The City Of Love Tried To Kill Me

It has been almost two full weeks since returning from Paris, and I am only just now recovering. These past eleven days have been filled with the constant turn of the sun as it signals me to go to school, then work, then life, as it walks behind some clouds. Between me attempting to enrich myself with my curriculum and making sure I have key everyday elements such as food and new outfits, my schedule has been to isolate myself so that whenever I did finally cough up the lung that had lodged itself in my throat, nobody would be in the line of fire.

I feel like I should back up. Paris was fun. It was also insane. I have many mixed feelings about the place. I’ve already visited before, so instead of running from one end of town to another trying to look at places like the Eiffel Tower and the backup Eiffel Tower they keep in the linen closet, I was able to leisurely walk around with friends for a weekend. We visited little out-of-the-way restaurants, art museums, bookstores, and thrift shops. We enjoyed the river charging past stalls filled with paintings and old books, and spent a four-hour meal with friends that included me eating snails for the first time, and a ghost from the Renaissance knocking a glass of wine onto my friend. Now, I know what you’re all thinking from that last sentence, and to put your minds at ease, snails taste like rubber dipped in pesto, so it’s great if you’re into that sort of thing. In one sense, it was the perfect dream of everything you could hope for in the city with all those movies shot in it.

We also were almost forced into signing a petition no one could read. We were scammed with the Euro exchange rate, spoken down to by a waiter with no sense of personal space, and we fell into the labyrinth of the Parisian train system that no one bothered to clean for hours. There were people lined up along the street, trying to get our attention so the inevitable pickpocket wouldn’t get noticed. The wind reached up to 50 miles an hour, blowing around trash that hadn’t been picked up yet, resulting in almost everyone getting sick in three different ways.

A lot of stuff happened.

When I got back, I felt drained, sick, and confused on how to reply anytime someone asked me, “so how was Paris?” There’s quite the interaction that occurs when you have to tell someone of the intensely strong, polarized feelings you have about a place; you were just punched in the face then kissed so sweetly. You start to wonder what it’s like for the residents, why it has been romanticized so much, if you’ll ever go back. You end up more tired, but also somehow hardened by it, like if you can find true joy there, you can find it anywhere. Or, at least that’s how I feel. 

It made me think about the absolute, resolute love you have to have for something in order for it to be truly worth it. Contrary to popular belief, most of the passions people possess had to be fought for: the sort of fight that does not let you stay neutral, or go without action towards a goal. The people of Paris are incredibly passionate and loyal to their city. They’d have to be, to live there. It’s only in the middle of the fighting that you can look around and breathe for a second and find yourself in your new favorite place on earth, before diving back down and grabbing onto the one thing keeping you from it and never letting go. It makes me wonder if it’s possible to always live in that state of fighting for what you love with an energy that is fed by the little moments that make the fighting worth it. I suppose that is what every day is like for most people with anything to lose: knowing that you will not be blissfully happy every second of your life, but knowing that the seconds where you are will make everything worth it.

I wonder if I have found anything like that yet. I hope I will never stop looking.

And, best of all, my nose is no longer running. I can rest.