My Hot French Summer

Hey, Substack, it’s good to see you. I know it’s been a while, and I know I treat this space like a situationship, a bit too fluid while far more dedicated people here consistently build platforms and show up for their readers. For those who recently subscribed, thank you. I’m thrilled you’re here and while I’m not much of a platform builder, when I do make appearances, I try to make it worthwhile. I’ve long told others my B.A. in English means I’m good at a cocktail party. I show up late, tell a few good stories over something strong (or just plain iced water, depending on what’s expected of me that evening), then disappear early and eventually reappear.

If you’re cool with that, let’s carry on.

Three nights ago, I returned from two weeks in Paris where it was far too hot far too often. You felt it the second you stepped off the plane–this heat tsunami, thick and misplaced. Suddenly all those towers of airy macarons appeared fragile, even the ones in the airport.

This kind of summer intensity doesn’t belong in a city like Paris. Unlike Los Angeles, Paris is not a city of swimming pools. It is many wonderful things, but swimming pools require more searching. I found a few, but it took effort.

Still. I had flown 6,400-plus miles and Paris should never feel like a Yucca Valley parking lot in August. I don’t have air conditioning in my L.A. apartment because I don’t need it. Yes, I live in Southern California and need year-round sunlight to keep the serotonin afloat but oppressive heat is not my jam. I arrived angry at Paris (and at global warming).

This wasn’t Paris’s first heat wave, and the people push through, with respites here and there though it felt like the city was being pushed to the brink. Taxis have air conditioning; half of the metro cars do not. Cafe servers spritzed their faces with hand-held plastic bottles while balancing a tray of cafe au laits (I can’t even imagine the inferno heat in the restaurant kitchens). Workers worked: construction workers, delivery folks, shopkeepers, all out in the heat doing whatever they needed to do. The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower both closed early while I was there. People jumped into the Seine. Ladies fanned themselves with gorgeous fans that like all things in Paris probably ranged from cheap to overpriced but looked exquisite, nonetheless. Fans became the fashionable reply to La Canicule.

I was among these ladies who fanned themselves, and I gotta say, carrying a red fan from L.A.’s Olvera Street all around Paris is now a top highlight of My Hot French Summer. I grabbed this beautifully painted plastic fan last-minute when packing after I saw the rising temperatures on the weather app, figuring why not. I tossed this fan into my bag, and once there, it was forever in my grip like my smartphone.

And honestly? I miss walking around stunning Baroque architecture fanning myself like I’m the Queen of Someplace Very Important. Women who carry fans already know how awesome being a fan carrier is–I am new to this club. All those historic, sepia-toned photos of ladies donned in lace on a hotter-than-hell day holding their fans with all the mystique required of the moment? They knew.

There’s that crack when you snap open your fan, which means you mean business, whether it’s waiting for your drink at a bar or waiting for the metro or waiting for an Uber. There’s the hummingbird-like waving, the generation of some much-needed yin to the explosion of yang, the changing of this uncomfortable, historic La Canicule into something somewhat less intolerable. Fans are momentum.

There is now a difference between waiting for life to happen while fanning yourself with some beautifully printed fan and waiting for life to happen without a fan. I now prefer the former. A woman holding a fan is a woman who knows things and has boundaries. You see this in thousand-year-old murals of Japanese women dancing with their fans or Renaissance-era oil paintings of ladies posing with their fans and I saw this on the 4 Line last week. These women are poised, confident. Carrying a fan is a timeless feminine wisdom.

I fanned myself at cafes, museums, metro stations, and on street corners, like an influencer impatiently holding court. I’m still unclear why fans possess such feminine power (I did not see any bro fans, but men should definitely carry them, too), but I now know I will never travel around Europe (or anywhere above 85 degrees) without one. There was something inexplicably sexy about cracking open and waving my bright red fan that who knows is how old while fading away in 105-degree heat (yes, triple digit heat several days in a row). That fan hadn’t been used or even touched in years, and suddenly it’s one of the five most important items in my possession during my two weeks in Paris. Do I have a photo of myself with this fan? Sadly, no. Next time.

Also, when did women stop being ladies with a sense of flair who carried fans? Why am I not huffing and puffing around the produce aisle at Ralph’s navigating U.S. inflation with my Olvera Street fan at full speed?

While fanning myself, Paris debated the pros and cons of air conditioning. Cold champagne was literally available anywhere and everywhere, but cold water was not, let alone bottled water—sometimes grocery store shelves were empty, though there was always chilled cheese. There are many, many, many things that France does better than the rest of the world—managing heat waves is not one of them.

Years ago, I wrote about my obsession with hotel swimming pools for both the Los Angeles Times and National Geographic Travel, and on this trip, I found two swimming pools during my hot two weeks in broiling Paris (to be fair, there were four days when it was not broiling but otherwise it was broiling). One was underground, very small, and seemed like this secret hotel managers really didn’t want people to know about. It cost 35 Euros to use for one hour, which was the equivalent of a Franprix grocery haul because food in Paris is very high-quality and not expensive.

The other was a neighborhood pool where I didn’t hear any American English because I stayed in a neighborhood where American tourists don’t really go. Swim caps were required at this neighborhood pool, and I had to buy one from the lobby vending machine for about 5 Euros, much like purchasing a Snickers bar or a bag of chips. I accidentally bought a children’s swim cap, and the attendant told me with a devilish grin I had made a good choice.

The neighborhood pool, Piscine Hebert, was first built in 1896 and then had a retractable roof added on, so it has this cool indoor/outdoor vibe. This was a cheap way to chill out that I wish I had learned about earlier in my trip, especially since it was a 13-minute walk from the flat. I wanted to check out the Josephine Baker Pool that’s on the Seine, but that involved a metro ride, and the heat did factor into movements and decisions. Sexy fan or no sexy fan, schlepping through 95-degree heat to get from A to B is work and involves carrying a water bottle. Sometimes, I felt up to the adventure and went out anyway; sometimes, I opened the balcony door, stood for two seconds outside and quickly went back inside.

The heat management strategy that my hosts shared involved two steps: keep the curtains drawn and take cold showers. Unfortunately, the cold water ran hot the entire time I was there. Nothing but champagne is cold in Paris. I’m not even sure if the water in all of the city’s grand water fountains is cold, though I do regret not being that crazy American tourist to publicly give that a go. The Medici Fountain was tempting, but people behave around that fountain because, well, it’s the Medicis, so I stayed the course and sweated it out like everyone else.

Still. Paris never disappoints. Despite feeling hot (literally though sometimes figuratively, too, because of my sexy fan) as well as cranky, Paris showed up for me after a rough start. Baristas warmly greeted me and remembered me after a single visit. There seemed to be a collective sympathy from the French about current American leadership, as if France was saying “we’re there for you whenever you’re finally out of this toxic relationship.” I had a lovely dinner in absolutely lovely St. Germain with Sacha, author of A Good Vintage, whom I first met 25 years ago when we were both scrappy freelance writers in Washington, D.C. I got to stand on stage and read my piece published in the Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 13 at this stunning literary barge venue salon with a view of Notre Dame. I finally got to see the Luxembourg Gardens where Reflection Pond Green might become the trendy hot new Pantone color no one cares about. I asked for ice almost everywhere and rarely received des glaçons. I scored during some consignment shopping in Montmartre. I mastered the Line 4 metro and in true French fashion, it suddenly closed while I was on it. I lit candles at Sacre Coeur. I had a clunky conversation in French with a taxi driver who tolerated my verb choices. I ate this pink, whipped buttercream, gluten-free concoction not once, not twice, but four times. Why? Because France makes gorgeous things including gorgeous desserts and fanning myself while diving into this decadent pink raspberry tarte was better than some dates I have had.

My Hot French Summer was sexy, annoying, frustrating, beautiful, surprising, a bit dehydrating, sometimes noisy, sometimes sticky, and never lacking in intrigue. I’ve barely unpacked the effects these two weeks had and will have on me. This was my fifth time in 33 years to the City of Lights, and on the flight home three days ago for the first time ever, a view of the Eiffel Tower from the plane window. Not once had I ever seen this iconic landmark from the sky. The first time I visited Paris in 1993, I was a 20-year-old college student standing at the base of the Eiffel Tower, looking up—not down—thrilled beyond words. The Eiffel Tower was always huge, a beacon that over the years, has welcomed me as a student, a wife, a mother, a divorcee, and now a writer with award-winning work to share.

As the plane climbed, the Eiffel Tower growing smaller in view, Paris sprawled out below cramped and crowded under wisps of heat, I instantly missed all of it despite the inability to get a glass of iced water. I was eager to walk the beach back home and feel the sand under my toes again, for a more horizontal life of coastline and mountains, and then Paris said to me, “I’ve loved every version of you. Come back soon.”