Je suis arrive

It’s a trip being back in Paris the second time around. It’s August so the city is relatively quiet, aside from the tourists traipsing around the Louvre. I’m living near Gare du Nord (a sketchy but central part of town) in an amazing 4-bedroom apartment with 3 guys. It was my girlfriend AC’s place until she moved in with her boyfriend. She needed someone to take over her room for a month until her lease ran out and thankfully the timing worked in my favor. I’ve got the room until Sept 5^th when AC’s friend comes back from holiday in Cambodia and moves into the apt. My roomies are cool—I’ve met 2 of the 3 guys so far. One is away on vacation. One left for 2 weeks in Israel and Greece a couple days after I arrived. But the third guy is absolutely adorable. I can’t tell if he’s gay or straight (European men, figures) but the first thing he said to me was that he was really excited that I moved in because he loved Americans and was looking forward to practicing his English. So he’s been sticking his head in my room for a little chat every night and sending me cute text messages during the day in his broken English.

(the building foyer)

The apartment is quintessentially French—a 19^th century Haussmann building with lots of dark creaky wood, tall ceilings, massive windows and huge heavy doors. A big change from the tiny chambre de bonne (which I adored) I lived in last year. Granted, I haven’t had a roommate since college (let alone a group of messy boys) so its been a bit of an adjustment but I always did enjoy being out of my element.

And how am I feeling about being back? It’s hard to describe exactly. On one hand I can’t say that Paris is my “forever home”, though I deeply love this city. But being here in this place, in this moment, I feel at peace. I sleep in. Go for walks. Meet friends for a glass of wine in the afternoon that stretches into the evening. Read books along the Seine. Host dinner parties in my apartment. Sit in cafes with free wifi and surf the internet. Window shop. Go to free concerts and movies in the park. Make new friends... I’m simply living. And I don’t feel that cloud of guilt and shame that hangs over your head in a city like New York. After a few weeks of being jobless, I was just plain sick and tired of people asking, “So when are you going back to work? What are you going to do with your life? Have you lost your mind?”

Honestly? Is it so unusual that after 8 years of climbing the corporate ladder I’ve decided to chuck Plan A and try something new? When I tell people in France that I quit my job and am spending the next couple months hanging out in Europe while I figure out what I want to do, they just nod and carry on, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. There is no judgment, only the understanding that your 20s are a time for learning and exploration. Sometimes the path is straight (where's the fun in that?); other times its not and it leads you to places you would never have imagined. The French seem to understand and for that I am grateful.

Recently I came upon a quote by Rilke that I found appropriate:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

For now, I’m just going to enjoy living the question.