Merci Paris.

So I guess it’s about time I wrap things up. An impossible task, but I’ll do my best. 

For the past few days, much to the irritation of my dear friends, I have been disappearing. It started on Friday morning when I had to meet up with my literature class at a café at St. Paul for a make-up session. After a conversation about whether or not comparative literature exists, where it’s boundaries are drawn, and how multilingualism, multiculturalism, and multiplicity factors into it,  we were dismissed and I decided to walk to a new café Ryan had suggested to me near by at Republique. 

I walked from Bastille up Boulevard Beaumauvais thinking about how in exactly one weeks time I would be shoving my 50lb bag into the RER, heading to CDG and catching my flight back to NYC. It had down poured while we were in the café but now the sun was out and I was marching through a wall of humidity. I made it half way to Bastille when a café caught my eye. The windows were packed with people, the décor was modern-rustic (perfect), perfect french waiters rushed hither and thither, and the graphics of the street sign was perfectly designed. “MERCI” the sign sang (emphasis on the MER) I stood there for a few seconds watching the bustle then resolved to keep walking. I already had a destination that I had been told was superb and not to be missed.

So I walked two more steps when this time something bright red caught my eye. Like a crazed bull I charged left down the alley way at what I had seen. It was a beautiful antique car in the middle of a beautiful courtyard, in front of a beautiful store, with beautiful graphics. “MERCI” it chirped.

The store was a two story Restoration Hardware-meets Anthropology-meets that Japanese stationary store that is always in airports. I was meandering around the store for a bit caressing the leather bound notebooks and faux-rustic book shelves with one hand and with a death grip on my wallet with the other, daring myself to even entertain the idea of buying anything, when I saw the books.

Around the corner from the entrance there was a corridor with floor to ceiling packed bookshelves and beautiful healthy people sitting with cups of café reading and chatting. Moth to flame, I was seated in the front gallery moments later, whipped out my “What is Comparative Literature?” reading and hunkered down.

Four hours later I stood up to pay and leave. With no exaggeration, this is what was sung to me as I left,

“ MER-ciii! Merci Beaucoup! Bon Journee! Merci, Au Revoir. MERci a vous. MER-ciiiii!”
“Merci Beaucoup!” I replied. Merci, indeed.

 I took the next left and decided to walk to my original destination, “Merce (Mer-SEE) and the Muse”, which was just a couple blocks away. I zig-zagged down street I had skirted many times but never actually taken. Each zig gave way to whimpers, the zags to near tears. Had these streets been here all along? Why hadn’t I ever walked down them? Where were all these cafes coming from? Who are all these beautiful people? Why, with one week left, am I just finding this all now?

 

 I finally made it to Merce and the Muse, where I interrupted Ryan’s solitude and joined him. This café was perfect too. Odd nostalgic boxes of stuff were hung on a cornflower blue accent wall. Cakes and stuff winked at me when I walked in but I shooed them away after hearing what they would cost me.Tom joined us shortly after. How effortless it is to be with your favorite people.

From that café I left for my first art opening! A few of my watercolors were/are being shown in a student exhibition at school along with the work of many of my talented peers. I went home, cooked dinner, painted and fell asleep.

I woke up and decided to retrace my steps. I, again, rented four hours of space at Merci by ordering a Café elongee, then wandered aimlessly around to different cafes in the neighborhood cursing myself for ever setting foot in a Starbucks while I was here.

Today, Sunday, I met up with a friend to swap ideas for a paper, then ventured to another café that my friend, Lauren, had demanded I go to before leaving Paris. I arrived at 66 Rue Cherche-Midi and for the second time, found Mamie- Gateaux closed. So I began another aimless walk about the neighborhood towards St. Germain. I took streets I’d never seen before, was deceived by mirages of adorable cafes in the distance, that ended up being closed- because it is Sunday and I’m in France.

Bear with me I have a point.

I was just about to give up and go home when a beautiful doorway caught my eye.

“Le Rive Gauche” I turned right and approached the old awning to take an artsy picture.  Once that was documented I noticed a pair of eyes looking at me. Upon closer look it was a very well designed sign for a very well decorated brunchery very well named “Eggs & Co.” It was perfect. I called Ryan to join me. This experience needed to be shared. Happy eaters, happy servers, happy tummies all around. The owner gave us candy after we paid.

But once we stepped out onto the street we both broke into hysterics. I started laughing so hard the sound was indecipherable from sobbing. Ryan just stared dazed straight ahead- composed but decomposing. I felt so miserable I wanted to cry. But I was so happy all I could do was laugh.

 We laughed uncontrollably for about 3 blocks. Trying to make sense of what we were feeling. There was no explanation. We winded our way through the maze of St. Germain looking at each other every once in a while with helpless puppy faces then bursting into laughter. “I have no idea.” “I feel so weird!” We repeated.

We made our way to 7 Rue des Grands Augustins the last thing on my “Do before leaving Paris” list.  I  rested my forehead on the wrought iron and hung my arms through the holes of the gate. So this is where he lived and worked. This is where he painted Guernica. This is where Matisse came to chill with him. This is where sometimes  he couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. This is where he was a human. I took a few pictures.

We kept walking. Then at St. Michel we felt we couldn’t go on and we sat down at a bus stop and did a bit of reflecting, still erupting with sporadic chuckles every once in a while.  We realized this very bus stop was where we had walked together our first jet-lagged, newbie night in Paris. It was also the exact bus stop where we had sat at 2 in the morning on our “worst night in Paris” and witnessed a car accident before going home and being forced to eat germinated chickpeas and balsamic vinaigrette in my first shoebox apartment.  Don’t tell the surgeon general but we smoked a cigarette and then suddenly stopped laughing.

We realized we were experiencing grief.  We are in mourning. The exactly 4 months we have spent here have been an incredible gift that we now had to give back. Paris isn’t going to be ours anymore come Friday. We’re all going through our own breakups. The worst kind of breakups, where both people still really love each other but both know that new chapters in their lives need to be written.

But then we remembered that Paris is slutty and would totally take us back when we come running back into it’s arms later in our lives. We inhaled, exhaled, grabbed our bootstraps and picked ourselves up.

(A poster a passed on my way back to Eggs&Co "Everything is a Re-see")

I couldn’t find my French phone and realized I had left it back with my sanity at Eggs & Co. I kissed Ryan goodbye and went back to retrieve it, only to arrive, search around and find it in my back pocket. Oeuf!  “Merci Beaucoup! Au Revoir!” I said on my way out the door. “ MER-ciii Beaucoup mademoiselle! Bon Soiree! MERci!” was the reply. What they were thanking me for? I have no idea.

 (Scenes I passed on my return to Eggs&Co)

At the beginning of this entry I was sitting in Les Jardins Luxembourg. Now I’m sitting in a dingy pub at Rue Moufetard drinking the worst cup of coffee from which I just extracted a plastic film of powered milk from the top of the liquid. Behind me a TV is reporting the French Election results as they roll in. There is 40 minutes until the next president of the Republique is announced. They are showing videos from large groups of people who have gathered waving flags and signs. One of them was supposedly on  Boulevard St. Germain, where I just was 10 minutes ago, but I didn’t see a hint of congregation.

Now after having reread what I’ve wrote, made a few edits to bring the melodrama down a tad, there are 10 minutes until the President is announced. Sarkozy ou Hollande. Suckozy or Hellande. Who really cares. Life goes on with or without these guys. Call me apathetic, call me a millennial, but I can’t be bothered to care who wins.

Hollande just won.

 I just shared a few high-fives with some fellow bar go-ers.Then the excitement of the room made me start shaking.

I think my biggest fear of returning home to NYC is not graduating from college, is not finding a job, but rather is having to explain or summarize my experience in Paris to those who will inevitably ask me, “HOW WAS IT!?”  The gist is hardly sufficient. The whole story, after a time consuming retelling wouldn’t do it justice.

 

(A Victor Hugo quote we saw when my class visited his house)

Maybe I could just say:

Paris was a dream. Not metaphorically. I literally lived in a dream world. Time was arbitrary, responsibilities didn’t exist, beauty, happiness and inspiration  occupied the streets sans restriction, laws, or reason. I’m not trying to be poetic. That was my experience of Paris.

Paris was also an incredible gift. Not metaphorically. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to live and learn here. It’s been a gift to find out that there’s another city in the world that rocks just as hard as NYC but in a completely different way. It creates the possibility that there are other (or many) cities that rock just as hard too.  It was a gift to experience this city with such amazing friends. It was a gift to learn a new language. It was a gift learn how much more I have to learn. I’m not trying to be cliché. That’s actually how I feel.

Or I could tell them, like a real New Yorker, to fuck off and just read my blog.

Okay well now that I’m calling myself a “New Yorker” again I think it’s really time to wrap it up.

So, Paris, because the word has been showing up overwhelmingly frequently in my life recently I guess the only thing I have to say to you is “Merci. Merci Beaucoup. Merci pour tout. Merci Paris.”

(the flag that was waving above me while I waited for a friend to let me into his building last night after I wrote this post)