Paris, je t'aime

Returning to a familiar place, which through the passing of time has become less familiar, always results in the strangest mix of emotions. Returning to Paris was like coming back to the house you grew up in. You realize it is different, yet it is also the same. Everything seems smaller than you thought it was. You realize it no longer belongs to you, but in a sense, it always will.

I first truly experienced Paris when I was fifteen. I wanted to speak French, read French, eat French, be French so badly that I convinced my parents to send me to boarding school in France for a year. It was the worst and the best year of my life.

My father, the self-proclaimed King of Paris, took me there at the beginning of the school year. I felt excited and nervous as we discovered the machinery of the city, treading the sidewalks of Paris until our shoes were in rags. He dropped me off at boarding school a few days later and that's when the panic began. I was homesick, lonely, anguished... hysterical really. I didn't speak the language and I didn't know anybody. I was depressed and could not sleep. All I wanted was to come home.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that my first six months in France were a haze of despair. I thought I was going mad: I had visions of killing myself, of taking my clothes off in the middle of the street, of dying without anybody even knowing about it. At the same time, I was ashamed of feeling so unstable and wanted desperately to feel normal, comfortable, at least human again. At my lowest point, I let some guy from school that I didn't even know well, or like, take me to his house. I was so desperate for a human connection that I laid in his bed, lifeless, as I let him kiss me and touch me until he finally grew weary and gave up. I spent many days in Paris, like a ghost, asking the city to soothe me in some way.

I came home for Christmas and begged my parents not to make me go back to France. Of course, they reminded me that I had to finish what I had started and promptly put me on the plane back. The following six months were another story altogether. I learned the language, I made an effort to make friends, and, best of all, I conquered Paris. I remember the rush of finally understanding my surroundings. I was exhilarated when waiters and shopkeepers, and then eventually my new friends and professors, didn't notice my accent. Paris blossomed before me and offered all the joy it had been withholding. I felt I was tasting the bread, the wine, the cheese, the pastries, for the very first time. I travelled, I fell in love again, I drank good wines and strong coffee, I smoked weed for the first time. I read the works of Hugo and Balzac and Maupassant and De Beauvoir and Sartre, in French, like I had always dreamed of. Paris became a wonderful tempest of sunlight, culture and love. And, boy, was I thankful. Before I left, I cried and silently thanked Paris for all it had given me, good and bad. I got on the plane back home and I knew nothing would ever be the same.

The first time I returned to Paris after my year there was again in the company of the King of Paris, in September 2001. We were only there for a few days, but I was drunk with excitement. I let the vapors of the Seine fill my lungs and I felt like I was home again. Dad and I were sitting at a cafe in Montmartre, enjoying the afternoon, when the chef, who was listening to the radio inside, came out screaming to tell us that there had been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The attack on the Twin Towers has become one of those "where were you when it happened?"moments for everybody, and of course, I happened to be in Paris. My Paris, as intense as always.

After nearly eight years, I returned to Paris again last week, bringing my eternal sidekick (and husband) A. It was A's first visit to Paris, so I felt overwhelming pressure to show him everything, and to sow a seed of love for Paris that we could share. I was overzealous in my plans, so we walked endlessly under the bright sunlight, in my attempt to show him the true, the powerful, the beautiful Paris. Of course, showing a person in four days what one discovered and savored in years is a failed enterprise from the start. I am sure A loved Paris for its beauty and grandeur, yet I was inevitably frustrated in my desire to show him the little corners known only to true Parisians... the students, the intellectuals, the lovers of life. We ate like there was no tomorrow and literally destroyed our feet covering large areas of the city and taking in all the sites, but I remained inevitably unsatisfied.

I was reminded of the wonderful times I had there but I also somehow felt a little old. It was as though the crooked workings of my tortured teenage soul had given the city a certain boldness I could no longer fully experience. Like the ups and downs of my sensory roller-coaster had become less sharp with age. Paris was still a wonder, yet it was a bit more blurry than I remembered. There were more tourists, more people, less color.

At times, I felt sad. I felt like I was a little girl of fifteen again, arriving from boarding school to spend the weekend in Paris, in my uniform and duffel bag, devastatingly vulnerable and alone. I even went to the building where I used to stay during those first few weekends, and I felt scared and fragile all over again. It's good to be reminded that, as much as we grow, we are not immune from pain... from life. Strangely enough, there were times where I no longer felt like a native. My French flowed ever-so-slightly slower from my tired tongue and I no longer remembered the name of every street, every monument and every park. I also really, really missed my Dad... the one-and-only, the original King of Paris, who had introduced me to all the wonder in the first place.

And yet, there were moments of pure magic… the kind of magic that only exists in Paris. Exploring the streets and bridges at night, with the person who has become my family, had a new charm of its own. I came to Paris as a grown-up for the first time, and therefore had to get to know Paris again, as a grown-up. Paris had changed, and so had I, so it took us a couple of days to feel comfortable with each other again. Paris is no longer the extreme whirlwind of emotion that I knew, but it remains a refuge, a bastion of inspiration, a dwelling of my heart. It is an old and much-loved family member that challenges me in new and ever-changing ways. J’aime Paris. Et Paris, m’aime aussi.