Family In Paris: Five Days in the City of Lights

“There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other…. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.”
—Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 1960

Hemingway wrote A Moveable Feast forty years after his epochal stay in France, 1921-1926, glory days he rendered with romance and gravitas. Planning to read Feast in Paris six months ago, I didn’t get to it until laid up with COVID in December, citing the marathon and Gotham’s simultaneous reopening last fall. After traveloguing our month in the south prior to Paris, I had also abandoned my last dispatch from the kids’ maiden voyage to France, an open end that has pained me.

Thanks to Feast, I felt it was not too late to look back on the children’s and my impressionable visit last September. If, at the end of his life, Hemingway had chosen Paris for the best of his last thoughts and words, our time there felt newly worth my hindsight. The bright side of waiting? Reliving our memories has been a sweet digestif to our own moveable feast.

Fans of Maison Kayser in NYC, we were very sad to see them all close during COVID. So his spot at the Louvre’s doorstep was a welcome sight indeed!

MAKING AN ENTRANCE

We arrived in dramatic fashion after an unholy TGV from Aix the last day before “la rentrée,” when all of France’s youth goes back to school. We got the three last seats and were spread apart, so in order not to sit unsettlingly far from each other and our things, we snuck cramped seats almost in reach. It was a ghastly ride on the storied speed train, with an excess of passengers playing their devices on speakerphone and eating with zeal—apparently not unique to New York’s subway.

We exited the Gare de Lyon like bats out of hell, high on stretched legs, survival, cityness, and the last leg of our adventure. We got in the taxi queue and within seconds a spastic Cordelia hurled my backpack holding a souvenir bottle of RinQinQuin à la Pèche. The bag sprang a syrupy alcoholic leak, a highly visible and fragrant ordeal. No garbages in sight, we entertained the line with attempts to contain our drama, then dragged the mix of crushed glass and booze to our lucky cab. The driver was atypically cheery. He wrapped it in a towel in his trunk and told us not to worry. A silver lining of pandemic travel: even Parisians are so hungry for tourists they aim to please!

Arriving at our Airbnb apartment circa 10pm, I had no idea what we’d be walking into and zero backup plan. For the price (suspiciously low) and location (prestige), I was just glad it wasn’t like something out of La Bohème. It held the first bedroom I’d had to myself in a month and LAUNDRY!! The catch became apparent the next day after sunrise and we couldn’t tell; it was dark as a cave. No matter, who stays home in Paris? On the edge of the 8th and 16th arrondissements, it was a terrific location for reaching “quoi qu’il faut” by foot or occasional car, prompting constant Seine sightings that never ceased to thrill.

9/2 DAY ONE: PRIVATE ORSAY TOUR

But Paris would go on to feel like less of a thrill than a natural second home, which made me happiest of all. We awoke to coffee in various forms, the relics of previous guests, but could find no maker. So began the Parisian chapter of my morning hunt for espresso and croissants. We were nearly tired of pastry but resolved to finish strong. The only thing on our calendar was a private tour at the Musée d’Orsay, a gift from a friend. Tired of schedules and rushing, I would have happily taken the kids alone, but out we went for their first walking tour of la belle ville, past the Avenue du Président Wilson and the Flame of Liberty replica just above where Diana died.

Little did I know what joy an expert museum tour would bring. Our guide and now friend, Sandrine Voillet, is a renowned art historian and television presenter possessed of a humble calm and substantive passion for art. I instantly adored her, and we talked a mile a minute while trying to hold the kids’ attention with something other than the nudes. Unlike the Louvre (or MET), the Orsay is a manageable museum, but having Sandrine added a layer of insider depth and anecdotal delight that I recommend all museum-goers try.

The time flew, and we said warm au revoirs/adieux in the literal senses: god willing, we would see each other again. The kids and I hoofed the mile back home along the Seine, and I realized what great walkers they had become. We changed for dinner, took a “digi break” (me work, them Minecraft) and wandered back out till we found a bistro that looked “correct.” Our first Paris dinner was decent and overpriced with very friendly service. We contentedly called it a night.

9/3 DAY TWO: LOUVRE, playdate, and mommy gets her groove back

I had to start marathon training again. It had been ten days since I bothered trying to run in uneven Aix, and 11/7 was starting to loom. I was endlessly behind on work and had to get the kids out of our cave—dark all day long I now knew—but I needed to squeeze in a run. I had trained in Banyuls up to ten miles and regressed but was trying to stay calm; I would catch back up. I ran four miles and felt more like myself, ready for the main reason we had tacked Paris onto Provence: friends.

As we planned our itinerary over many months of research and dreams, we had learned that a number of our friends would be overlapping with us—the real Frenchies who make annual trips (pandemics aside) to family members back home. There were also those moving back to France after long stints in the States. After a month of mommy time and brief camp friendships, my kids were hungry for young familiar faces and could not wait to see their schoolmates. For me, it was something of a fake-French dream come true, playing local like I regularly pop about Paris meeting up with friends. But the high of reunions was tinged with the pain of good-byes. In the smaller COVID classrooms, William had bonded with his French peers like never before. And after many years in dual-language school and all these years working on French together, my own immersion and acceptance into the New York French circles felt on a new level, a silver lining of so much lost school that has meant the world to me.

But prior to seeing friends, we had one cultural mission: The Louvre and my list of greatest hits that the children had to see. They, on the other hand, just wanted to see friends. I could have scripted their Mona Lisa Underwhelm, which should be the name of a condition. (I wrote my college-entrance essay about my own similar reaction in 1996; there is no way for her to measure up!) The kids should not have complained, however, as with pandemic-thin crowds they got closer to her than anyone in decades. Still, she is neutral and small and, bragging rights aside, they just couldn’t be impressed alongside such wall-sized masterpieces of crownings, beheadings, and the like. In contrast, Winged Victory moved me to tears and sufficiently impressed the kids—her soaring profile, her perfect condition at age 2,211, the individual quest for personal triumph that she embodies. And of course, their appropriate Nike branding.

Patience was rewarded at Parc Monceau, where a friend who’d spent the pandemic in France, near grandparents as we’d done in Wisconsin, was being surprised. The reunion took on an hysterical nature as everyone reacquainted on new soil after a passage of time that felt eternal to kids. After several manic hours, we extracted protesting children for our independent dinner plans, which in my case meant hopefully ditching them for my own night out.

I had checked the schedule for 38 Riv, a Marais jazz club tucked into a 12th Century cave that Bret and I had stumbled on over my 40th weekend. It was a gem, and I’d dreamed of it since. That visit of 2019, a wonderful import from Chicago had performed, and this time Monika Kabasele, a Greek and Congolese woman, would be presenting Grecofuturism, her own invention, singing in Greek and French. My other dearest language and culture merging with French through a beautiful young singer, I couldn’t believe my luck.

For the entire trip, I’d been threatening in my head to steal a few evening hours for myself. Pop out after they fell asleep…only right next door of course…for a little late-night writing session…and what else, I had to wonder? What’s a married mom to do who is nostalgic for being 20 in France? Have my first cigarette in years while marathon training? Make some new friends? I really thought I was going to scratch that itch in Aix with a good friend from 1999 who lives there still, but between parenting and work, I never even saw him (I’m still so sorry, Nitin!).

But my new jazz plan felt inspired. Monika had an 8-10pm set, door to door I’d be out 7:30-10:30. I pulled myself a little more than together, started the kids on a movie, and left them for, candidly, two of the best hours I can remember. We’d had a great day, they were safe and happy, and I took a cab to the Marais, showed my ticket and vax card, then descended the stairs that Bret and I’d taken two years prior; I could feel him with me. I spectated alone with a little too much zeal, all but joining her onstage when she invited audience participation (from our seats). Without kids at home, I would have stayed for the next set, and the next…

Mais ça suffisait. It was more than sufficient. I cabbed safely and absurdly happily home, high on independence and art, to William and Cordelia, who, of course, were still awake. Mission accompli.

9/4 DAY THREE: MONTMARTRE AND MINECRAFT

My Paris goals were decreasingly ambitious. The next day I mustered a five-mile run, then we walked much of the way to and from Montmartre, which I thought would impress the kids. I liked walking as if to imprint Paris on us, and it seemed to work. Our most interesting sight was watching an ancient, bent-double Père move impossibly slowly down the aisle. It became apparent he was headed to the confession booth, where a short line waited. This sparked quite an interesting conversation with the children, whose religious formation amounts to being baptized in the Episcopal Church to please my grandparents. They were unfamiliar with confession, and the notion of guaranteed forgiveness, no matter how serious the crime, took a fair amount of explaining.

That night I hosted the parting schoolmates for a pizza-and-Minecraft playdate in our dark little apartment. My American contribution as their time together waned along with our collective steam. It was heartwarming to host like locals, with the same amount of digi-fueled mania, no yard, and poor Cordelia fighting for dear life to be included. Home sweet home.

9/5 DAY FOUR: L’ORANGERIE

The next day, our second to last, contained a major win. We had tried to book L’Orangerie, and I was crushed to find it “sold out.” (Free Fridays are also reservations only, travelers beware!) My mom and I had had a disastrous trip to L’Orangerie in 2000, an expensive cab only to find it closed for two years due to those renovations. I couldn’t face defeat again and told the kids we’d just walk there and see. A “travel takeaway” I wrote about for SteamLine Luggage: don’t always take no for an answer…and never underestimate the power of playing dumb. “Oh no we’re just crushed, I didn’t realize, okay, I understand, of course if there is any room left from no-shows, as these little kids and I just walked so far to get here on our last day in Paris, we’re happy to wait if that’s okay?” In we went!

To then see my kids experience the obvious awe I remember from 1996 and 2019, my two prior visits there, was memorable. Cordelia was so impressed she “needed some time alone,” and we lingered longer than they ever had at a museum before. We got in trouble sitting on the rail below, so much so that the guard made me delete the photo while she watched, but I had already texted it to my mom!

As if this wasn’t enough, we went downstairs to see the temporary exhibit, and stumbled onto a bounty that I hadn’t realized was there, overshadowed by Monet’s magic show upstairs. After art in Arles, Aix, and Paris thus far, the kids were dropping jaws of recognition at the Cezannes, Renoirs, and Picassos downstairs, among other new faces. It was too good to be true. We walked home and the day felt so successful, there was no need to go back out. We ordered sushi and switched on Gilmore Girls, something we all agreed on.

9/6 DAY FIVE: Farewell au Tour Eiffel

The main event of our last day in France was William’s friend Thomas’s late birthday at the feet of the Eiffel Tower. I got my longest run yet out of the way, a grind of a 10K, as I was still learning how to run Paris and seemed to have a knack for getting stuck on cobbly quais, followed by birthday present shopping. The Lego Store was located in Les Halles, which introduced us to the second arrondissement with its nice family vibe. I’d love to stay there next time (unless of course I’m otherwise engaged in Le Marais).

The birthday was a poignant gathering of trading places: two French kids, who hadn’t lived in France since they were toddlers, were starting new schools the next day, while William and Thomas were headed back to New York, Thomas after spending lockdown in France. Following seven years at the same dual-language elementary, they would be starting a new dual-language middle school. We all believed we’d see each other again, but when remains unknown. This fact hung in the air over us as we compared notes on our pandemics, summers, and plans.

CONCLUSION: PACKING AND PETERING OUT

With an intense day of travel ahead, we said good-bye and began our journey back to Harlem. Giverny, the Gogh brothers’ graves, Millet’s stomping ground, Versailles…all my further-flung plans for our Paris chapter had gone by the wayside of late starts and other life-travel maintenance, namely trying to resurrect Gotham’s old Instagram account after being locked out. It was like a reverse Emily in Paris, me speaking the language of France but not social media, and about to open a restaurant that once had 20K followers and now had none. Vetting that “tech attack,” the joy was being drawn from my last hours, and lest resentment or overwhelm carry the day, I simplified and prioritized from one hour to the next.

We had one final goal, to see Napoleon’s tomb, a consolation for having missed his palace. After mismanaging our bellies and time, a late lunch landed us at Les Invalides just after they closed at 5. No matter. A photo out front would do it. We were toast. French toast. We lumbered home past the Rodin museum that we added to a future list and past spireless Notre Dame, recalling the indelible image of the burning wonder, knowing it will be a great day when service is held there again. Confession, too.

Another mediocre brasserie, a little packing left, and that was a wrap. Five weeks in France, five days in Paris. A Paris that we all now knew, in our own private ways that memory and nostalgia will continue to clarify and twist, until next time.