parenthèse enchantée

I spent the months leading up to my trip to Paris consuming as much Parisian-related media as I could— movies, music, TV, books. As the semester drew to a close, and I graded final manuscripts, French became the white noise of my daily life. A kind of ur tone. French language, French cuisine, French culture, French romance. It was a way to escape the growing chaos of this country, if only briefly. I watched Dix Pour Cent (all four seasons) and a terrible Johnny Depp movie about Jeanne DuBarry. I listened to Perdu by talented young French singer Solann, Non, je ne regrette rein, and of course, Nina Simone’s gut wrenching version of the Jacques Brel ballad Ne me quitte pas that I first heard as a college student. I rolled my eyes a bit at the tragic romance of it all, but I hired a language tutor. I wanted to understand. I was recently divorced. About to turn 50, and single. My only child was off at college. I was lonely, and after a year of post-divorce aimless dating, of loveless encounters and checking off “figuring out my relationship type” on the apps, I entertained the fantasy that in the city of light I might find something real. Even if only for a short time. My French tutor was a stern French Canadian with a tightly pulled bun and bangles on her arms, living on the beach in Central America. She was able to teach me many helpful phrases for eating in restaurants (Quel plat me suggérez-vous?) but the audio connection on our video chats wasn’t great so more often than not I had no idea what she was saying. I continued anyway with the lessons, with a mounting anxiety that I would arrive in Paris an incompetent American tourist, despite my efforts.

I went to Paris to teach. My university has a campus in the Marais, and each year they put out a call for proposals for classes to be taught there. Back in the fall, bereft at my daughter being gone, I took a chance and submitted a proposal. My class would blend creative writing and activism. We would study marginalized French writers, Black women, artists, revolutionaries. We would make our own creative work inspired by the fight for reproductive health care, and equal rights. We might, as Americans, learn something. Somehow, my class was accepted. I would spend 3 weeks in Paris, all expenses paid. A dream.

So naturally, I panicked. Though I’ve been living in Texas more than 20 years, I’m a New Yorker by birth and we like to think of ourselves (however absurdly) as the Europeans of the U.S. I would blend in! I packed my elementary French and my vintage trench coat, along with my wide legged jeans. I minimized my makeup routine as advised by social media influencers. I dusted off my black loafers and bought two pairs of New Balance because I heard online that all the Parisian girls were wearing them. I later bought a striped navy and white sweater. I have to laugh about all this now. I was undeniably American, despite the trench coat.

I don’t know why I put so much pressure on myself, but I am what I am. My best friend likes to call this version of me “anxiety girl.” She was loud and proud.What if I can’t hack it? What if they hate me? What if I fail?

When I arrived in Paris, I found a world entirely different from what my online research had suggested. I found a city difficult, beautiful, and alive. The streets smell of fresh baked bread and urine. Cigarette smoke and jasmine. It was a city full of people who could not give a shit about my French lessons or the style of my jeans.

I got on the apps. I had a lot of time to myself, in the evenings and weekends when my students were off gallivanting, and I was meant to be grading. I tried Bumble. What I call the “normie” app. I didn’t want a one night stand. I wanted something…else. A vacation boyfriend?, one match asked. I thought Bumble might be less trashy than say Hinge or Feeld. It wasn’t. I was propositioned. I was stood up (for the first time!). I was disappointed.

I matched with a 40 year old American who worked in finance and looked like Nick Lachey. He met me and a friend at a cocktail bar/dance club called Le Flirt, and was, indeed, a flirt. He kissed me on the dance floor, and then ignored my texts. As the weeks drew on, I sat at the wine bar across the street from my Airbnb and flirted with the proprietor who eventually told me he was married. It was all pretty depressing to be honest. And then I met F.

We met on Feeld. My time was nearly up. I thought, Why not? We matched and I thought, surely, nothing will come of this. He’s 34. With shoulder length hair and a god damn beautiful body. There were abs. He’s a bot, I thought. Or a flake. Or won’t be interested in me. He messaged.

Ces lunettes te vont à merveille 😇

Hiiiii 👩🏻‍🏫 I responded

Teacher?

The birds in Paris have their very own unique song. They’re a bit noisy and pushy and beautiful. I will never forget the starling that flew into and out of the French doors of my 5th floor apartment on rue Jean Pierre Timbaud. A dream.

He asked “which side of the USA” I was from and I said NYC.

Oh sorry Madame! NYC

I laughed.

It’s amazing how quickly a place totally new, foreign, intimidating, becomes familiar. How different I felt after a few weeks of trying too hard and finally giving up trying all together. I began to love Paris, not only for its beauty but for its ugliness, too.

Have some free time? We would have a drink tomorrow evening if you’d like to

He was in town for just two days to see a match at the French open.

I’m passing by Paris but not living there at the moment

Where do you live

Right now I live nowhere…long story

Oh boy. I didn’t respond. I was planning the final class I was to teach. My students were preparing to submit their manuscripts. I was overwhelmed. Nothing would come of this, I was sure.

So I have no chance to see your glasses in real? (teary eyed emoji) What’s your name btw

We planned to meet for lunch that Friday. It was the hottest day of the year. Parisians were wearing shorts without irony. I walked to the bus stop and was drenched in sweat by the time I arrived, linen pants sticking to my thighs.

My daughter had just arrived for a week and my loneliness had come to an end. I was busy. I was planning a two day trip to Barcelona. I picked a restaurant with a line of tourists waiting outside. The host ignored me. When F walked up, crossed the park in front of the cafe, and approached me, I thought. No way. He was wearing dark sunglasses and his shoulder length hair was pulled back tightly. He was tan, and lean, and tall. Honestly, he took my breath away. Paul Newman in 1964 vibes. Seriously.

F was soft spoken. He asked if I wanted to wait for a table, or go somewhere else. He was nervous. I suggested we get sandwiches and sit in the park. In the end, we picked a cafe near Place des Vosges and ordered salads that we didn’t touch. It was so nice to be with someone, even briefly, who spoke French. I could relax. We talked easily despite his English being somewhat basic and my French being nonexistent. He had a new baby and was separated from his ex girlfriend. He’d been laid off from his corporate finance job around the same time. He was in a transitional space.

Seuille, I said. My students and I learned this word from the docent at the Pompidou museum who gave us a guided tour of the Paris Noir exhibit. For artists, there is a seuille — a threshold that you pass through and are changed on the other side.

In the park, we sat in the sun and sweated and talked about our sexual experimentation, our failures at fidelity, our lives. I went into “cool older sister” mode because I thought there is no way this man is interested in me. We talked and talked and had no expectations.

It got too hot. The park was packed full of sunbathers and little kids playing in the sandbox. Couples, and friends, drinking and eating and laughing. I didn’t hear or see any of them. We moved into the shade, on a patch of grass in front of a fountain that I didn’t notice.

This was just the first afternoon, when he leaned close and touched my necklace, his bottom lip trembling. Who is this? he asked. Jesus, I think? I laughed.

He wanted to kiss me, I realized. Me? He did. Very gently. Very small kiss. I hate PDA, he said.

I met him at a cafe later that night after he watched the tennis match. It was so hot and it took me 45 minutes to get there in the dead stopped traffic in an uber with no air-conditioning. I had just started my period. I was anxious about it. I’d told him earlier over text.

I have bad news, I said.

This is not bad news for me, he replied.

Viva la France.

We held hands and bought mini champagne bottles at a night market and sipped them in his tiny Airbnb with a view of the very top of the Eiffel Tower. His hands were warm and calloused. I was nervous. It’s ok, he said. You can relax. I did.

He went to his family in L. the next day and I went to Barcelona. Maybe we will find each other again, someday, I wrote. He bought a return ticket to Paris to spend my last two days with me.

On day one in Barcelona I cried almost 2 times in public. Seeing the Sagrada Familia, the architectural wonder of Antoni Gaudi, and then being hurried out of a restaurant because they needed the table for a couple. Barcelona is built for two. Paella for two. Reservations for 2 (I literally could not make a dinner reservation for one).

At the same time, three different waiters took pity on me, and did not charge me the full rate I was supposed to pay, for example for paella for two. This kindness touched something in me that F had opened up. I cried. I’d been holding these tears in a long time, maybe since I arrived in Paris, or earlier, since my daughter left for college. Maybe since my divorce. I went to Casa Battlo, another Gaudi marvel, and cried there, too. Gaudi was the rare genius who did not work for fame or money, the tour guide said. He worked for love.

My aloneness made me cry but I was also deeply aware of the unhappy couples. The couples “on a trip that is supposed to be fun!” Barely hiding the tension below the surface. Couples arguing on the sidewalk. Couples bored, tense. I also saw couples in love. Two newly engaged Italians in a tapas bar. In Paris, an elderly couple holding hands outside the radiology clinic, as they crossed Parmentier Boulevard. I had not, lately, allowed myself to think too much about couples. Or myself uncoupled. I believe marriage can be a total shit deal for women. And yet I do, I did, miss love.

He’s waiting on the street outside my Airbnb when I arrive back from Barcelona. It’s the second of two Airbnb’s I had. This one, a tiny house with a blue door surrounded by rose bushes. Off an alleyway crisscrossed in vines and flowers, hidden from the street, in Belleville near Pere Lachaise. I’m deep in a conversation with the taxi driver (in my terrible French) about Paris Noir and Black art in France. When I see him, he’s standing on the street with his backpack. His hair is loose because he knows I like it this way. He wears a white t shirt and black jeans. His cheeks are pink. He looks uneasy. I’d given him the door code but he didn’t want to let himself in. This is your place! he said.

Inside, we fall into each other. In minutes, clothes are off, hair is tangled. We’re laughing. I love your face, he says. Through the wide open sky light we can hear the birds singing their asses off, despite it being dusk.

Later, in a wine bar we drink a bottle called ni Ange ni Demon (translation; neither angel nor demon), and he says he wants to visit the US, maybe in the summer.

I stutter. Um, maybe? How would I explain this?

The next morning: I do not want you to have any regrets. What do you want to do before you go back to the U.S.?

Picnic in the park

Canal Saint Martin, I say.

Jazz club.

We pass fromagerie after fromagerie on the way to Butte Chaumont. He says that’s all us French eat, you know, cheese every hour. We laugh.

In the park we eat sandwiches despite the drizzling rain and talk about our fathers.

I pick a tiny flower, it looks like a daisy but two centimeters wide.

Je t’aime un peu! he says. I look confused.

He explains that this flower is used to play a game called “Je t’aime un peu,” in which you pull petal after petal to determine if your crush feels the same way you do. Sort of like our “he loves me, he loves me not,” but less brutal. The categories are: je t’aime (I love you), un peu (a little), beaucoup ( a lot), passionnemente (passionately), a la folie (madly), pas de toute (not at all).

We walk past a waterfall and down a path to a park bench. We sit. He begins to pick the petals. I roll my eyes, teasing him. Your friends will think“this French guy!” I say, yes, they will. A family of ducks glide across the pond. A half dozen baby ducks kicking their little legs.

The flower has many petals so it takes a few minutes. He lands on “un peu” and we both erupt in laughter.

I pick another flower. If we get the same— he says. Ha ha ha.

I have to take off my glasses to see the petals. I’m more than a decade (like a lot more) older than him. I pick off the petals. I land on “un peu”. I kick my legs like a toddler. More laughter. Streams of children in waders and rain coats file past us with their kindergarten teacher. Families are picnicking in the damp grass. Someone plays a trumpet, with a hat out for tips. It’s parenthèse enchantée, he says. Do you have this in English?

A short list of what happened next:

We arrive on the metro at Place de la Concorde and he says oh hello I’m home merci!

We watch Coco Gauff play Lois Boisson on a giant screen, sitting on bleachers in the pouring rain, huddled under a souvenir umbrella he bought for 50 euro.

We watch a Brazilian envoy travel through the streets to a party at the British consulate

A jazz band in a club called Le Melville that reminded me of my old band

When his alarm woke us up on the last morning, he had to catch a train at 6:45 am to take his infant daughter to her pediatrician appointment, I said ne me quitte pas

He said you know that song

It’s my favorite

I was singing it before I met him

The next day I walked past:

L’Académie du climat (where I saw a band play a few weeks earlier, with a date who spoke no English but was kind)

3 couples in wedding clothes

a vintage convertible with two just married, driving down rue de Rivoli, she was young, he was not

I cried and cried. I send him a stern text meant to be a kind of goodbye telling him to be careful. Make good choices. Don’t blow up your life. Teacher-mode. You have all my little love. I write. Je t’aime un peu. Always.

I’m sorry for being so serious but this is me being honest.

Baby I love you to be honest whatever you need to tell me, he writes

Something brief, but real. An enchanted parenthesis.

On my last night in Paris, I am packing up my life of the last month, closing out the AirBnb. I take out the trash. I hear singing coming from an apartment across the alley. I stop by the garbage bins and listen. A group of women, maybe ten, singing, “non, je ne regrette rien”. Translation: No, I regret nothing. You’ll never believe this, I write.