I have always liked Valentine's Day. At my elementary school, every kid would bring in a bag full of candy and paper Valentine cards for each classmate. The teachers would create goody bags for us. We played games and baked cookies and had a feast to imitate the feast of Saint Valentine. Couple that with the heart-shaped box of chocolates that awaited my spot at the breakfast table, and I was running on a steady sugar high for the entire day. I'm not big on sappy or conventional. I often find myself disliking things out of pure over-saturation. That's not to say I'm not romantic or emotional, because I am definitely both of those things. But Valentine's Day is one of those things that seems to fall in the category of things I should despise. A profit-driven, gender role affirming, societal pressure of a "holiday" with all the implications those things come with...you can read into it all you want, but I could care less about all the statements Valentine's Day makes about the state of society or feminism or America or any of that stuff. I simply love the idea of eating sweets and spreading love. Romantic love, platonic love, familial love, it's all really the same basic element when it comes down to it. So be happy that on this day, the world is swelling with an overflow of love. It reminds me of Thanksgiving, almost. Valentine's day is a second day of Thanksgiving with a more specific thing to be thankful for. So many people want to whine and argue about the true origins of Thanksgiving, about the symbolic notion that we as a society feel the need to only give thanks once a year. Valentine's Day is not about saying "I love you" once a year, it's about taking a day to be grateful for all the love in your life. It doesn't mean that you are automatically not going to think of love for the next 364 days. It's just a day of intensification, of more, of excess. Be happy, because you are loved. It is an inherent part of the human condition. Now go eat a cupcake.
au revoir paris
Leaving Paris left me just a little bit heartbroken. Yes, I was leaving my boyfriend in the beautiful city of light and croissants while I embarked on a grueling 20-hour journey back to the West Coast of the US. But it was more than just that. After spending July in Paris a year and a half before, I was infatuated, but satiated. Paris was a beautiful adventure I could put in a box and take out to admire when I was tired of the monotonous routine of my life in California. This time, though, it was entirely different. I felt like I was leaving my home, the place where I wanted to be most in the world. I was in love. It felt wrong to leave, and all throughout my body I felt an inertia that may have played a small part in my nearly-missed flight at Charles de Gaulle. As I was convincing the airport workers to let me on the flight, one of them said, "What, you don't want to stay in Paris?" and for a moment I considered just lugging my bags back to the RER and letting it twist and tunnel me back to the tiny suburb outside the city I had called home for the past few months. But of course, thoughts of finances and immigration officers popped into my head and instead I was whisked through checkpoints and deposited safely on the huge aircraft that would escort me across the Atlantic ocean, without one suitcase of course. So I made it back to America, piece by piece, and emerged into a bone-dry January that feels like it doesn't belong to a season. It doesn't have the swelling, lazy heat of summer, and it's certainly not the starkly cool and wet winters I'm used to here. It has neither the fresh, bursting, blooming feeling of spring or the pivotal, ripe smell of fall. It's just a seasonless haze that stifles the usually breathtaking beauty of the Bay Area. I miss Paris in the winter, Paris in the rain, Paris in the gloom. I miss the dark, naked trees that jut out against a white sky, stiff and cold as the statues that litter the city. I miss how everything is made of stone, and how buildings are aesthetic as well as functional. The quaint alleyways, the bookcases of buildings with their prim windows sheltered by delicate balconies, the arches and fountains and monuments that exist just because. I miss the cold, wet cobblestones, the winding alleyways, the street signs plastered to the wall as though they want you to come closer and see, come and find out where you're going. I miss the smell of fresh pastries on every corner, the sprawling cafés inviting you to sit down and stay a while. Paris in the winter feels like it has a wonderfully juicy secret and the only way to discover it is to venture out into the cold and wander the streets. I miss the feel and the personality of the entire city. It's so accessible, so right there, so easy to be in. There's so much to do. The sprawling hill of Montmartre, the cemeteries dotting the city like secret silent gardens, the busy churning Seine around Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis, the proud glamour of Saint Germain, the crooked streets spilling with falafel and cheese shops and clothing stores with headless mannequins in Le Marais. I miss how grand it all is, how incredibly, impressively, unapologetically grand Paris is. The things I missed about California - Mexican food, my favorite sushi place, the hills, the trees, the Golden Gate Bridge - are paling in comparison to what I love about Paris. Paris has given me one thing I know with absolute certainty I will do in my lifetime: return. Next time I'll do things the right way. Instead of drifting off into the horizon like a starry-eyed adventurer, I will plan and apply for a visa and perfect my French and find a source of income. I'll be back, Paris. I don't know when, but I know I will.
bonjour à paris
Until January 16, my home is in Asnières-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris at the end of the métro ligne 13. Coincidentally, my first stay in Paris was in the 14th arrondissement on Rue Didot, at the other end of the 13. These funny little coincidences happen to me quite frequently, and I always like to think of them as signs that have to mean something. If I were a religious person I suppose I would think of it as God's way of telling me I'm in the right place, but I'll swap "God" for "the universe" and then it makes more sense to me. I'm a big fan of equilibrium and symmetry, so realizing that my time in Paris has a fully symmetrical ring to it makes me fall even more in love with this beautiful, complicated city. Last time I was here it was summer, and the days stretched long and languished over stacks of apartments and flurries of people enjoying the pink skies. People sat with their feet dangling over the seine, sipping wine from the bottle and eating baguettes. The métro was packed to the doors, dank and moist with trapped heat intensified by human congestion. Now it is winter. The days are short and timid, emerging for a few crisp, biting hours until the clouds envelop the world and trap the lights beneath. Rain is frequent, pooling in the cracks between the cobblestones and washing filth into the sewers. People dressed in dark colors walk with scurried purpose towards glowing cafés, métro entrances, grocery stores, apartment buildings. It's the other half of the year in Paris, seen from the other side of Paris. How's that for symmetry?