Since first I booked this trip, people have been asking me, “Why are you going?” I’ve had lots of quippy answers: “Mama’s last gasp,” or “Because I can,” or, “To get away from Alaska in the winter.”

There are more thoughtful reasons that can be pointed to. That I love Paris, and spent a magical year of my life here once and wanted a chance to revisit that, and to check in on my status with this language that I once knew so well. Or, that I am having unfettered time off for the first time in a very long time, and that I wanted to check in with myself, and that Paris is known and easy and, grâce aux Tilliers, an inexpensive place for me to do that. Perhaps more honestly: because I have been in year after year of rolling and monumental upheaval in my life, and I’ve been so damned busy, have felt so plagued by this unrelenting chaos of the pivot and the loss and the change, that I’ve had very little opportunity to step back and see what would arise in absence of constant doing. And given that I’ve wildly charged forward, one foot in front of the other, so that now I stand in open air past the edge of the cliff, I wanted to know whether I am Wylie Coyote, doomed to plummet to earth, or whether I might perhaps be a bird. Or whether, perhaps, the cliff was an illusion, a trick of the eye or a construct of the mind, and instead I stand with two feet on solid, holy ground.

I came with a triad of tasks (or practices?) to assist me in this process and to provide the structure (the cadre) for what may come. They were: write, read, walk. Added to those were two ways of living a good of life that I wanted to embrace: marvel and eat. Upon arriving, as I’ve previously shared, I added a fourth practice to my cadre: yoga.

Combined, I’ve used these six things to structure my time here in Paris. Ever wary of the Type A tendency to *set up a plan* and then *execute on that plan* and then *punish oneself for failure to adhere to that plan* I didn’t demand a lot of myself on any of these fronts. Rather, I figured time spent in pursuit of some combination of these things was likely time spent moving in the right direction.

And I’ve found that this was generally a beautiful way to proceed through these past three and a half weeks.

I confess, happily, that my greatest fidelity was to the practice of eating. Paris is a wonderment of delectable, magical creations. There are simple sandwiches on baguettes that would make you weep at home; sweet pastries like Paris Brest and buttery pastries like croissants that (dare I blaspheme) transubstantiate from air to cream in your mouth; street crêpes in the cold at 10pm like weighty, fragrant hand warmers. I befriended the monsieur who is the regular server at the brasserie downstairs from my house. He teases me by calling the baby petit Donald, makes sure the kitchen keeps the raw egg off my carbonara, and waves each time I walk by en route to the Metro. Market, restaurant, home for cooking—all have been a joy.

My second greatest fidelity was to the walking. Nearly every day since my arrival I’ve set off across the city, with or without destination, to let Paris unspool its unique wonders before more. Yesterday evening, walking with my friend Ellie, we happened into the street made entirely of shops that sell linens. When Felix was here last week it was the street with shop after shop that sells model cars and trains. There’s the street with shops that sell Japanese tea pots. And the one with shops that sell only items related to Tintin. There’s the moment when you emerge from a small alleyway to find yourself on the edge of the Seine, your view filled by the towers of Notre-Dame de Paris. Paris, above all, is a city for walkers. You need no itinerary, you need no destination. You need practical (though chic!) shoes, and it’s all there before you.

In true American fashion I have a little step-counting gizmo, and so I know I have logged an average of about 11,000 steps a day, with my biggest day being 22,000 (or about 8 miles) and my smallest being about 5,000.

I’ve also read every day, though my subject matter has been inconsistent. I’ve tried to pick up the daily paper Le Monde at least 3 or 4 times a week, and have been enjoying French politics, as well as the French view on our own. (Little known fact: my college thesis was on the French papers’ view of L’affaire Lewinsky, and what it revealed about differences in American and French political mores.) I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior while I was here, and have started yet another book by Margaret Atwood. I also read most of Bringing up Bébé, started reading St. Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will, and have spent a lot of time in daily commune with the Gray Lady, the Washington Post, and the Guardian.

Writing has been a little more tough, though I’m generally pleased with what I’ve been able to do. I’ve nursed a desire to write for years and years, and know that a major thing standing between me and it is the discipline to sit down and put pen to paper every day. Somehow I don’t count blogging, though I suppose it is in fact an act of writing. If you include it, I’ve been able to write with some attention on a bit more than half of the days that I’ve been here—and happily most of those were true pen-to-paper days. I may never do anything publishable or worthy of a greater audience, but I do get joy when I find a moment of flow in the creation of a story.

Yoga, as previously reported, has been wonderful. And then there’s the marveling.

Ah, Paris.

It’s impossible to do anything here but marvel. When the simplest bus ride takes you past a half dozen beautiful, timeless buildings and monuments. When the windows are full of confections and delights. When the busiest avenue gives way to a crooked tiny street that spills out onto a square crowned by a temple that took three centuries to construct à la main. When the marché is filled with old women with wheeled shopping baskets, into which they slip whole rabbits or duck medallions wrapped in pork. When the rain begins to fall and a garden of umbrellas blooms before you register the drops on your face. When the neighborhood church is built upon the original stones laid down in the 11th century, then modified by the faithful in the 13th century, and again in the 16th, and protected from les révolutionnaires by residents who insisted the edifice belonged to them, not the Church. When construction crews in green work suits replace cobblestones in the same pattern that they were laid down 200 or 400 or 600 years earlier. What is there to do but marvel?

So, on the eve of my departure, I ask myself, have I found what I was seeking here in Paris?

The answer is uncertain. Given the luxury of unfettered time, ample money, regular contemplation and good daily exercise, any person is likely to feel at ease. What has me much more curious is whether I can return home to the regular disruptions and delights of daily life and maintain a strongly centered self. Can I find me amidst the disorder and the deluge, and keep a strong axis at the center of my spinning world? Can I be a helpmate and a mother and still step out to find solitude? Need I go so far away, so radically, in order to put my hand on it?

I am no great philosopher. I’m not even that good of a student any more. At this stage of my life I operate from instinct and impulse, and occasionally cobble together some evidence to support my gut. Today, my instinct and my impulse tell me to go home. Put down strong roots. Welcome the arrival of our son. Assume—and insist—that I will always be able to find myself, come what may.

In this sense, then, j’ai réussi. 

I’ve been going regularly to a yoga studio here in Paris. I first found it by googling “yoga prénatale,” and then by reading a little more about each studio, and then by choosing one that seemed about right and within reasonable walking distance. The one I happened into, called Rasa Yoga Rive Gauche, has been one of the most fortuitous finds of my Paris stay.

I like yoga, but generally do not have a well established, regular yoga practice. I’ll go through surges, but then I’ll have many long months where I have no practice at all. Like many American women and men, I have a pretty good foundation in it, have taken classes in many different lineages, and am reasonably fluent in some of the core concepts. But I’d be lying if I said I were really a student, in that take-it-to-the-next-level kind of way.

Here in Paris, though, I’ve been going 3-4 times a week. It has given me a little community anchor, and I’ve also found it fascinating to dig into a regular practice with a belly that is daily getting larger and more cumbersome. I think the French people find me to be a bit of a curiosity—a third trimester American plopping down in the middle of their class—but that’s fine by me. (Plus, there are a lot of other Americans there. The French seem to like yoga, but I think the Americans flock to it like aliens to the beacon of the Eiffel Tower.) I’m loving yoga like I’ve never loved it before—digging into this wildly changing body and the strong mind and attention that is building with it.

One of the most enchanting things about yoga for me right now is the very fact of studying it in a foreign language. Despite my high level of competence in French, following the cues requires a focus that is completely unnecessary in my mother tongue. This has the side effect of quieting an otherwise busy mind. There is no room for mental wandering when I’m working to determine whether she just said to spread my toes or touch my big toes together. (Or do something with my shoulders—who knows.) More than once I’ve opened my eyes to find myself with my arms over my head when everyone else is starting cat-cow. So being in the studio provokes an intensity of attention that I’ve not previously experienced in a yoga practice.

The other thing that I find fascinating about French yoga instruction is the focus on the pelvis. The French call it the bassin. They use the term in the same way we use the word core in talking about yoga in English-language classes. But, in one of those oddities that makes studying foreign languages a never-ending joy, the actual concept of the bassin is compelling in a way that the term core just really isn’t. When I hear the word core, I think of a focused center. It’s a place of power and resilience. Strength, surely. It’s forceful, firm, solid—very American. Bassin is a word that cradles. Perhaps it’s my current frame of mind, but its implications speak to me of support rather than strength. Of grounding and holding rather than holding-upright. It’s the basin that holds our organs, our bellies, our energy and, for certain of us, our babies.

I went to get a massage the other day from a woman whose card was given to me by a random lady who overheard me talking to the concierge at the yoga studio. Her name is Evelyne and her card reads “Thérapeute de l’Ame et du Corps”—which translates as Therapist of the Spirit and Body. The massage was fascinating, not least of all because she started it off with a whispering session with my belly.

At the end of my massage, as I was coming back out of my drifting snoozy place, Evelyne whispered a few instructions to me, almost a mantra. I had to email her after to get the words again because my half-asleep brain only retained part of it. I knew she was talking to me about my bassin and wanted the exact words.

She emailed back that the mantra she had given was as follows: “Je me sens en sécurité, en paix dans mon bassin.”

I feel myself to be in safety, in peace, in my bassin.” Attempt to translate as you will—pelvis, core—and it doesn’t quite make it. But think the of the bassin as the cradling home of everything we carry, the rooting-down place between our bodies and the earth, this basin, this womb-writ-large, and it’s an incredibly powerful phrase.

So. The study of language, this time via yoga and massage. It opens up those soft differences in world view—strong pillar vs. cradling basin—that are accessible only through learning a language that constructs the world in a way that is different from your own. These are the small doorways we walk through to discover another culture.

One of the beautiful things about a long trip is that your days are not rushed. There’s no list of must-do’s that run behind you with a lashing whip. Each day gets to pick its own pace, and a little tiredness here or a change of plans there doesn’t matter at all.

I’ve been grateful for this as I’ve picked my way through my last few days. I tend toward the indecisive—not in big decisions, but in the small details. Duck or risotto? Red or white? Musée d’Orsay or Louvre? I can get ridiculously hung up. It’s because there’s so much deliciousness in the world, so much to choose from. Making a choice feels like jettisoning one-hundred other delights.

To structure my days I’ve been starting by looking at the yoga menu from the wonderful studio east of here by St. Michel. I bought a ten-class pass to give myself some wellness anchors during my stay. The space is beautiful. It’s tucked in a little courtyard, and it’s full of light and kind women and warmed ginger water. Both of my instructors so far have been excellent. And there is something classically French in these classes as well. Both of my teachers have been poet-philosophers, taking time to talk about the physical and metaphysical journey of our practice, encouraging us not just to use our bodies, but to use the practice as a gateway to discovery and yes, as one of them said, perhaps even a doorway into the “spirituelle.” This is no fitness club Power Yoga, oh non. Nothing so quotidien as that for the French.

Yesterday, after much indecision, I settled on the Père Lachaise Cemetery as my walking destination. Actually, it was my walking origination. I took the Metro there and then walked through the cemetery for an hour, then back home. Père Lachaise is very famous, first for its beauty, and second for the dozens upon dozens of famous people who are buried there. They include Chopin, Ingres, Max Ernst and Jim Morrison, among others. You can get cemetery maps and spend your time hunting for famous people, but that has never been my style. Instead I just wandered through the aisles and pathways, absorbing what I saw, shivering a little bit in the afternoon chill, and having a solid contemplation of mortality, death, and decay. Acknowledgment of these three things has been jettisoned from our culture, and I find it to be much to our loss. They are powerful, transcendent concepts, and are universal to us all. We ignore them at our own peril. An old cemetery, with its various stages of recency and disintegration, bring these all to mind.

The other thing that brings this kind of impermanence to mind for me is great old cathedrals. When I was 18 and came to Europe for the first time I stopped in Paris for a day with my aunt before continuing on to Scotland. We did a very quick tour of some of the highlights of the city, which included a visit to Notre-Dame de Paris. I remember stepping into the cathedral and looking down at the stones that were grooved deeply with the millions of feet that had passed over them in 800 years. I was hit as if by a bolt of lighting—a coup de foudre—realizing that no matter what hardships or losses or celebrations my life might bring, nothing would be new. I would experience nothing that hadn’t been lived by thousands upon hundreds of thousands upon millions of people who had walked the Earth before me. My experiences might be exquisite in their pain or their joy, but they would be nothing, insignificant, against the weight of humanity. Countless, eternally forgotten people whose own footsteps had worn grooves in those age-old stones.

On the way home the evening light was low but Notre Dame was still exquisite.

Today I woke determined to purchase and begin the clock on a 6-day museum pass. I was fortunate to take many art history courses during the year I lived in Paris, and to be able to go regularly to the museums that held the very pieces we were studying. While I don’t feel compelled to see a gob of museums while I’m here, there are several that I enjoy tremendously. Obvious among these are the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, but also the Musée Rodin and the Jacquemart André. The museum pass lets me go for a few hours or half a day without feeling that I have to see it all. Likewise, it makes it easy to choose to go even when I have just a little time.

I left my house at 9:30 to head to the Orsay, but it’s market day in my neighborhood and I didn’t make it. Even though I have cheeses and vegetables galore, I wanted to walk through the market just to see what there was. An hour later I left with olives, veal, codfish, eggplant purée, green beans (haricots verts—I just love that name), and a little bag of lychees.

I’m so glad I stopped. First, because it gave me a chance to interact with fishmongers and butchers and olive-sellers and practice my French and marvel at their goods. And second, because it was so surprising to discover the prices. I bought a piece of veal big enough for my dinner for less than 3€, the fillet of cod for the same, and all my other vegetables and olives and goodies for less than 10€ additional. I loved queueing with the French grandmothers stocking up on meat and carrots for their big weekend meal with family. And I loved being in a culture that values food so highly, but also keeps it so affordable—even in a market in an expensive neighborhood in the capital city. The marché is such a common, normal thing in so many places. But for an American accustomed to shopping in the sterility and impersonality of a Safeway or Stop ‘N’ Shop, it’s a beautiful construction of a thousand small delights.

Here’s what my total tow looked like, once I was home again. All of this for less than $20.

I did finally make it to the Orsay. And while it’s all magical, I won’t bother to attempt to wax poetic about art. I will only say that it will never stop to amaze me that sculptors can peel away stone to find such softness within.

And that museums hold the memory of a time when we talked more about, and lived more intimately with, Death.

 

I had an interesting conversation with Chris this morning. I was telling him that I spend much of my day attempting to appear French. He was sort of aghast and said that it sounded exhausting. But no, I insisted. It’s like a cultural game. Can I observe acutely enough and adapt well enough to “pass?” I’ve been playing this game so long—shoot, I have a college major in this game—that it never occurred to me to do it any other way. But it’s a constantly baffling puzzle. Because, though I give myself credit for being 15 years out of practice, they always know. No matter what you wear, how cold a scowl you set on your face, whether you adjust your pace to be faster, or slower, wrap your scarf more and more eccentrically, or sit silently in a café and drink a tea, you are frequently (or at least I am frequently) pegged as an American. Tonight when I stopped quickly in the Monoprix downstairs to grab some mustard and olive oil the handsome young man behind the register had me in deux secondes. Yes, I had to ask him to repeat himself when he asked me if I needed a bag. But what couldn’t he just assume I’m a deaf Frenchwoman? What is it about me that screams American?

When I was in college, studying French, it was our actual coursework to try to figure out how to be French. We had one teacher who helped us deconstruct the placement of consonant sounds, to help us put them in the right place to sound more French. We Americans put our consonants at the end of syllables. So mon ami spoken with an American accent would sound pretty close to the way it’s written: “mon am-i.” The French, on the other hand, pull the consonant sound to the start of the following syllable. So correctly pronounced, mon ami sounds like “mo-na-mi.” Back in college, the kids that paid attention on that one specific day in class went on to blend better, to get that much closer to the intonation and lyricism of the French language. To get closer to the holy grail of “passing.” The ones who missed that day or who were busy doodling kept on sounding like Americans for the whole year. Those kinds of little nuances are that important.

I never had much money in college, so adopting French dress was never really in the cards for me. I had enough dough to shop at Kookaï, and buy crappy things that blew apart in a month. I had two pair of school shoes, brown and black, both brought over from TJ Maxx in the States. I had one pair of running shoes. I would work so hard during the week to understand the nuances of the language, of the culture, of the dress. I’d make every effort to fit my brown shoes into some Kookaï outfit and pull off something that was modestly sophisticated and sort of French. On the weekends, though, when I would pull out my Europass and go traveling, I would intentionally go to the other end of the spectrum. I had a pair of corduroys and a striped sweater and would don the running shoes, pull out a shabby fleece hat, and run with the American look. I did it because I had found that, as an American, the Europeans assumed you were stupid, which meant you could bend all sorts of rules. Cheating on your Europass by faking the date? Just speak loudly and pretend you only know English and they’d throw up their hands and let you off. Need to find your way to the hostel in Italy? Look like an American and they sigh wearily and point. It was a strategy—a costume I adopted to serve the purpose of the day.

So, back to Chris’s question… why am I bothering to try to blend? Well, honestly, it’s a good question! And I don’t know! He’s right, it’s probably more exhausting than it is beneficial. I’m not a college student studying French culture in intimate detail anymore. I’m a 39-year-old woman on vacation in Paris, having somehow made the jump from “mademoiselle” to “madame” in the years since last I was here. I’m one of hordes of foreigners walking the same streets and ogling the architecture and the incredible shop windows. Why try to pretend I’m anything else? Point taken. Old habits die hard, but I’m going to attempt to ease up a little on the compulsive self-analysis in coming days.

In other news, it’s the biannual soldes here—the massive sales event where every single store attempts to liquidate the goods of the previous season to make room for what comes next. It is adopted by every Parisian vendor as if it were a law. And luckily for me, it means that beautiful French things are available at 40% or 50% off across the board. It’s especially lucky because I’m having to reboot my wardrobe every 3 or so weeks right now. So that means, a) I’m not going to splurge on anything luscious and outrageous, because I’m not a normal shape or size, and b) this is a really inexpensive time to throw down some cash on some clothes that work for a preggo lady. It’s also a dangerous time to walk into a baby store.

My strategy for getting my solid walks each day has been to choose a destination, preferably far away, then use my feet to get there. Today’s goal was the Petit Bateau store on Rue Tronchet in the 8ème, right down the street from where I used to live. Petit Bateau is the über-French purveyor of extremely adorable baby clothes and oh-so-soft t-shirts for ladies. I used to live in their tops. They are luscious.

There are a dozen Petit Bateaus in Paris, but I wanted to go to the one on Rue Tronchet because it’s the one where I used to go when I lived here. It’s also where I bought little PB onesies for my cousin Thomas when he was born and my cousin Nick when he was just a little tike. It’s also just down the street from Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, and I wanted to swing in and see what the soldes were like in the grand magasins.

To get there requires that I walk up to the Seine through the 6ème, where I’m staying, and then cross over the river to the rive droite. I made the crossing at the Pont des Arts, and skipped into the courtyard of the Louvre rather than walking alongside the river on this cold and windy day. I continued on through the Tuileries, Arc de Triomphe in sight in the far distance at the end of the Champs Elysées, and then turned right a the Place de la Concorde, toward the Madeleine church. The Madeleine, a massive, impressive structure in the neo-classical style, was also my Metro stop when I lived here. Rue Tronchet runs straight out of its back.

I had only bought one thing for the baby so far—a cute little otter onesie that Chris and I got at the Christmas market. But Petit Bateau was like crack cocaine. Up until today I’d been fretting that little boy things aren’t nearly as cute as little girl things. Within 2 minutes I had baby clothes dripping from my arms. I then exercised extremely good self control, putting everything back except for a little pack of so-soft onesies for 3-month olds, a cute pair of striped leggings for 6 months, and an itty-bitty newborn onesie that I’d like to put the baby in on Day 1. I am very proud of myself. And, thanks to the soldes, the whole thing cost a pittance. So much gratification for so few dollars.

I carried on up the street to Printemps which, along with Galeries Lafayette and the Bon Marché, is one of the three grands magasins of Paris—the original department stores upon which the fantasies and luxuries of women were built 150 years ago.

Printemps is completely inaccessible if you’re not filthy rich. Or, apparently, Korean. I don’t spend much time in cities any more, so I don’t know what’s going on with Korea and its economy. Or maybe they just love high fashion. But the whole store was full of Koreans, maps and signs were in Korean, and there was a “Korean welcoming service” on the bottom floor. Clearly something is working out for them.

I always feel incredibly lucky and wealthy in my life, and rarely pine for money. The exception to that is when you put me in a building full of designer clothes. I love designer clothes. I seem to have an uncanny ability to gravitate toward 1,600€ skirts printed with orchids, or hand-beaded gowns that fall to the floor and are made by 20 half-blind children somewhere very poor that sell for 4,000€. When I’m in a place like Printemps all I can think about is winning the lottery, or writing a really fabulously successful book, or seven. That get made into blockbusters. I would like, one day, to walk into the flagship Ralph Lauren store and just buy it all.

In the meantime, it’s a pleasure to look. There are some truly, truly beautiful clothes out there. And lots of Korean women here in Paris to buy them.

Speaking of beautiful, I had a great outing to the marché in the wee freezing hours of the morning. The lovely fromagière helped me find cheeses that are safe in pregnancy, and my refrigerator now has that lovely reek when I open it. Ah, France.

And finally, in the closing hours of my outing I hopped the Metro to get home. (This was after 7 miles of walking, mind you.) Two things I’ve delighted in noticing on the Metro are these: 1) The proportion of people staring at their phones is far lower than in the United States. 2) Instead of staring at their phones, people are reading. Reading REAL BOOKS. This includes, in particular, young people. (I’m sure they’re studying, but still.) Anyway, a man in his 30’s got on the Metro and stood next to me. And he was reading Albert Camus. L’Etranger. For real. It was fabulous. J’adore.

Goodnight from beautiful Paris. Everything here is just as perfect as it ever was.