September in Paris
A dispatch about my move to Paris, originally published on my website in September 2021.
I officially moved to Paris on September 6, 2021. Prior to this year, I had never lived in Paris for more than a luxurious two months spent studying art and music history; a magical experience that to this day vibrantly colors my perception of this city. I think Paris is obviously beautiful -- no need to scratch the surface to perceive its historical wealth and consequent splendor -- but it is also a bit dirty, sometimes sketchy, and, as any big city can be, tiring. So I wonder, without those two months spent "looking," as my art history professor put it, whether I would have the instinct or inclination to peer beyond my groggy eyes or new-shoe blisters and soak it all in. Maybe so. Maybe Paris would have made itself obvious to me.
But I have so relished the act of looking these past few weeks, the only purposeful and beautiful act I've really been able muster (as I settle into a routine, start a job, move house), that I've begun to do it more and more purposefully. First, as always, taking photos; then notes; I tried to start an Instagram account to document my flaneur's wanderings; but I thought I'd take it a step further, and that's how I (and now you!) got here.
I have often thought this month that I never used to soak in New York in this amount of detail. I hope I am now enough in the habit of looking that when, pandemic permitting, I am able to go back, that I will appreciate it anew.
During one of my many strolls (and rushed power-walks) through the Jardin des Tuileries this month, I stumbled across this stand. These little boats transport me straight back to summer afternoons in Central Park, begging my parents to rent a very similar vessel with which to cross a park fountain—the great ocean. You set the boat adrift and watch with great pride (and possessiveness) as it rocks in time with the ripples on the water and bumps into its colleagues; you follow along with a captain’s eagle-eye without any control over where it goes, or ends up.
I feel not unlike one of these little boats, having set myself afloat in a new city, with a new job, and (as of this weekend, as I write this!) a new apartment. Maybe all that's left for me to do is to bob along... Really, I know I have more power at the helm of my life than the children at the Tuileries do over their boats; that I have agency, and if I can scrounge up the energy, I can make manifold and fantastic things happen. But I also feel tired, and thrilled, and overwhelmed, and I feel sort of inspired and comforted by these little boats that go where the breeze takes them.
Upon arrival
September 6-7, 2021
I arrived in Paris on a Monday evening, and started work that Tuesday morning. Feeling like a real working-girl, I bought a croissant and espresso (Paris has made my resolve not to drink coffee very difficult and I have relapsed several times this month). Walking my new commute for the very first time, passing by the Chateau de Versailles, I could barely take it all in, so I snapped a photo. Sometimes things sink in more easily through a single frame.
Soon I was surrounded by morning commuters in Paris Saint-Lazare, a train station named for a saint who rose from the dead. Here we all are, risen from our beds, and the weekend; here I am, risen from confinement, from a year spent away.
How many commuters in Paris stop to take in their surroundings? Will i ever feel blasé about this city? The light is different and changes with the seasons, and there are so many new things to see, even on routes that I take every day.
The only part of my September quotidien that refused to be romanticized was the RER: bane of my existence, and biggest reason why I made it a priority to find an apartment on a Metro line. One morning, I happened upon a train car that was totally empty, in which the morning light and the colors made everything look soft. These photos are the only evidence on an otherwise crowded, unreliable, essentially harrowing train system. I am horribly exaggerating and know that the RER and public transportation in general is great and essential; I cannot wait to be able to appreciate it as such, from a distance.
Incredible, mundane moments
During my first week, as I was attempting to figure out the RER, I took the C line in the wrong direction and had to loop back. N.b. this was pretty stupid of me, but to be fair, on the C line both directions say they go towards Versailles, which is true; but the west-bound train gets there in 30 minutes from Notre Dame, while the east-bound train gets there in 90 minutes, drawing a large loop around the southern banlieu. When I realized I was going in the wrong direction, I got off the train at Pont d'Alma and for some reason walked outside before going back in -- and there to greet me, in the dark and the rain, was the Eiffel Tower. I find it's pretty hard to rage at bad train signage and your own confusion when Paris offers up these incredible mundane moments.
Last Thursday was my colleague Lucy's last day in Paris. We officially met on my first day at work and proceeded to spend all of our time together; she has quickly become one of my favorite people. Because she was taking the train on Friday, we went out for dinner in Paris on Thursday evening,and since we stayed out late, I slept at her place; a combination of the week's fatigue, waking up early that morning, and maybe the glass-and-a-half of wine I'd had the night prior made me wake up with seemingly-unshakable nausea. Stranded, or so it felt, in the center of Paris, with only the Seine or trash cans to yak into if it came to that, I felt lost; it was 7am, and work stared at 10am, and Lucy had just left so I had no one to ask what to do. That is, until I realized my mom (night owl that she is) was probably still up. I called her, to ask what she thought I should do: call in sick and go back to Versailles? Warn my boss that I felt ill and go in anyway, just to see? Tough it out and try to get down a croissant?
As I talked with my mom, me as day broke and her as she settled into bed, I tried to find a bench and wandered towards Notre Dame. It is, after all, a central landmark in Paris; a large square extends in front of it, not with benches per se, but definitely with ledges that do the trick. It was early enough that I had the full stretch between the far edge of the square to the facade of the cathedral all to myself; passers-by, few and far between, rushed to work while I sat talking through my fatigue and queasiness with my mom. When I got up to walk away, either by my mom's comforting words, or the passage of time, or maybe even the sacred power of Notre Dame, my nausea had passed.
Both pictures that I took in these moments aren't particularly good. The light in both situations wasn't optimal for an iPhone camera, which was all I had on me. And I wasn't trying to be artistic; I was trying to capture just a visual glimpse of the perspective and joy that Paris, as a tangible, beautiful place, has offered to me.
How romantic, to get lost or to feel sick in the most beautiful city in the world...
In which I get worked up about French gardens
I usually feel ambivalent about the symmetry of French classical gardens, especially when I’m taking photos. I feel especially aware that my eye is being pretty purposefully led along a predetermined path, whereas I like to have the illusion of choice in line of view (even though I know that any landscaped park or garden will be able to lead your eye towards its best angles; you just won’t necessarily be aware of it).
Yet, sometimes I appreciate the French classical garden’s symmetry: it is minute detail and extravagance packaged into simplicity through geometry. Stand right in the middle and behold the perspective. Snap a picture from there, quick as anything; the jardin knows its angles.
The tension I feel with the symmetry of French classical gardens becomes worth it when it lends itself to photo like these. And really, when you look closely, the symmetry is never perfect: this is my compromise, what I relish. The trees planted evenly along the path, though manicured, can never be exactly the same. The statues that echo each other on these facing walls, they stand slightly differently, or wear different hats. The light at different times of day casts shadows on one side, or another. The clouds in the sky defy any notion of symmetry whatsoever.
I spent the last days of lingering summer in these jardins, time well-spent lounging in the sunshine, savoring a well-earned lunch in a park worthy of kings.
Fall in Paris isn’t as fiery as in New England, nor even as in New York City; but it does get crisper sooner, a truer autumn almost than New York’s Indian summer. And in pockets like these, I focus away from the still-green leaves and onto the crunchy fallen ones, and Paris’s always incredible light, and onto the cool air, and it really does feel like a perfect Fall.
A catalogue of beautiful things
When I studied art history in Paris in 2018, my professor told us that architectural wisdom dictates the embellishments on a building should change at each level, drawing the eye with each variation that inspires you to look further, further up. Indeed, i find myself looking up a lot in Paris.
The installation of this contemporary photo “Le Panoramique de la falaise de Bâmiyân” at the Louvre-Lens predates the recent tragedies in Afghanistan; but the choice to hang it facing millennia of art in the Galerie du Temps feels uncannily prescient.
The first night of Fall
A small crowd gathers over the seine as they realize the full moon, which has ushered in the Fall, has descended between the towers of Notre Dame. Each takes their turn at the edge of the bridge to capture just the right angle (even though no one's smartphone does the sight any justice). They move on peacefully with their night, which is now just that bit more special.
Further up the seine, a large group of amateur musicians collect to play Beyonce by the water. They are applauded by a even larger group of amateur runners; each group is invigorated by the others’ choice to be there.
Nota bene
This is what I have been taking note of lately...
Books.
Ungrateful Refugee, by Dina Nayeri. (Not pictured but very worth a read!)
The Flaneur, by Edmund White.
Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney.
The Seine: The River that Made Paris, by Elaine Sciolino.
The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs, by Elaine Sciolino.
Podcasts.
A new short series on the London Review of Books podcast called "Encounters with Medieval Women." In the first episode on Mary of Egypt, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley evoke a 4th century likely-invented woman who, in today's world, I think would have been all about #vanlife and sex-positivity. It's medieval Fleabag-meets-Pretty-Woman, which though it's not exactly a medieval literature primer, I do think will be accessible (maybe even interesting...) to anyone if they follow along closely.
The Louvre museum's new and ongoing podcast Les Enquetes du Louvre is only available in French -- but if you speak the language, I do think it's worth the listen. Important to note: this is not a true crime podcast! It does not go into the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, for instance, but into the Renaissance practices of card cheating depicted in Le Tricheur à l’as de carreau by George de la Tour. What you can expect: artists, art historians, criminologists, and miscellaneous experts weighing in on the depictions of many kinds of crime in various paintings. If not thrilling accounts of law-breaking, the podcast is at least an original entry point into some of the Louvre's masterpieces.