Ma vie à Paris

Although I haven't had time to write in here, rest assured that my paper journal is bursting. This is a funny word to use but my life here feels sort of nourishing. I imagine that the sort of person who would use that word should be wearing flowy skirts and lighting incense all over the place but there you go. I love the feeling that every day I know so much more than I knew the day before and I've already sunk into my routine like a cozy armchair.

I wake up in the morning around six-thirty when the sunshine knocking at my french doors won't let me sleep any longer. I heat a cup of coffee on the stove and drink it in a bright orange mug with creme fraiche. For breakfast, I eat yogurt and sometimes a banana or a fried egg.



I leave my apartment at the same time as my neighbor across the hall and we say 'bonjour' and ride the elevator together and sometimes she says something to me in french and I smile and then we say 'au revoir' and she walks up rue de Tolbiac and I turn onto rue Verginaud.

I take the train to school; sometimes I read but most days we're packed in like french sardines and I'm lucky to get a seat at all. When I get to school, I eat a package of madelines and a cafe au lait from the vending machine (so much for my healthy petit déjeuner) and then start my day with four hours of french lessons and then eat a sandwich in the park or on the square by the Corentin Celton metro station.

I finish my day with a three-hour french workshop and then I take the train back to the 13th arrondissement, stopping at every super-marchè on the way to pick up the items I've added to my list throughout the day. Once I'm back in my apartment, I make dinner (it's been gnocchi with eggplant-tomato sauce most nights). I usually eat alone but one night I shared dinner with my housemate who is an American man in his sixties who works in Washington and is studying French at the Sorbonne.

After dinner, I read until about ten-thirty when the sun goes down and I can't see the pages anymore. Then I sleep for eight hours and wake up the next morning and do the whole thing again.

I really like my school although I find french pronounciation très difficile. I don't like saying words that require you to clear your throat for periods greater than forty seconds. I'm actually able to pronounce the words better than most of my classmates (thank you, theatre training!) but so far I can only do it when I'm being silly and pretending to be Gerard Depardieu. I'm working on it.

After just a week, I've found that I can read the advertisements in the subway and, walking through the city, I'm beginning to understand snatches of conversations around me. It's like looking at the world through a fogged-up window and watching as the glass slowly clears.

I miss Madison terribly. I miss my home and my friends and my coworkers but almost more than anything I miss the city itself. I miss the trees on East Johnson, I miss the way the sidewalk on Ingersoll felt under my feet, I miss how small the world felt with my face bundled in a scarf and my boots sinking one by one into the snow.

I miss when the world felt small.

I love this city to an incredible degree. I live within a few blocks of an organic co-op, an internet cafè, a vegetarian restaurant, a grocery store that sells the world's most delicious brownies, and Europe's largest Chinatown. My apartment is flooded all day with sunlight. I have wood floors and a kitchen and even my subway stop is pretty. It's called Glacière which I think is a beautiful name (although I think it means refrigerator) and it's above ground so you're standing among trees and sunlight while you wait for the train. A man outside sells crepes in the afternoon.



Anyway, life here is lovely for the most part. I hope yours is lovely, too.