Recalling France, December 2019 (Part One)
Lana Del Rey, panic attacks, a long walk to the Eiffel Tower in an empty city.
I don’t remember the flight from Rome to Paris— likely because I’d taken a Valium, one of fourteen pills. My American prescription was depleted while I was in Czechia, before I had ended my Fulbright early. I doled these ones out to myself every third night or so, while staying in shared Airbnb’s and pet sitting in the Umbrian countryside. Without them, hours would pass as I wove my way through panic attacks, each one startling me awake as I drifted off to sleep, like Groundhog Day in miniature.
From Charles de Gaulle airport I found the Metro. I stood, pretending to read, as the Metro platform filled and filled, and then finally a train came, and we filled the train, and the train got fuller with each stop, until my body was wedged in between several African men, all of them conversing over me. We were unmasked, of course, because Covid had just become a thing in China and no one knew what was going to happen in just a few months.
I watched the men’s faces not understanding any of the languages they spoke, including French. I was scared. Not only of them, but of everything. My fear pulsed in my throat and threaded itself tightly around my esophagus. I surrendered to the sensation of strangulation, a familiar one. The Valium from my flight was wearing off. I only needed to arrive at the train station, disembark, and find my speed train to Bordeaux. There was a hotel room waiting for me in Bordeaux, where I could sleep; the kind of hotel room I would never reserve for myself, which is to say it was mid-range, nothing fancy. There was also a car in the hotel’s garage, belonging to the woman for whom I was cat-sitting. From Bordeaux I’d drive all the way to Dordogne, to her quaint house, surrounded by other quaint houses, where I presumed things would improve, but would find them worsening.
When I decided to leave my Fulbright I lined up pet-sitting jobs for myself through a website. They didn’t pay. In exchange for caring for someone’s pets, I got a place to stay. This was less expensive than returning to the states and renting an apartment. Besides, I was heartbroken, ashamed. I’d left my Fulbright and I felt guilty and weak despite my valid reasoning. I had to finish my book. I could not both fully immerse myself in my ETA and also work on my book. I could barely work on my book. My body was beset with mysterious joint pain and fatigue. I figured it was the rich Czech food, the overwhelm.
There was a transit strike on in France. It had been all over the news in Italy. This figured very sparsely into my planning because I am an American, and I am also a naive optimist, always hoping things will just work out. Trains would had to run on Christmas Eve, right? When I arrived to the platform, the giant husk of my train shone in the darkness, unmoving. I stared at it, unbelieving. No way. The string around my throat tightened and I began to cry. In public. I imagined my hotel room. The car. I lugged my suitcase, which probably weight about 60 pounds, up the stairs, something I was now accustomed to doing and yet still hated. The departure and arrival screens, bright blue, were indecipherable. I went back downstairs, back upstairs. I found a railing and sobbed. A stupid American. I couldn’t afford a hotel room. I’d been given an advance for my book but wanted to make it last, hence the pet-sitting.
It was Christmas Eve.
A French family approached me, what appeared to be a mother and her two daughters, one of which spoke English. My train was definitely not coming. Not today or tomorrow. There was an app I could download on my phone, BlaBlaCar, but no wifi, so I couldn’t download it. I put it in my notes, composed myself, and thanked them.
On this night nine years ago I had dined at the Capital Grille with my mother, in Seattle. It was our last Christmas dinner together. She had called me a stupid little bitch. A screen-reel image, her voice, a knot of emotions emerged, and I ignored them all.
After finding a cheap hotel I walked through Paris, in darkness. It seemed everyone was gone somewhere. Though it was early, around 6pm, all storefronts were closed. I thought to get oysters, champagne, yet every time I passed a restaurant I was overwhelmed with self-consciousness. My clothes were wrinkled and cheap; my face aged, my French minimal.
I regret not going in somewhere, butchering simple French statements and ordering oysters and champagne. Maybe smoking a cigarette. Instead the empty streets held me.
Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell oozed through my headphones and imbued the night with meaning. I imagined Seattle, the United States. I thought of my mother. Nothing gold can stay, Lana sung, and then the sprawling instrumental, her vocal flourishes. I was alone, very alone, yet as always there was something beautiful in that. So beautiful it made me want to cry. It was what I was used to, and the only way I knew how to exist without augmenting myself. In solitude. Without solitude, I couldn’t relax.
I walked miles. Kilometers. Hours. Until my feet began to hurt. I walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower, but somehow I couldn’t reach it. It was less impressive in person than in pictures, which surprised me. It sparkled. I turned and walked back to the hotel, stopping in a store to buy peanut M & M’s and cheese and crackers. I stared into windows and galleries. Occasionally I passed people on the sidewalk, or watched someone enter or depart a building, dressed scrupulously, smelling good, carrying a bottle or flowers.
Back at the hotel, I peeled my boots off and collapsed on the bed. A Sophia Loren film was on, in English with French subtitles. Houseboat. I ate M & M’s knowing I would sleep poorly, knowing I couldn’t take a Valium although I wanted and needed one. Surely I could find a doctor in Dordogne, one who spoke enough English, and get more.
I needed more than Valium, yet because I needed more than Valium my capacity for decision making was diminished. I didn’t need to be going to an isolated place in the countryside, yet that’s where I was going.
The film comforted me. Sophia’s beauty, her unshaved armpits and soft belly. More solitude awaited me, and more pain, but I hoped for the best.
To be continued…