Paris. Where do I even begin? It must have started at age 10, when I bookmarked every page of “Secrets of Paris” my mom had found in bargain books at Barnes and Nobles. My fascination was enough to make me quit Spanish, fill my room with French paraphernalia and enroll in every French class I could get my grubby little fingers on. And now, ten years after the root of this obsession with a place I had never even been to, I am finally here.
This “article” must be written like a diary for the sake of telling a story, my story leaving all familiarity and, tête dans les nuages (head in the clouds) wandering into a world I was nowhere near prepared for. Where does love come in? Love is written all over this place and this story. It isn’t commonly mistaken for the City of Love for nothing (any true Paris geek knows it’s the City of Lights.)
31/12 I think people know I must not be from here. I look around in awe at everything I see, stopping at the slightest glimpse of art or fashion or flowers being sold on the street. It’s New Year’s Eve and I should be excited to go to a café and sip wine, watching as people strut by in trench coats, laughing (rirent) at something that was said in rapid French. All I can think about is the New Year’s kiss I lost, tucked somewhere between the folds of my old house and that walk to the Knoll. Second year in a row that we spent New Year’s apart. Last New Year’s I knew I was in love; this New Year’s I am still in love. Next year, too.
01/01 I saw everything you’re supposed to see today: the Louvre, shining in its grandiosity and stately brow pressed against a true gray Paris sky. The Notre Dame, again supported by metal beams and still inspiring touristic jaws to drop as low as the Seine below. We walked to the Eiffel Tower, and I saw a couple sitting on a park bench. One rested his head on her shoulder, and they sat in silence as the noise and the cigarettes and the illegal wine sellers tried to make their way through the park. A swollen moment of love between strangers in a strange city.
03/01 My friend took off yesterday, and I found my way to a new home. On my first floor walk-up, I have a bed, a desk, an armoire, all the things a room should have. I don’t know anyone here, and I can’t find the words I need to be able to be who I am. Is this what it’s like for people who don’t speak English as their first language? I can’t believe I am all alone. All I want is for my mother to wrap me up in a big blanket, watching as I nurse a cup of warm milk and honey and listen as I tell her what’s pressing on my mind. That’s a love I take for granted and, being here wishing for her company, I know I never will again.
05/01 I met a friend today, a real Parisienne. She’s friendly and made me a salad. She asked all sorts of questions about what life is like at Middlebury and what people our age do in the United States. I asked her about French slang and Parisienne secrets and what it’s been like to travel a part of the world I had never seen until just now. While new, love poured from her fingers into the salad she chopped for me and the way her rapid French slowed with annunciation, with welcome.
06/01 I spend a lot of time alone here, I’ve realized. I walk around my neighborhood, find coffee shops and parks at which to write, deal with technology difficulties, ride the metro, buy groceries, clean my clothes, cry in banks, and do things I never thought I’d have to do until after college. I feel like a real adult. I am overwhelmed. I need to find a way to accept I made a mistake of romanticizing a city that is just a city: too much noise, too many smells, too much rushing and trash and maturing that comes with keeping yourself safe as a woman alone in a city. I love that I am learning how to take care of myself.
07/01 Thoughts of the day: Why are there so many tiny dogs here? I miss my love. How do French women stay so thin? There’s so much bread here. I should love myself more. I should love my love more now that we are apart. I should call my parents.
Dear Middlebury students, while you’re there, hold your partner a little tighter in the morning. Tell your friends you appreciate that they listen to you, and when you can spend time together. Call your parents to tell them you love them. Eat what makes you happy, because take it from a fake-Parisienne, bread tastes better than “feeling thin” (What was Kate Moss thinking? Choice words omitted for the sake of being in the paper).
If you go away to “find yourself” as I have done, remember that you are not defined by the parts of you that are learning how to be an adult, or communicate with others, or missing life as it was before it all became so foreign. Most of all, if you have a Paris, a rêve, a dream that is so romantic that you want nothing else in this world than to obtain it, remember that what you already had was a dream itself, and there’s nothing more romantic than that.
