non, je ne regrette rien
We landed at London Heathrow Airport around 10:30am on Sunday. It was my first time out of the country yet stepping off the plane, the only thing I could think about was finding a coffee the size of my face. We’d left New York at 11pm the night before and I’d struggled for the better part of the seven hour flight to get comfortable enough to even close my eyes, so caffeine seemed like the only way I’d be able to make it back through security, then on another flight and onto Paris, our final destination. For several weeks leading up to this trip, I’d felt like I was walking through molasses most of the day. New York was (and still is) oppressively hot and didn’t do much to help my emotional state, which admittedly hadn’t been great. I’d been putting probably far too much stock in this week away from my everyday; this trip was meant to turn around the worst year(s) of my life.
I have a habit of running. I’ve reasoned that a change of scenery is all I really need to change my mental state. I’d run from Los Angeles to New York when a master’s degree from a top film school didn’t seem to mean much to the powers that be in Los Angeles. I’d then run from New York back to Los Angeles when a winter in a global pandemic made me long for trees, space, and dry air. I’d then run back to New York when the worst memories of my life played out in Los Angeles and I’d lost the person who meant more to me than anyone ever had and in turn, had lost myself. Being back in New York in the summer, I thought, would be enough to pull me out of the well, just like all my other moves had. All those other moves, however, happened with my person by my side. I had a partner to help me move, rearrange, and lie down next to at night when all the moving and rearranging wore us out. Doing it alone wasn’t fun. Acclimating was difficult. I’ll be the first to admit that I romanticize these changes, thinking they’ll make my life better (or at least different) with astonishing immediacy. I always come to at some point, but I didn’t anticipate just how slow the transition to some kind of normalcy would be after this move. The loneliness I thought I was leaving in Los Angeles was right there next to me when I found myself on the East Coast.
The people I thought would greet me with varying degrees of fanfare didn’t live up to my expectations. I sensed that my sadness made others’ sadness much more palpable to them, making me the last person several people wanted to see. The freedom of a subway ride didn’t feel as free as I hoped it would. I began to realize what I thought I was escaping was inescapable. No part of my life was recognizable anymore and I had to rebuild from the rubble of a life I never wanted to leave in the first place. So I dug my head into the sand and pushed through each uncomfortable day to get to the next, until the painful end of June would commence with an international trip. Here was the trip, the week that would turn it all around, and I was in the same molasses haze searching for a coffee to pull me out of it. When I didn’t find one of a familiar American portion size, I settled on a substitute of a too small iced Americano that would at the very least get me on the next flight where I could doze off for another hour before starting my day a-new in Paris.
I would soon learn that the levels of caffeine that typically fuel my day are uniquely American. The way I set my alarm for the next day before dinner the night before, and plan my commute with intense scrutiny, toiling about it until a cocktail of a couple melatonin gummies and a Benadryl lull me to sleep, aren’t what folks in Europe would consider normal. These symptoms of American hustle exhaustion were nowhere to be found in Paris. This was exemplified by the response we received from a tour guide who we told we’d be almost an hour late because we underestimated how long it would take us to get from the airport to the apartment where we were staying. We can do it tomorrow so you don’t have to rush tonight. That I was aghast at this kindness speaks volumes not so much about the Parisian pace of life, but more about how I’d become accustomed to meticulously putting together the puzzle pieces of my day, leaving no time to do anything but rush. I came here to be free of that, to wander, to wonder, to…heal? I’m not sure I even knew what that meant, but this small act of kindness turned me into the Grinch, confused by the feeling of my shriveled-up heart growing in my chest.
“Tu parles Français?”
The server saw Nate and I hovered over the menu display outside Le Compas, deciding whether or not we wanted to eat there. Truthfully, we’d already made up our minds. We hadn’t eaten, we hadn’t slept well, and we needed sustenance. We took an Uber to Place des Victoires and asked the driver which street to walk down to find food. Le Compas was just what I pictured a meal in Paris would be: tables crowded together with chairs facing the street to take in all the beauty not across the table, but on the street. You’ve made it here, look around, the design seemed to suggest. Our server was dressed in pants arguably tighter than they should be and wore a tie that, for whatever reason, made me trust him. His question was the first test of all the frantic Duolingo we’d been completing, and dripping in subtext.
“Un peu.”
“Ah, moi aussi,” he said, handing me a menu in English. First test failed, obviously.
We sat and ordered with abandon, so much so that our server told us the table might be a bit too small, to which I motioned at the empty table next to us we could employ in case of emergency. Escargots, foie gras, salade niçoise, paillard de poulet, and of course a generous portion of bread littered our table, which we polished off with rosé and sancerre, respectively. Looking around, I noticed that very few, if any, tables got up to leave during the course of our meal. Patrons sat, smoked cigarettes (ashtrays conveniently sat on each table), drank wine, and occasionally ordered a dish. The servers stood at a comfortable distance from the diners, only cutting in when asked to do so. This was a far cry from the scrambling for a reservation at whichever hot spot food writers on the coasts tell us we must visit, only to order, eat, pay, and get out in 90 minutes flat.
I took a deep breath and allowed my skin to become just the tiniest bit more porous, the anxious energy that pulsated through my veins floating away in the 60-something degree weather. I could have sat for hours, admiring the buildings with their dreamy balconies, imagining what a slower, Parisian life might feel like. Of course, it’s easy to imagine these things on vacation, but sitting at another cafe the following day, we were approached by an American expat who said she and her husband left the mad dash of New York City and their West Village apartment because life here was just, well, better. In Paris, they paid less than half in rent than they did in New York. They had free healthcare. This woman even adopted a more French last name, replacing her very American former last name, Goodman.
For a long time, I’ve thought about what I should be doing with my life. Where should I live and what job should I go after to ensure I make enough money to just keep making enough money? To pay rent. To buy and consume food. To pay for the things I’ve been conditioned to think I need. This vacation was the first one I’d taken out of the country because it wasn’t until very recently that I began to flirt with the idea of want. Desire, in anticipatory and early grief, doesn’t exist. And before that, my scarcity mindset prohibited me from doing the very things that make life worth living. The things you may not necessarily need, but the things you want. Living under the thumb of need is hard if in that life, you forget that want can also exist. This American found herself living in Paris simply because things here felt easier, better, slower in a way that imbued more space for joy. Ignoring impulses for the sake of should, I began to think, isn’t always the bravest choice. In fact, many of the moments in the recent past I regret the most are because I did that very thing.
Édith Piaf is widely regarded as France’s most popular singer and one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th century. She is said to have been born in the doorway of 72 Rue de Belleville and to have first sang just down the street at Aux Folies, where a painting of her face now adorns the outside wall. Sitting just below this very painting at a table outside, tears streaming down my face, I had no idea just how poetic a scene I was living in. I was crying not specifically because I was sad, but because I didn’t feel bad or guilty and that, in and of itself, made me feel guilty. Nate and I had been in Paris for a few days and had been eating and drinking whatever we wanted, something that I don’t usually allow myself to do. Something about this city, however, allowed me to let my guard down. Yes, I was on vacation, but I historically keep pretty rigid guardrails, even on a trip. “I don’t feel bad about anything here,” I sobbed to Nate, unwittingly echoing the sentiment in Édith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. For the past year, I’ve lived with the most debilitating guilt. I feel like I kept Evan from experiencing such beauty for the sake of logic or because it didn’t make sense financially. And here I was, just a year after his passing, throwing caution to the wind in a way I didn’t know I could. Nothing makes sense financially because nothing, not one thing in this whole damn world, makes much sense at all to me anymore. I wish I’d been able to be less of a nurse in his final year. I wish I’d said yes. I wished. I hoped. I regretted. The beauty of a new place, the simple beauty all around me in Paris, had put a delicate hand on my shoulder and asked me to forgive myself, even just for a week.
Sitting just behind me was a painting of Piaf, the muse of Belleville, this neighborhood northeast of Paris, chaotic, edgy, and unpretentious. What I didn’t know at the time was Édith Piaf was born 76 years to the day before Evan. She died at a young age from cancer. Her small stature was a stark contrast to her giant impact. She walked these once-shabby streets and allowed them to give her songs sorrow and sting. That night it was bringing me the distinct sorrow that can only come from experiencing such profound beauty. The tears that fell were for the simultaneous comfort and pain that I see Evan everywhere, yet nowhere at all in way I want to. Nate and I had decided this place was our favorite bar without knowing just how much history it contained and just how layered our experience there was. We appreciated that the beers were $3, cocktails were only $7, and that the staff was standoffish but not rude, knowing just enough English that we were forced us to employ the French we knew. It’s the place that allowed a young Édith Piaf sing her early truths, and let me cry without judgement, then served me a cheap espresso martini. It put a bandage over my very broken heart.
The Eiffel Tower sparkles each hour for five minutes from sundown until 2:00am in the summer. Standing in the open air on a boat floating down The Seine where we just finished dinner, Nate and I stood among the other eager diners, heads turned toward the tower. We’d just finished a three-course dinner that, to be honest, paled in comparison to the other meals we’d eaten in Paris, but the food wasn’t the reason folks paid for this experience. The clock struck 10:00pm and within seconds, the Eiffel Tower began to sparkle, a quiet settling over the crowd, which was broken when just a few feet away, a man got down on one knee, asking his date to marry him. People clapped as the woman nodded her head and let out an excited “Yes,” wrapping her arms around her now-fiancé.
Looking around, I noticed that almost all the other diners on the boat were couples. We were, after all, on a romantic dinner cruise in a city that exemplifies love in countless movies, books, and songs. We were standing below one of the most iconic pieces of architecture in the world. Of course this man chose this moment to propose. I immediately felt my stomach turn with the distinct hue of anger that only arises after having a love like that and losing it. Looking at this couple with presumably the rest of their lives together ahead of them, I wanted them to know just how lucky they were and that things could easily change on a dime. I wanted them to soak up this and each and every moment they had together. All that I wanted them, these people I didn’t know, I realize now had very little to do with them at all; I wanted all of this for myself. I felt older than I ever had looking at them, with perspective I wish I had while Evan was alive.
I turned to Nate and saw that I too was sharing this moment with someone I deeply loved. We’ve been taught to value romantic love more than friendship, but I’d be willing to bet not many couples on the boat that night had been thorough what Nate and I had been through together. He’s the person who rubbed my back as I sobbed into a pillow until I fell asleep, on what should have been my ninth wedding anniversary, but was really the day I planned my husband’s funeral. He’s also the person who’s made me cry with laughter time and time again this past year. He’s reminded me that not all joy is lost. He is, in essence, my person.
When the prospect of a trip to the UK for a wedding just after the anniversary of Evan’s passing was mentioned to Nate, it was he who suggested we also go to Paris. Perhaps unconsciously, he knew I needed the awe of this city to mark the end of a very ugly year. Of course both we both wanted so badly for Evan to be there with us on every moment of the trip. We talked about it a lot. What would he think and what would he say and what would he order? It’s easy in grief to forget that we already know these answers because we wanted him to be there telling us. But he was. He was nowhere and everywhere all at once.