weeks five + six
I’m behind on everything, and I’m notorious for being late when writing is due. (But really, who is this writing for but myself?) I’m still working full time, and now living in a new apartment in London. I’m listening to the English rain and the English speak while I write this painfully short post — hopefully the photos will tell their own story, and there are a lot. I’m going to be brief and say my time in Paris was such a true delight, such a privilege, such an odd and memorable visit. I will carry it with me forever.
My life, like my writing, is jumpy and hard to track during the last weeks in the city of light. The pictures in my camera roll are fingerprints of the day, and they help me document each uniquely. From them, I remember we attempt socialization and share wine with strangers and coworkers, who sing together and tell stories of their engagements. I remember the mouse I saw run the length of a bookshelf in a new hotel where I was working. I remember lamenting that I cannot attend Alex’s fundraiser. I remember walking home from some afternoon stroll on one of my last days, snagging a set of colored disks from a children’s science set left atop a garbage can, and occasionally shooting through them for colored effects and experimentation. I remember using an old Diana camera and an entirely too expensive process to develop six precious photos on film.
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Jeremy turns 29 while we relish our last moments of Paris, while we keep telling each other stories of our lives — what we ate as kids and who we admired in high school and why — and while we watch a 0-0 women’s world cup game. I hope to delight him with a dinner at Chateaubriand, whose consommé is subtle and savory and my new favorite flavor, whose chef is one I know Jeremy admires. We drunkenly make memes about ourselves and send them to our closest friends. We can’t give the bartender the postcard we wrote Isaac, detailing the horrible cocktails he served us. Before dinner, we bathe in light and sound at L'Atelier des Lumières. On our last night, we find ourselves in a basement cocktail club whose influence no doubt contributes to our laughter when we get caught in a thunderstorm on our 3 a.m. walk home (the ordeal is less funny the next morning at 7 a.m. when I wake up drunk, my jacket and loafers still soaked, to finish packing and cleaning before I catch my train to London.)
Each day I attempt to dissolve the invisible barriers in my communication with myself. I take mindfulness very seriously. I try to cherish, cultivate, and ripen myself as a person, partner, friend. It may seem easy to the more confident among you, but for me, it’s an accomplishment.
A few notes from my phone too: I dreamed there was a lime scooter in the river and I had to pull it out in the rain. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, but with olive trees. A woman gluing herself against my back to sneak through the turnstyle, a gentle “merci beaucoup” before she is gone. The whole of the Sein itself feeling like a cool drink of water when the breeze blows. Being lured into coat check only to be charged €8 before we’re allowed into the bar. More corgis with tails.
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I want to take a quick sidetrack here to talk about pain. How do you know how your own face looks when you go through a new or surprising experience? If you do know, how did you find out? Did you act it in a mirror, or do you imagine it? If so, how do you know that’s truly what you look like while the thing is happening? Would an acted version of your face ever be similar enough to the real thing that someone observing you would say it’s the same as when the feeling is genuine and unpredictable?
So, then, how does my face look when I knock my fingers against a glass window, mistakenly reaching for a napkin through an invisible barrier while I’m crying at my new jaw specialists office? How do I laugh at myself through this and fumble to obtain the paper comfort that I need to dry my face with? Could I replicate this laughter to myself, the emotion tied to embarrassment tied to humility tied to gratitude?
Every minute of every day, and especially excruciating every months or so, my jaw cramps and locks in an impossible contraction that leaves this writer listless and hopeless with pain and the insurmountable challenge of self-advocacy. Yes, okay, relax. Yes, practice anxiety reduction. Yes, wear a mouth guard. Yes, do push-ups and see a chiropractor and tell your dentist. *eyeroll emoji* I spend hours researching dental tourism, veneers, braces, jaw surgery, splints, hot compress, ice, botox, muscle relaxers.
A few times in life, I’ve encountered a person who thins the space between the reality that I subscribe to and other, more mystic realities. I believe Dr. S—— may actually be a mind-reader, an elf, a fae-born changeling, a naturally-talented healer whose office is its own ring of flowers or mushrooms. Never so intentionally has my face and neck been touched, never with such interest have my teeth and bones been examined. She asks me a million gentle questions, her accent thick somewhere between native Romanian, years of French, and a bit of Spanish when the word fits best. At one point, I actually think she might kiss my head and I think I see her eyes glistening with tears for me. She reports way too many things that I never told her or mentioned, or maybe she’s an excellent con. She calls my mouth a map. She listens, she holds Jeremy’s hands with both of hers, and tells him it’s going to be okay. She strokes my forehead and smooths my hair and tells me I don’t deserve this. For the nearly three-hour consultation, she’s entirely focused on my well-being.
When I leave, she tells me she’s given me a gift and I am to think about it. On the way home, it’s raining when I stop at the farmers market and buy two chicken slouvaki in a haze similar to that of a really good workout, a really vivid therapy session, a really tough massage, really hot yoga. I don’t hear from her for weeks, until I’m nearly leaving Paris anyway. Then, she quotes me $2,000 for a split to live between my teeth. I feel lost and hopeless and pretty confused often when it comes to this situation. I don’t have much to say about it other than that. The investment is too great and I reluctantly turn away from a possible solution. Someday, I tell myself, I’ll be more confident in the treatment, and I’ll heal.
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All my days at the base of the Eiffel Tower and I still got emotional every time I saw it, by the way.
