Nous Sommes

The morning we arrived, we staggered through CDG and into a taxi, and dropped our bags at our hotel, at the foot of Montparnasse in the 14th Arrondissement. A market was setting up right across the way, like the once-a-week farmers’ markets in most U.S. cities, but which you can find across Paris on any given day. Sacks of oysters clattered on the ground; heads of green and purple endives looked like they were arranged for a photo shoot; and the cheeses…! Nate sighs every time he sees a wheel of aged Mimolette; I gape at the gooey tubs of Gorgonzola. We both agree that there is nothing better than a baguette spread with creamy Brillat-Savarin consumed with a bottle of champagne on a park bench on a random Tuesday in May. (In Paris).

I wanted to head straight for les Jardins du Luxembourg, a 15-minute walk. We picked up some strawberries and a cup of freshly-squeezed orange juice on our way by a little greengrocer’s and then sat on a bench in the gardens listening to birdsong, in some mild shock at the abruptness of the transition from the wet heat of Central Africa to the cool sunshine of a spring morning in Paris. A few joggers went by, but otherwise we were alone.

We had several hours to fill before we could check in, shower, and fall into bed. I am gradually accepting that my capacity for simply pushing through whatever is significantly less than it was; my compulsion to see and do as much as possible wherever I am is no longer overriding my body’s need for a slightly slower pace, for actual rest. The nearly nine miles we walked that day were sprinkled with long sits on benches like one in the park near Shakespeare and Co. We watched a tour guide running around like she’d lost her group, her yellow sign held high on a stick. Women posing with Notre Dame behind them barked orders at their husbands through flashing teeth while they kicked up one heel, arms flung wide. Dogs checked the day’s news and greeted each other, sometimes with less cordiality than one might hope. There seem to be many dachshunds in Paris.

We ate lunch at a restaurant with a terrace on the Seine, on the Pont de la Tournelle, the bridge guarded by a spooky statue of St. Genevieve. It was the rare meal where we didn’t share every bite because Nate will not eat tartare de bœuf and I kind of can’t believe I crave it the way I do, but I might never eat it again because this one was so good: each bite, properly assembled (creamy cold meat with raw egg mixed in, hot, salty-crisp fries, lightly-dressed mesclun), was a miracle of textures and flavor.

I also might never eat it again because, predictably now, I reluctantly admit, my body couldn’t tolerate it. I’ll spare you the details. But that didn’t stop me from fully enjoying a trout carpaccio with potato foam and cucumber coulis a few days later at the restaurant at the Grand Palais, after we saw the Matisse exhibit.

That night, we shared a kebab from a shop around the corner from our hotel. It came with fries piled with slivers of raw red onion, olives, and parsley, and was the best 8€ we might ever spend. The shop was tiny, crowded, brightly lit, and after we paid, one of the guys poured us little paper cups of strong, sweet mint tea to take with us as we walked on down the street.

The need in Paris, the people lying in doorways and sitting on cold stone in the rain, hands turned up or an empty cup on the ground, is jarring in its loneliness, its singularity among the streams of people flowing by with places to go and plenty to eat. In Libreville, there are more people visibly struggling than not, even if technically, the poverty level is “just” at 39.4%, and the gap between the ridiculously wealthy and everyone else is so vast it’s almost comical except it’s gross…just like it is in the U.S. In Gabon, the want is so great that there’s some kind of normalcy about it, whereas in Paris and elsewhere in the “West” we prefer our poverty hidden away, out of sight; when we are confronted with it, we avert our eyes, turn away, close and lock our doors.

We had big plans for this Paris visit, but, realizing we needed more time to relax, we cancelled things left and right, like dinner reservations made months in advance and a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower, because after fighting the crowds at Monet’s house and gardens in Giverny (the gardens are breathtaking, honestly) I just wanted to run off screaming into the woods. We lost money on the Tour Eiffel visit because I didn’t check the cancellation policy first, but I think I would have made the same choice anyway because whatever pleasure may have come from seeing that particular architectural wonder up close would have been ruined by the proximity to the loud, sweaty, pushy swaths of humanity we would have had to contend with.

We had a glass of champagne and soup à l'oignon in the Latin Quarter one rainy afternoon after visiting the Pantheon. Nearby sat an older couple, their suitcases conspicuously covered in Canadian flags, waiting out the day until they could check into their hotel, next door. They didn’t want to leave their bags even though the hotel said they could, because they were just going to be left in the lobby, “not secured or anything!” the man said, so they had parked themselves at the restaurant for the afternoon, drinking wine and looking at their phones.

We got to chatting a bit; they said they’d been in London and then were heading to Edinburgh for a wedding. When I asked where in Canada they were from, they said, quickly, “Saskatchewan.” I brightened: “Oh! My parents lived in North Dakota for years!” Their faces froze. “How far up are you?” I continued. “I grew up in Alaska…” I chattered on for a second at the wife while Nate was talking with the husband about something or other but then the conversation seemed to be ending and we turned back to our soup. I realized that there wasn’t a trace of a Canadian accent in any of their speech, and that the luggage tags were a little too…conspicuous? Large? Plentiful?

We left and three steps out the door I muttered to Nate, “yeah, they’re not Canadian.” He immediately starting singing “Faux Canada, (not) my home and native land…” and I laughed so hard I tripped on the cobblestones in front of the Sorbonne.

We loved the neighborhood our hotel was in because it was filled with cafés and shops and therefore people, but there didn’t seem to be any tourists. There was the market literally right outside our hotel and there was a “Fete de Bretagne” one night, complete with bagpipers and drummers marching through the streets, bands playing and group dancing in big circles to the live music. There are deep Celtic roots in Brittany and they were on display.

My favorite thing about Paris, maybe oddly, given my allergy to crowds, is that people are out all the time, in parks, chatting with friends in cafes, at concerts, marches, events. People walk efficiently, but they’re not rushing, which feels to me like a metaphor for the way they live: they are very present. The point of a glass of wine is not to anesthetize one’s self to the world’s ills, but to enjoy the wine and enjoy the company and enjoy the moment…and the longer you stretch that glass out (and maybe one after it), the more moments there are to enjoy.

It took us a couple of days to decompress, but we did, sleeping deeply despite the early-morning revelry outside our windows as the bars closed. The understanding that we didn’t have to be anywhere we didn’t want to be slowly seeped into our muscles, unwinding and unknotting them. We walked everywhere and modeled the Parisians, moving efficiently, not rushing. We lingered over our café crème and croissants in the morning. We planned our days and changed those plans if we wanted to.

As we wound our way through some side streets in the 14th one morning, the air fresh from overnight rain, an old man stopped us and asked for directions. Nate replied, “Je suis désolé, monsieur. Nous somme des touristes.”

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