The first step.
We left the train station and I was almost disappointed, looking up at the modern-looking metal beams stretching for ages down to a platform of people of all cultures and cellphones and pea coats. Those looking too dressed up, those looking pitifully dressed down and sitting in the corners with a dirty grocery bag and a torn cap.
What if this wasn't all I wanted it to be? What if I had chosen the wrong place?
I've never been a city person either. It is very strange for me to want to go to a place with skyscrapers and crowds in the US, and then out of all of Europe I had chosen one of the largest cities, one of the most attractive to tourists. I had a chosen a place where nature could seem so far away when buses whiz by, when cabs weave in between pedestrians, when cigarette smoke billows through the metro and Zara bags brush one's legs on every street.
And I walked up, dragging too many bags through too many people, and wondered. I feared.
We entered a taxi, one of the first ones I had ever been in. And with a wave goodbye to some friends, the driver pulled out into Paris.
The first sight of the Pont des Invalides, its golden figures glistening in the late September sun. Stone, everywhere, pillars and white-washed walls and bouquets on terraces and cobblestone streets and a vitality, a quickness, a rushed haze of cars and buses and people. The soft French rap music playing over the radio.
And finally. Her.
Now writing in retrospect of these first few weeks, when I have fallen truly in love and it is hard to have an unbiased description of that first moment my eyes fell upon la Tour Eiffel.
But it was like a Christmas present after a war. You've thought about what it would be like to hold a real present again, but most of the time it feels as if that could never come to pass. It is an omnipresent hope that could never be realized. Maybe occasionally, when there is news of a victory, you can feel your fingers tingle, knowing that soon there will be smooth paper and string and bows beneath. But then when the gift actually arrives, it is almost as if you had never dreamt of it at all. The shock of reality before you. And a lingering feeling of appreciation that slowly soaks into your skin.
The metal seems to continue endlessly into the sky, the lines peaking yet in my mind they soared to the heavens. The base, so wide and grand and overpoweringly strong, with the contrast of the small elevators, each with at least thirty people within, just specks within the metal maze, the cage of her legs. Up and up and up, ongoing, endless.
My eyes peered at her and I could not even smile because of the shock. I was here. I was here and would be here and this would not be the only time I could look at her. I could stare each day. I could and I would and it was beautiful and tragic all in a moment and I longed to look away to take away the distress but could not take my gaze elsewhere. I wanted to cry, to laugh, to run down the road to her feet and shout. My skin burned with vivacity.
It is strange, to think, such a moment happened in my life. That Paris awakened my spirit with a glisten of light on thousands of metal beams.
The first few days were simply me being star-struck. Walking and breathing in and taking the first metro ride - not grabbing the bar and being flung into my friend - and speaking awkwardly to my host nana with fumbled French and avoided eye contact. Moving in to a room with another and worrying about compatibility, worried about keeping my things in order, worried about making it feel like home enough to not think about home. Sitting by the Tour at night with wine, laying on the fields of les Invalides, walking down St Jacques with its commercialism and feeling the pulse of antiquated commercialism. Walking by the Louvre glass pyramid, seeing the fountains of the Touileries, the flowers of the Luxembourg gardens. Awe. An endless smile.
And my first French encounter besides my host nana or pitiful Franglais with my friends. I went for my first loner adventure by going to the Luxembourg gardens one Tuesday afternoon after a tour in the morning. I sat on a bench because there was a cute guy sitting close by reading and taking notes and it felt so Parisian that I wanted to just keep on watching. I turned away to fumble with my belongings just so he didn't think I had sat down to simply stare, but when I turned back around, he was gone. Good. Of course I laughed to myself - although a little crestfallen - and sat and looked at the trees just beginning to change their color. Hemingway and Fitzgerald had been big fans of this garden, strolling around and pondering their novels. Joggers went by, old folks, Asian tourists snapping photos, little kids and grown men on scooters. My mind drifted from full delight to a quiet stirring of emotional appreciation.
"Excusez moi Madame, est-ce que vous etes francais?"
A man, balding, thin, tall, with a brown suitcoat and tailored tan pants, leather shoes, a messenger bag slung on an arm, wrinkled hands gripping lightly the strap.
My mind with the French language is a bizarre thing. I often need to think of the expression in English, simplify it, translate it, think of the necessary emphases and accent, then say it. At this point, I can do this process without thinking, often skipping many of those steps. But in that moment, my mind was beyond a snail. A slopping slug of pudding dripping off a spoon. Besides the fact that in nature I am very awkward socially when meeting someone and can barely handle saying hello to a teacher, let alone a stranger.
His name was Florencino, and he was originally Spanish (he had thought I was Spanish and he often speaks to Spanish tourists in the gardens). He just recently retired and spends his days in the different gardens of Paris. About a month later, I thought I saw him walk by near Notre Dame, for he has a distinguishable limp of his left leg. We made eye contact, both wondering why our minds were bringing us to pay attention to the other. But I don't think we were supposed to meet again.
(((( in this cafe, old man got coffee and waited for wife. woman came in quickly to eat, reading a book, larger and I think the waiter insulted her after she left for being fat and getting a nutella something. two guys in the corner, so attractive, sharing an ipad and discussing something. the couple now in the corner, laughing, feeding each other as a joke. laughter and French spinning with 80s French music playing. The street gets more and more crowded, the line to the boucherie out the door. ))))
We talked about French politics - or he spoke and I laughed and listened - and the health care system and his favorite churches and I showed a map of the US and he was excited to show what he knew. He has family in Chicago and could proudly point to Detroit, but he thought California was above Florida and New York was only the island. He only wanted the company. He laughed at my poor French, and I taught him the word 'heal' in English. He had a nervous chuckle but kept the conversation going. He walked me to the gate and we shook hands, knowing we'd never see each other again but a feeling that maybe, in this grand city, within just an hour or so, we had found a friend.
That was my first moment of Paris euphoria. I took the steps from the garden and wanted to squeal. I bounced around crowds of people, looking with a new light at the glorious architecture of the buildings, of the breeze blowing a rug hanging from a window. I smiled at the prices of things in the windows on St. Jacques, grinned at children wearing petite backpacks. I felt embraced by seconds. They did not pass by, but remained in full and took me whole and carried me through their moments with a heavy hope of beauty.
I got to the restaurant where we were having a welcome dinner, and sat down with the grin never fading. I told everyone my afternoon with a giddiness I never wanted to fade. They smiled and looked at me wondering how all that had happened in the afternoon, while they had gone home or went grocery shopping.
That was when I first got the inkling that being on my own would be the only way I could get my Paris. It was the only way I could embrace the moments. These people wanted to be here probably just as much as me, but they did not live with vibrancy. And if I wanted to have that moment again, where life makes you quiver in joy, then I would have to go on my own.
That night, we all went to a bar. I have never had the bar experience before this trip to Europe - I don't know anything but the cheap bottles that float around a college dorm, mostly unlabeled. And there were people asking me my drink preference, what I wanted, handing me a menu with thirty names of unknown liquids. They all knew, they all sat and relaxed, while I sipped cautiously on the mysterious order. Social drinking was introduced. I would have preferred to sit upstairs with the other French folk, watching a soccer game, listening to their conversations, watch them sit reposed and casual in their fine linens as they comment on politics, on sports, on movies, in the smokey atmosphere and hazy red neon lights. But we sat downstairs, amongst ourselves, awkward and waiting for drunkenness to hit before some would even rock back and forth to the music.
I felt trapped in an American box.
Later that week, we took a trip to the palace of Versailles and its gardens. I was in wonder and awe and it seemed like others were too, but I was the last one to exit the palace by a longshot. I felt like I had not even basked in it enough, and there they were all looking bored as they sat next to statues from the 18th century. Was I really that different? Then, as we watched through the gardens, the conversation was not on the beauty around us or the history or posing questions on it, but on food and home and drunk tales and American movies. I drifted away from the group, walked through archways of green ivy strung around ancient wooden posts, and couldn't help but let the sadness sink in. Why was I surrounded by people who were so stuck in their lives before? I have never been one to be homesick. This was not the right crowd for me.
To make matters worse, the plan for dinner was to find the Chipotle in Paris. Everyone was "craving" the American food they missed so much, when they had only been in Paris for a week. I had been away a month and the only thing I thought about sometimes was missing the bark of my dogs. But not wanting to cut time away from friendship, I went along with them.
And that was where my Parisian life took a turn.
I had to go to the bathroom, and I didn't need my purse, so I left it by the foot of my chair and told my friends to watch it for me. When I returned, it was gone. The panic set in. I ran from the bathroom to my chair to the main room and again, then outside. "There was a man in the corner watching us, but I didn't even-" "Yeah, I have no clue how he would've grabbed it."
My bank cards. My wallet. My new smartphone purchased just for Europe. My camera. My mp3 player. My driver's license, souvenir papers. A play by Hemingway. A notebook with my daily thoughts. A prayer card from a family trip that had to do with my nana.
Gone.
Each thing that I had lost hit me at a different time as I called the bank, and when I realized my notebook was gone, my heart ripped. You can't recall stolen words. I could replace the rest of the things, but not those lines of prose, those notes on passerby, those expressions of my heart.
The girls went with me to the police station, where no one cared about my problem and the change of shift was more important than my stolen bag. The policemen joked, casually strolled around with coffee, flirted with my roommate, and texted. I sat, numb, knowing the other girls were bored and thinking of the other things they could be doing. But most stayed a long time, and I was grateful.
I am not one to be depressed, down in the dumps about anything. If I get angry, I get silent. If I get sad, I still smile. And my friend Rosie looked at me with admiring, sad eyes, saying, "Out of all people.." I was not the one this should have happened to. Yet if any of them had had to handle it, they would not have been able to. I was the one most mature for the situation, and I say that not in narcissism but in truth. The rest even said that they would not be so composed.
For two weeks I went without money, without a camera, without a phone, without food vouchers, without a metro pass. I went without. And yet that time in Paris I think was one of the best.
I saw everything. I walked everywhere. I learned the side streets of Paris, the little museums, the best views. I learned how people act and what people do and listened to what they said. I took pictures with my heart. Yes, I couldn't buy pastries or get nice dinners - sometimes in a day I ate only toast and PB & Js - but I got fit, physically and mentally. I experienced the city like no other, as they all began to know this place by its metro stops and bus lines. I became fully oriented.
I fell in love.
Each day when I told others what I had done, they were always so surprised. How did I do so much? How did I see it all? My host nana was astounded by my hour-long walks home, my meanderings through the city, my constant museum interests. She was impressed; worried, but impressed. I walked at dawn, I walked at night. I breathed in every light and every smoke cloud and every fume of every taxi. I saw the Seine glisten under sun and moon. I started a new notebook, and that was all I needed.
Sometimes I struggled with the fact that I could not purchase anything, that I could not just walk into a theater and pay. But it only got to me on occasion. There is so much to see for free, and thankfully my dad taught me that well. Free orchestra concerts, free jazz clubs, free expos, even some free food through my program.
Paris opened its doors to me and I passed by without an entry fee.
The day I did get money I think I bought myself a pain au chocolat and it was the best feeling in the world. Even though I don't understand how a person could be so selfish and thoughtless by taking the prized possessions of another (the shame of humanity gets to me), I found that I did not have remorse for what happened. It was actually one of the best experiences I've had here, living like that.
It was unrestrained. It was pure.
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