a hotel-room-freebie. The other child, a boy, was crashing his toy cars into one another. “Honk! Honk! You’re in the way,” he exclaimed as one vehicle. “What do you mean I’m in the way? We’re stuck in traffic!” He exclaimed as another vehicle.

I spoke up.

My feelings were changed by the city, by my experiences. I learned what it means to be cold and the frightening sound of a temperamental thunder. I learned how slowly time would pass if you stared at the bathtub faucet drip. I learned what warmth a group of strangers could have when dancing together in pairs of two to melodies playing in the streets. Having a meal with a family in their home was never more surreal than one welcome evening I won’t ever forget.

Looking at my own reflection, I could see changes too. The light in my eyes and the way I positioned my lips, was somehow altered.

You have to introduce yourself in the mirror each day because you exist in a new language and bit by bit are discovering who that person is, looking back at you. For me she was more brave, resourceful, intelligent, loving, grateful and all the while more miserable than the woman I knew previously.

No more confused phone conversations with the delivery man. No more stolen moments in the single ray of sun that shone in the day. No more bittersweet wine, feet dangling, picnics by the Seine. No more glistening Eiffel Tower.

So I boarded a plane with everything I could carry and flew back to where I began.

At this point, our waiter brought our meals over and we proceeded to change the subject. As predicted my honest retelling painted a picture contrary to the city’s dazzling reputation.

We said goodbye and as I walked through the parking lot to my car an unsettled fog pervaded my mind. I continued on walking in hopes of clearing it.

As it is, now that I’m home I have lost any understanding of the concept. The city where I live has little to do with who I am, the place I inhabit feels like cardboard and all of the familiarity now feels foreign.

When I go to sleep at night I find myself wandering the streets alone again in Paris. I walk along the Seine and pass my favorite bistrot and the bar I frequented. There is my laundromat and my gym, the grocery store with the best priced fruit and next door the flower shop that I could only afford but a few stems. It begins to rain on my dream’s journey and I’ve forgotten my umbrella. I’m in no rush so I wait it out watching the cars and people under the awning of a glamorous storefront. On and on I go until I arrive at my door. I push the handle and step inside. Up the stairs to that place, my place.

It seems that life unveils truths to you slowly or maybe we complicate our desires when we are trying to bring them into reality, eventually losing sight of the core of the thing.

Before I went there I wanted to live in Paris. I would abandon everything for the chance to find myself there. I chose to leave it for reasons that haven’t yet resolved themselves in my mind. Only until after the storm can we process what happened and reflect on what it did to us.

Still, I gather now that just as I need water, food, sleep, music and love I will always need Paris. Either I was born this way or during the critical years of my youth something planted this desire in me or perhaps it’s written in the stars. Actually, each day it becomes more clear to me that I will always yearn for Paris.

Until I return home to you, my darling Paris.

Jusqu’au jour où je reviens…