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Paris Deux: A Moveable Feast

"That was the end of the first part of Paris. Paris was never to be the same again although it was always Paris and you changed as it changed."-Ernest Hemingway A Moveable Feast

Somehow in the months intervening between my visit in August and my planned visit in January, I became terrified of going back to Paris. It was inexplicable to my friends. "But you already went. How can you be scared of going again?" It was the same incredulousness my father expressed when I suddenly become needle phobic at 8. "I don't understand." He would say as I stood shaking and sobbing after an injection "You used to be fine." It is a singular talent I have to suddenly freak out about seemingly inconsequental things and suddenly the idea of Paris alone again seemed terrifying.

But then came my thirty birthday without even a kiss, and new year's eve. I had settled into the life of a thirty year old english prof. watching movies on the couch with my cat. Two of my friends Nutreena, a nutritionist who lived in Paris years ago, and my gay husband both insisted I go. And finally I bought tickets and reserved a hotel. Four nights in Paris. Returning the day before classes.

The night before I leave, I pack. I take out the little green bag that once held all I had in Paris for ten days. "How the fuck did I ever pull that off?" Even though I know it happened, even though I wrote about it, I have a moment of wonder.It doesn't seem possible, although I know it did indeed happen. I pack my guides and maps and dictionaries into a backpack.

The day of my departure my gay husband invites me out for a drink. He knows I'm nervous and so he wants to liquor me up for the flight. I have to vodkas on the rocks ( grey goose, of course) and go home tipsy. I sleep in the car ride into the airport. I check in and make it through all the checks without managing to lose my luggage. I sit in the waiting area contemplating the three hour wait until my plane takes off.

Alcoholics call it a "A Moment of Clarity", when suddenly you realize exactly what is going on. I had one right before surgery once. I lay on the gurney and thought "I am naked in front of a group of strangers...who have knives." I sit in the airport terminal and think, "I am flying to another country to see a man who may not even remember me." Oh sure, my friends thought it was so romantic. Just showing up in Paris like that, a quick phone call, "Oh darling, I'm in Paris!" But in the terminal I think, "This could possibly be the stupidest thing I've ever done." Oh sure, it is romantic, but so was Madame Bovary and I would really like to avoid dying from a mouthful of arsenic at thirty if it is at all possible.

And it's not romantic, it's pathetic. I'm flying across the fucking ocean for what? For a booty call? (Qu'est que les mots en francais pour "booty call"?) Not even perhaps. I am flying across the ocean to be disappointed in a foreign country? To be ignored by men in two countries now instead of just the one? How sad. How utterly sad I have come to this.

But I can't back out now. I am in the fucking terminal. My friends, my friends, are depending on me. They are envying me. They are hoping for me. I have to go.

Bad Bunni posted at 1/19/2005 03:52:00 PM |

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