In the City of Love

Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little, get lost a bit, eat, catch a breakfast buzz, have a nap... Drink some wine, walk around a bit more, eat, repeat. -Anthony Bourdain.

Paris, the city of love. Where did it get that name? It’s grand architecture, great music, good wine, good sex? I wondered if Paris is called the city of love because every single word in French sounds like some form of seduction. Even the ones that just come out as phlegmy throat sounds. Then I remembered that French is spoken throughout the country and in several other regions. I had many assumptions and several strange questions about Paris before my trip, unlike any other place I’ve been lucky enough to travel to.

Maybe watching so many French films made me infatuated with Paris before I even arrived. I saw the city through a romantic lens shaped by the movies I loved and stories I’d heard. I’ve been in both limerence and lust before, but Paris awakened a hunger in me I’d never known. A craving that blurred the line between longing for a place and yearning for its people.

What could be the cause of the slim French stature? I asked myself this as I strolled the streets of Paris, lugging an overpacked suitcase over cobblestone and jagged bits of concrete after trudging through the metro. Everyone just looks so cool. So effortless. So themselves. All the while, they’re so noticeably limber. Is it the incessant smoking of cigarettes, coffee on every corner, public transportation, a walkable environment, or possibly the free health care?

After four days in the city, I’ll tell you, I never found out. Eventually, I forgot that I’d even cared about the superficial things that made the city special, like skinny people and skinnier cigarettes. In fact, all of my cares started slipping away as soon as we made it to the top of those frightening five flights of stairs into our long-awaited Parisian apartment.

Everything I thought I knew or wanted to know about the city disappeared as quickly as I made myself comfortable, and I found myself busy with something totally new: peace. I was at peace for the first time in who knows how long. No work, no deadlines, no obligations or expectations, just being. An unexplored mode of existence. Similar to the widely misunderstood and often misused experience of love.

Peace and love are inseparable; you can’t truly feel at peace without first allowing yourself to be open to love and its counterpart, hate, which requires a certain level of trust within yourself. Traveling in a new city with someone is a testament of trust and love. We may get along back home on separate schedules with penciled-in plans, but living together, with one shower, limited time, and an ambitious itinerary, can show you sides of someone you’ve never even seen. Traveling the world with someone, it’s a love language almost. Like sharing a meal, or a fork, getting on a 9-hour plane ride to spend 9 days with someone you’ve only met 9 months or 9 years ago is certainly a sign of love.

I found myself falling in love at every turn in Paris. In love with the people, the places, and everything in between. In the city of love, I fell deeper in love than I ever could’ve imagined. With myself, with the world, with the possibilities the narrow streets of Paris can offer, and, most of all, with my two dear friends with whom I spent almost every moment while I was there. I truly felt I was on a cloud; everything was too good to be true; the sun shone brighter, the food was better, the music was louder, and the liquor was stronger.

It’s a combination of the people you’re with and the place you’re in that allows things to happen that would never happen at home, because you’re allowing yourself to be fully present; we lose that presence in areas of comfort, cutting off potential by going through the motions, forced into routine. The grocery store back home is mundane because you’ve memorized the aisles; that’s why you’re irritated to find they’ve moved the milk. You’re used to the familiarity of that space, the efficiency of knowing where to go. The grocery stores in Paris were like museums; we spent more time wandering around because they were new. While the food may be similar, the labels may be French; the idea is the same: buying bread.

Traveling to a new city has the weight of a thousand new suns because you’re allowing yourself time and space to explore, experience, and be free. A privilege not afforded to everyone back home due to scheduling and obligations. Take advantage of that freedom, and you’ll find yourself on some Frenchman’s roof at 5am your first night in Paris or watching the sun come up on the beach on your way home from the club your last night in Ibiza.

With Avrey and Ali, it’s traveling in a way where you almost become accustomed to the place, you nearly call it home. While I had a massage and a lounge on a sofa bed, even sitting in this cafe, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of constant curiosity and excitement. Then again, this is Paris. Rose colored glasses just make things more pink, not any more beautiful.

We danced to live jazz underground as the walls sweat alongside us. Strolled the Luxembourg Gardens and the grounds of the Lourve as locals ate their lunch. Walked and walked until blisters formed and then bandaged them up to keep walking, only in heels this time. Mixed and mingled with strangers in every shop we wandered into, my favorite being the Italian jewelry designer who told us about the woman he followed to New York in the name of love. I remember every place and face we came across on this trip because I was fully there, fully present, a nosy guest in someone else’s home.

Every place you wander is the center of someone else’s world; there’s no such thing as nowhere, only places waiting for your story to unfold. Forget the guidebooks and glowing reviews, even mine. Step off the beaten path, let your heart lead, and allow yourself to fall headfirst into the adventure-and maybe, just maybe, into love itself.

We spend a lot of time searching for answers, like love, so much so that once we find it, we cling to it, refusing to let go, inflating it during the good times and justifying it in the bad. Love isn’t a fleeting feeling or a single person; it’s an action. We can love a million people in our lifetime: that boy in your English class, a teacher who believed in you, a girl in the bathroom at a bar, a friend you’ve had since childhood, or one you just met last week. A parent, a cousin, a neighbor, a sister, a coworker, a stranger. Regardless of who they are and when your paths finally meet, the love you have for them was always inside you- like grief, it doesn’t appear from nothing, it brews inside you constantly waiting for moments to act.

I found love in Paris the moment I surrendered my search, let go of every expectation, and allowed myself to be present with my friends. These moments aren’t meant to last forever; their magic lies in their impermanence. Even when the night ends and the city grows quiet, the love you felt doesn’t vanish. It lingers, simmering beneath the surface, waiting for you to recognize it again.

Coming home after a night out, you wouldn’t expect your apartment to be buzzing with music and excitement like the club was. So why is it that every time I return from a trip to Europe, I expect my life at home to have the same energy and thrill as my travels? The answer is freedom. There is freedom in traveling, just as there is in dancing at the club, a freedom that doesn’t exist back home because it can’t; unless you create it there for yourself.

Equilibrium, balance, safety, or comfort are what we’re all after to some varying degree. I find that balance by bolting- escaping my reality for a more romantic one. Life isn’t about being comfortable, as much as we try to force it to be. At least for me, it’s not. It’s about chasing that feeling of freedom, those moments of feeling alive with friends in unfamiliar cities, and paying more attention in ordinary ones. And I won’t stop until I get there, even if my shoes fall off and my feet are torn to shreds like Ali’s were after walking barefoot on that Parisian roof.

Travel the world in search of serenity. Paint the sites, eat the food, take the long way home. Fall in love, start a family of your own, get a job, or quit the one you loathe so deeply. The feeling of being alive isn’t something to let go of, like love; that peace needs to be nurtured in order for it to be maintained. In all honesty, I think I could spend eternity maintaining all of that in Paris. Listening and learning the seductive sounds of French, even the phlemgy bits. Indulging in its grand architecture, great music, good wine, and more;) Experience life directly and see where it takes you, stop searching for answers, and see how it leads you to answering more questions.

You’re only 24 in Paris, with no responsibilities, so I encourage you to make the most of that time; the time that follows is equally important. You can’t lose that spontaneity and momentum just because you’re in the comfort of your home. Life is a gift, waking up each morning is unwrapping the paper.

Thank you to Avrey and Ali, and all the friends we made along the way. Till next time, stay flirty, stay thirsty, and fall in love with someone or something new this summer, maybe a good movie. Cin Cin!

See you soon,

Paige B.