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Paris in the snow: so lovely, until it wreaked havoc on my travel plans
Well, I am finally home in Brooklyn, after the return trip from hell! Snow in Paris led to hours on the runway, I missed my connecting flight, waited a full day in Amsterdam trying to get on another one standby, spent the night in a hotel, and thanks to some miracle, got home to New York late last night, despite the foot of snow and high winds.
Besides the exhaustion, frustration, confusion, and plenty of other –ion words I felt in my 3-day trip home, I think the strangest aspect was being in Limbo: no longer still in Paris, but not yet returned to my world at home. On the plus side, as I wasn’t yet distracted by re-entering New York, I had a certain distance from my life in Paris, and could think about it more objectively. My last few weeks were, without a doubt, my most fulfilling and exciting weeks in Paris, albeit also intense and chaotic. I had the feeling that my life was full, that I had invested enough in the things I was doing in Paris (classes, the play, new friends, and getting to know the city) to be extremely busy, but in an usually satisfying way.
Not surprisingly, reaching this state of happiness at the very end of my semester made me wonder if I couldn’t have helped myself get there sooner. Sitting around several airports, I asked myself what forces had been at work in the first few months that might have gotten in my way. In large part, I actually think the problem was the length of time. A semester in New York goes by very, very quickly. When I came to Paris, I knew I wanted to take my French skills further, see a lot of art, write, and generally revel in the city. There was a part of me, though, that didn’t want to get TOO attached. Pretty conflicted about leaving my boyfriend and close friends behind in New York, I think I came to Paris focused more on aesthetic and intellectual explorations than on social ones. I immersed myself in the language and the place, but didn’t work as hard as I usually do to form lasting friendships with people. I would only be here for 3.5 months, right?
It was much to my surprise, therefore, that I realized in the weeks before my departure that I had, indeed, met some wonderful people who were genuinely sad to see me go. I got phone calls from several Parisian friends, inviting me for a last dinner or coffee. Their sincerity and warmth really touched me, particularly because I hadn’t thought we were all that close. It made me think back to a French friend of my mom’s, who once said that the Americans were quick to make friends but also quick to forget them, while the French took forever to warm up but stayed friends for life.
I think that my sense of temporariness and slight reluctance in Paris was part of what kept me from feeling fully connected to it until the end, but the French slowness in making friends contributed to it. Had I been there for a full school year, I would have had the time to pursue and truly enjoy the friendships I had (perhaps unbeknownst to me) been cultivating. A full year wasn’t an option for me at this point, but the wheels are definitely turning in my head to figure out another time to live and work in Paris. Knowing now the length of time it takes to truly create a new niche for one’s self there, I think I would be less put off by the gradual nature of that process.
When I left a friend’s apartment on my second to last night, he gave me a Tupperware with leftovers from our dinner. “But I won’t have a chance to get this back to you,” I reminded him. “No,” he said, “But you’ll keep it until I come to New York, or when you come back here.” His kindness and hopefulness for the future was infectious: though I don’t know when or how I’ll make it happen, I’m sure now that I’ll find my way back to France, and I hope, to the friends I made there.
