I’m leaving Paris in a couple weeks. And though I’ve been neglecting this blog, I have too much to say to keep quiet right now. Paris and I have had a complicated relationship since the beginning. I first came here in high school for a brief trip and the sheer beauty of it hit me like a brick wall. There was nothing terribly remarkable about what we did. Actually, the whole visit was a blur of mediocre meals, exhaustive walking, tours I didn’t (care to) understand and bed bugs. Anyone who knows the type of traveler I am knows that I would normally hate that. But the thing is, I didn’t. I fell in love.
When I came back the next year to study abroad, I really claimed Paris as mine. This is when I made memories and finally explored the city— got to know it intimately. But it was a bubble. At that point, I didn’t really understand Paris. To me, it was a land of massages at Le Meurice and Michelin star dinners. An incredible trip no doubt, but in terms of our relationship, an absolute honeymoon period. Every time I came here since then, for vacation or studying, it disappointed me. I was finally exposed to Paris’s realities, which can be pret-ty harsh. As someone who lives in NYC full-time, I’d say even tougher than that supposed paragon of steel. You see, unless you know how to get to them, Parisians just don’t give a shit. This place can be unforgiving if you don’t bend with it.
This time though, I was forgiving. I stopped asking Paris to be something it’s not. I’ve enjoyed the magic when it happens, but I don’t force it when it doesn’t. Believe me, there is plenty of magic— Pierre Hermé white truffle macarons, Sunday market, the YSL exhibit, boeuf bourguignon at Josephine, dancing on tables at Chez Georges, my weekend walks along the Seine. But most of all, that feeling I get when I come home from a weekend of traveling, and I see my street for the first time. That’s something I can’t really explain. I don’t know if I have ever been that happy or where that feeling comes from.
The thought of leaving Paris makes me heartsick. But not afraid. Because in my growing acceptance of this fucked up place, and my personal growth in learning to deal with its challenges, I know that not only will I always be welcomed back, but that I will be bringing a large part of it with me.
Joan Didion claimed that, “A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image." I’ve always enjoyed that quote, but after this semester, I would have to disagree with it. As with any true love, love of a place can’t be about possession. When I am here in the future (and I know I will be), I want Paris to be Paris. That Paris. Not the Paris I’m dreaming of, or the Paris I remember best. I know the moments when I feel that love the strongest will always catch me by surprise. And they will be all the more beautiful for it.
