You Can't Go Home

I woke up this morning to a grey Paris sky and weak droplets tapping intermittently against the window panes- an apropos beginning to my last day in Paris. I wish that I could stay in bed for a while and relish the melancholy just a bit, but my to-do list is long and time is short and so I can only take a moment to reflect on the past 8 months. My last days have been good, savoring the pleasures of french life: eating ice cream on the banks of the Seine, sitting at a sidewalk café with a friend and chatting for a couple of hours, fruit tartes, nutella crepes in the Latin quarter, shopping, wandering, the rumble of the metro, warm sunshine and chilled rain, poodles, street musicians, delicious food, and of course, good friends. I have been terribly remis in not keeping up with my blog the last couple of months, but in my defense I haven’t been sitting still for long enough to write one. So to sum up briefly what’s been going on since I wrote at the end of February: Portugal with Bethany and Andrea, then on to Spain with Andrea, back to Paris for a few days of cleaning and life before my mom flew in at which point we planned a two week journey through Austria, Czech Republic, Germany , and Switzerland, came back to Paris for a few hectic days and then went to Ireland for the better part of a week, back to Paris for a couple more, and then she flew home and I started packing yet again, this time for the week-long Habitat for Humanity trip to Romania. We got back late Saturday night, leaving me just 3 full days in Paris before my flight home.

In some ways it seems so long ago, the day I arrived alone here and spent the first evening eating peanut butter crackers and picking out words on the french news in a tiny hotel room in the 13th. But really the months have flown by. To try to capture the essence of 8 months in Paris, to sum it up in a few sentences, aside from being nearly impossible, really wouldn’t be fair to this place. But in preparation for the dreaded question I know I will be asked 8 thousand times in the next month, I will attempt to formulate a concise answer to “How was Paris?” and “What was the best part?”.

Paris is, was....well, Paris. Which is what I’ve told Parisians this past week when they’ve asked if I’ve enjoyed my stay. “But of course, it’s Paris.” Because that’s all the explanation you really need to give when someone knows this place. I am sitting here trying to put into words what I want to say about Paris, about this experience, but I keep deleting everything I write because it doesn’t convey what I want it to. It may take time and a bit of distance before I can write concisely, before I can find the words. I understand now why the term je ne sais quoi came into usage. Paris is, quite simply, life done well. It’s monuments, history, architecture, food, culture, music, shopping, and of course, love, mixed in with the trappings of everyday life, with the grocery store and laundromat and post office and infurriating french ministries of bureaucracy. It is continuously changing and always the same. It’s a place where you have to leave an hour early for your 8am class because there is a transit strike and you have to walk across the entire city through the frigid drizzle in the dark, but where, on said journey you get a view of every major monument in Paris glowing golden in the darkness, and smell the fresh bread and pastries on every corner, and when you walk through the courtyard of the Louvre, it is silent and empty (the tourists are still in their beds) and you hear the tapping of your boots against the stones until you emerge on the otherside, and while crossing a bridge over the Seine, the sun begins to dye the eastern sky pink and orange behind the towers of Notre Dame. It’s where cat’s ride the metro wide-eyed in carriers, and dogs are pushed through the grocery store in a shopping cart, and a man walks his ferret on the grass by the Eiffel Tower, and each bum has an animal of some sort: rolly-polly puppies or a cat with a more extensive wardrobe than my own (and where the pets are treated better and recieve more sympathy than the indigent person). Where the woman cleaning the apartment building smiles and apologizes for being in your way and rescues your keys when you leave them in the lock of your mailbox, and the man from the fourth floor always says a formally polite “Bonsoir Mademoiselle” when he passes you on the staircase, and people invite everyone in the building to stop by for a drink when they throw a party even if they don’t know you. I’ve certainly seen the legendary Parisian rudeness for which the people are notorious, but for me, having lived there, beyond the tourist sites, the number of times I’ve seen people help a stranger carry a stroller or suitcase down a flight of stairs without being asked, or stop and pull out their Paris Practique map (everyone carries one even if you’ve lived in the city for years) in order to help someone who is lost, or place a lost glove on a ledge for the owner to find, well to me, those random acts of kindness at least balance, if not counteract the occassional snootiness of some. In any case, I could go on and on about Paris for ages, but the last day is waiting to be enjoyed, authentic Paris drizzle and all.

Tomorrow I will no longer live in Paris. It is a weird feeling, but I guess moving, if that’s what you can call this, is always strange, one day you live in a certain place with a certain life and a certain routine, and the next you don’t. At least in this case I’m not moving off to something unfamiliar. I’m going back home. In a sense anyway. Because even as I write that, I am reminded of the saying which I think I will probably find quite true- you can’t go home again. You can return to the place, to the family and friends, but it will not be the same as when you left. I’ve tried to prepare myself for the changes that I know have occurred- friends have gotten married, have moved away, people have changed jobs, and life has generally continued in my absence. But even beyond those changes I can prepare myself for there will be a thousand little ones: new buildings, old stores closing, roads under construction, and things you think could never change will have done just that. I remember coming home the last time and getting in my car only to discover that 2 of my 6 preset radio stations had gone off the air. I don’t love change, but I guess it stands to reason that home cannot be the same as when you left because you are not the same as when you left. Even if time has stood still, you would find the place different. Because going away, travelling, learning a different way of life, it changes your perspective if ever so slightly. It’s like Audrey Hepburn says in Sabrina, “Paris isn’t for changing planes, it’s for changing your outlook! It’s for throwing open a window and letting in la vie en rose.” And so I am going home, maybe not to the same home I left, but home none-the-less. A concept that, fittingly enough, cannot be accurately explained in French because they don’t have a word for it. But that is tomorrow, and for today at least, I am still a Parisian, so bring on la vie en rose...one last time.