Mon Paris, mon coeur,

 

Here I am again. With you. Broken. Alive.

 

I was going to start this one with something like this:

 

 

“People say no great things can be repeated, and my last stay in Paris (Autumn 2016) was great – I lived in Saint Michel (5^th arrondissement), a few steps away from the legendary jazz and funk club Caveau des Oubliettes where I met and hung out with so many talented people; I attended Course de Civilisation Française de La Sorbonne and I passed niveau B1.1 with nearly 80 per cent result; I had the best neighbour, who was also a musician whom with I started working together writing songs. No great things can be repeated, but you can create something new, something different, as great and as magical.”

but I lost my optimism in one puff. It’s like the wind handed to me a metaphorical roll of bad joint to celebrate my first job interview in Paris today; I took a drag and pouf! My lung exploded. My heart collapsed. The whole river of my life ran down on my face and I couldn’t control it. I was on the metro and had no tissue with me, and I couldn’t even be bothered to wipe my ever-flooding face. As filmic as it may sound, it really happened. My eyes were the oceans and tsunami covered my vision. It was a disaster. I wasn’t even thinking about things, it just happened.

 

I can’t really remember when was the last time I was like this – I haven’t even got the chance to weep over my mother’s death, I was probably like this many years ago when I decided to kill a life inside me because my then boyfriend threatened to kill himself if I kept it. I did it with a strange maturity and forgiveness. I wasn’t angry. I was on my own. He came by to apologise a week after I did it and I still put a brave appearance. I said there was nothing to forgive and I told him he could leave me, unbelievably calmly. A few minutes after he left I decided to go out to pick up groceries and for some fresh air, and hell just broke lose the moment I faced people outside. It was probably heaven, I broke my heaven by sacrificing something dear to my heart to rescue someone’s life, or ego – whichever is real.

 

I left my friends after celebration beers (Hendrick’s and tonic for me) in Bastille. The moment I escaped their sight I was shards of a glass, I was all over the metro station, stomped by the Parisians’ shoes. It was probably something they said, it was probably something I heard, but I suddenly heard every crushing thing I have ever heard in my entire life; I saw all the scenes, through my childhood up until my last time in Paris. I didn’t know I was still this broken. I thought time healed. I thought age made you forget. I thought second time would be easier.

 

I planned on going back straight home, which is my ex-neighbour’s new flat in Les Lilas for the next week while he’s on holiday in Austria with his girlfriend before I moved to my own in Montmartre, but my soul was starving and it craved some kind of comfort food. I gathered myself together and dragged it to Montparnasse, to a restaurant I’ve known so well. Everybody greeted, hugged and kissed me with joy and admiration. For a moment I felt at home, secure, loved. It was an illusion. I came here this time not knowing what to do and I need to find a real job (being a translator is not a real job, it just pays), but to them, and probably to you, I would always be this stylish British writer living the dream in Paris. I probably am.

 

As I said, it was comfort food for the soul; it was familiarity. So a glass of côte de provence rosé with magret de canard came my way, followed by a plate of cantal, chevre, and bleu, followed by an espresso with endearing small conversations initiated by everyone who worked at the restaurant in between. I’m supposed to save every penny I could, but you can’t be broken and leave the money in the bank alone.

 

I guess it’s true no great things can be repeated. My Parisian brother and neighbour moved from Saint Michel to Les Lilas the same day I left Paris to go back to England last December. A couple of months later Caveau des Oubliettes was shut down, leaving many talented musicians in shock. Not only they lost a gig and jam session place where they gained a bit of living and a great deal of life and connections, they also lost the magical vibes that brought amazing people together. No La Sorbonne for me this time, and I will still need somewhere to fall apart every now and then.

 

But Paris is a reverse universe to me; when I fall apart here it usually means I will find magic soon. We’ll see, because there is no rain tonight – la Seine and Notre Dame seems so far away; because all I see now is the unstoppable rain from inside of me that started again the second I left the restaurant up to the moment I’m writing these lines.

 

I see a little girl, I hold her hand in the dark, she’s repeating Brecht silent scream, because she’s alone, because Paris will always be Paris.

 

je t’embrasse !

d.o., le 25 avril 2017

 

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