Histoire d'une dernière semaine à Paris

[NDLR: Dedicated to Alice, the best reader a writer could wish for, on her birthday]

Ok, it's not that as dramatic as all that. So I leave for New York on Friday.  Big deal. I'll be back for 10 days or so in October and back for good on December 28th. Still, for the past few years I've been saying I would spend Fall 2007 in NY, and now here it is, and it feels strange for time to have caught up with my PhD schedule.  Next thing you know I'll be defending my dissertation (roughly scheduled for Fall 2011)!

Crazy how time flies when you're expatriating. Back in November 2004, when Dubya was elected to a second term, not long after I had arrived in Paris to stay for a nine-month research project, I sat in a café and told my friend Kaitlin that I was thinking of staying in Paris for the remainder of his second term.  "I could do my PhD in cotutelle," I told her in a voice my own and not my own, "and just live here for awhile." She shrugged her shoulders and said she thought I was being over-dramatic, but it's my life, etc.

Three years later, I've just about done it: I've been here long enough to hear talk begin about the '08 elections.  But in the intervening time I've managed to construct enough of a life here that I can legitimately say that Paris is my home, and not a place I'm killing time in til I go back to the States.  There are some plans in the works that may take N and I to California at some point, but for the moment, Paris is it.

And here we are.  The apartment is sublet, the ticket is bought, and all that remains is to tie up some loose ends, pack my things, and get on a plane.  I've watched Coquette go back and forth to Chicago a few times now, which helps me feel less like I'm giving something up that I've fought very hard to earn, and more that I'm fulfilling a professional obligation and it isn't really a big deal and the time will fly by.  Plus, it's New York I'm going home to-- it could be worse.

So how does the condemned spend her last week in Paris?

• I velibbed! N and I took the bikes to a quiet area in the 5th and he helped me get my bearings.  Soon I felt confident enough to set out toward Odéon, which necessitated taking Blvd St Michel, Blvd St Germain, and even, at one point, biking around the traffic circle at Luxembourg!  I biked on big roads with cars and buses and scooters and other bikes and pedestrians! It was very gratifying and I feel like much less of a gimp now.  We spent part of the afternoon in the Apple Store, two geeks loving it up among the iMacs.

• Went to the Musée d'Orsay to see the Vollard exhibit (which was excellent).

• Watched "Hors de Prix" and "Shortbus" with N and loved both.

• Have had lunch, dinner, coffee, or drinks with just about every friend I've made here in the last 3 years.

• I made Green Curry Chicken using the fancy spices I bought at the Galeries Lafayette Gourmet shop, but it didn't taste quite right. Needed more cumin or something.

• And then we went somewhere that put my cooking to shame: yes, after hearing half the blogosphere going on about it (Matthew Rose, Clothilde, Meg)  N and I scored a reservation at Hidden Kitchen (thanks to Meg, who proves herself once again to be the superconnector of the blogosphere).  I don't need to add my voice to the gushing choir but I can confirm that all the great things you've heard are true.  Each course was more creative and delicious than the next, culminating in espresso-encrusted porkloin served with roast peach and homemade habanera jam.  Incredible.  And I'm now looking forward to checking out the underground restaurant scene in NYC, which the HK people assure me is thriving!
  

Between now and Friday I'm packing my bags, getting the apartment ready for its new inhabitant, taking some old clothes to Emmaus, hugging N a lot, and basically just wandering around town trying to register it all on my mental hard drive.   [NB: There was a certain synchronicity electrifying the Paris air before I left: while dining at La Coupole on my last night, purely by chance we ran into Julie and a certain suitor of hers about whom I've been hearing for months and have been dying to meet...] There are a few places in Paris that really just get me every time I see them (many of these are in the Marais), and while I'm away I'll think about them from time to time to feel less homesick: rue des Barres; the rue Vielle-du-Temple as it snakes northward, viewed from the rue de Rivoli; the houses on the rue St Antoine viewed as you walk down rue de Turenne; and my own neighborhood, looking up the rue Mouffetard as it slopes gently uphill, the tops of the houses rising up one after the other til the road curves away; the light filtered through the trees in the Luxembourg; the Haussmannian buildings lining the rue Gay Lussac, whose features and curlicues I've memorized from so many trips up and down that street on the 21 or the 27 bus.

So the next time I blog I'll be Stateside. And off we go...

Comments

[nardac]

OH DAMN! The one day I have off in the mad film shoot is exactly the day you are leaving. Well, take care and we'll see each other in 2008. Kisses.

S

[Mazarine]

Oh, I can almost feel that lump in your throat as you're writing about the places you'll miss. Don't worry - they'll be waiting for you when you return. One of the beautiful things about Paris is that it always loves you for coming back. Safe and happy travels!

[Julia]

That's beautiful. Rue des Barres is my little stepping stone as well :-)

I wish you the best time being back in New York. Let us know.

[Gillian]

Lauren,

I am currently in your beautiful apartment, and laughing in disbelief, as I booked my mother and I in for dinner at Hidden Kitchen a month ago, the date set for tomorrow night! Glad to hear sounds so groan worthy.

Mille mercis,
you are the best copine a girl could ask for
x
G

[clementine]

On se voit à New York ? tu veux boire un verre ?

[Cara]

love your blog...you'll be back soon

[Alice]

You know, Lauren, I've been savoring each of your posts bit by bit, like a good book, since I got back from Noirmoutier on Sunday night... And this is the last one I read -- just this afternoon. I so wish I could have seen you one last time before you left, but as you said, you will be back very soon, and I hope we will have a chance to catch up at that point and chat even more. I had such a nice time with you when we had drinks near Odéon back in late July, and I look forward to the next opportunity!

In the time that you've been living here, I feel like you have somehow absorbed so much more of this city than I have, or than many people have for that matter, and I love how you convey your attachment to this amazing place in your writing. Yes, you will feel nostalgic for it over the coming months, but you'll also have that wonderful anticipation and warm feeling of knowing that you will soon be returning, and Paris will then be your home once again.

I'm planning on going to the Vollard exhibit VEEEEERRY soon, and I may aim for a Thursday evening nocturne visit -- I'm hoping I may be able to avoid some of the crowds that way. I absolutely cannot miss it.

I'm SOOOO jealous of your Hidden Kitchen adventure -- I can't say it enough! I wanted to try to score a reservation myself, but I don't know how tough it will be. Maybe I'll try to plan it for a special occasion in the near future and book a few months ahead of time, marking my calendar for the day well in advance! It sounds like a heavenly experience, well worth the wait.

Oh, and it's funny: you wrote this post on my birthday, and although I'm only reading it now, I almost feel like it was an unconscious birthday gift addressed to me -- of course, that's a terribly egotistical thing for me to say, and the furthest thing from the truth as I don't even think I mentioned my birthday, but I personally have decided to declare it so.

[Julie]

I just couldn't bring myself to refuse when he suggested La Coupole, though perhaps he only chose it to be able to make dinner conversation about seeing Sartre there back in its heyday...