On Moving

As expected, no one in my family flinched when I informed them that my husband Geoff and I were moving to Paris.  They understood the importance of shifting scenery, and I’m sure they doubted its permanence. Geoff’s grandmother,  on the other hand, who still lives in the same house where she raised her children over 50 years ago, cried when we left.  It was impossible for her to imagine such a move as anything but permanent. 

The question I couldn’t answer is why we were moving.   For most of the human race, moving is an exhausting upheaval to be encountered as infrequently as possible.  For my husband and I, it is something done regularly on a whim.  I wondered whether we were running from or to something.  Well, what better place to figure that out than Paris?

I took on the task of finding an apartment, just as I would in any other city – reading ads in newspapers, researching the internet, asking advice from locals, and seeing places with my own eyes.  I set out equipped with high school broken French.  Imagine my surprise, when several times, my "Parlez-vous anglais?" returned a firm "non."  After a string of disappointing leads, we found ourselves with only one more night in our hotel and no prospect for a home.  Then my husband discovered a service which helps English-speaking newcomers find a wonderful apartment for an absurd fee.  Perfect!  And that was how we met Sylvia. 

Seventy-something, although you’d never guess it, dressed in an elegant salmon colored skirt suit and measuring a petite 5-feet in spiked heels, Sylvia awaited us outside the apartment she owned near Saint Michel.  She had an impressive tan and short blond hair which further enhanced her youthful appearance. She told us how she had gone to buy some gum and the salesman asked, "Why are you buying gum? You’re French."  But actually Sylvia wasn’t French born, she was Colombian. She spoke Spanish, French and English all as native languages.

Sylvia led us through the apartment. I had looked at the pictures online and suspected that the ceilings were not high enough. I was right. As we continued the tour, I realized another drawback.  Although there were lots of windows, there was no view.  The floors were a bit slanted – of course, what do you expect from a building several hundred years old?   The apartment was what we’d call in New York "pre-war." Except rather than WWII, in Paris, this could apply to the French Revolutionary War.   Still, it was a palace compared to what we had seen previously.  We decided to take it.

The next day, Sylvia readied the paperwork as she chewed on a brown cigarette.  Meanwhile, we wrestled our enormous luggage up the stairs.  The lease “packet” was approximately 50 pages, including photos of everything in the apartment – from the furniture to the inside of the closets (and contents) to the tops and bottoms of every pot in the apartment. She also had created homemade manuals for every appliance and utility including the single unit washer/dryer and the stove/dishwasher (strangely, also one unit).

After Sylvia double-kissed us goodbye, we were left alone in the apartment. And that’s when the malaise set in.  The past year we had spent extremely task-oriented, moving three times in 10 months.  But suddenly, there was no next step.  We had packed up all our possessions, stuffed them into storage, and fled our life.  We accomplished the task of getting here, for what?  Or to quote Geoff’s favorite saying (usually uttered at 4 am after dinner and the rounds to 3 NY bars), "What’s next?"

Suddenly the apartment seemed very close and we worried – had we  picked the wrong place?  I craned my neck out the bedroom window to catch a tiny patch of  sky.  My panic took the form of a hollow ache – like a terrible moan in your gut that something is wrong, but you just don’t know what.  Geoff’s complaint was more tangible.  The culprit – last night’s steak tartare.  Why had we done this to ourselves? 

We tried to relax by spending most of the next day resting in a shady patch of grass in the Bois de Boulogne, but we were welcomed home with the same empty feeling. It wasn’t getting better.

The following Monday was the first weekday in our new apartment and our first day of language classes at L’Alliance Francaise. It felt like the beginning of something.  After class, I headed to the apartment of our new landlords, Sylvia and René. We still owed them about 1,000 euros, which I needed to hand-deliver.

Sylvia, wonderfully made-up and decked out in a sharp suit and heels, greeted me with two kisses. René shook my hand. René, a distinguished 70ish man with a soft deep voice, was born in Egypt and came to France as a young boy. He spoke fluent French, English and Arabic – perhaps more. He adored France and preferred speaking French, which we did, more for a lark than for communication. Once we got down to the interesting stuff, it had to be in English, unfortunately.

I immediately felt at ease with them. They were so sad Geoff didn’t come and I explained that he had a business call.  Sylvia said, perhaps he is finished now and we can call him to come over? Not wanting to give his illness as another excuse, I encouraged her to call him.  I knew he would love their apartment, which was richly decorated with antiques and art. On the glass coffee table, there was a combination of cheeses, olives and crackers interspersed with a collection of several small crucifixes from dismembered churches. Sylvia called Geoff and gave him the directions.

René poured the drinks – a mixture of Cassis and something else sweet, and we sat down. They both immediately wanted to know my background. They wanted to know my parents’ occupations and where I grew up. So I gave them my abbreviated life story. They shared all the countries that they had lived in – clearly, they had wealth, but they had not always lived in easy circumstances.  Sylvia had once fled a war-torn country with her two children, leaving her home and life behind.

Geoff arrived and we switched to drinking red wine, and sat down and talked some more. Part fiery South American and part opinionated Parisian, Sylvia percolated with excitement on every topic. With her, there was no subtext. It was completely clear what she thought about everything, and about you.

Of course, for me this was no problem. I’ve been well-trained in the art of speaking loudly and interrupting often, so I can chew the fat with the best of them. René, either by nature or as a result of his years with Sylvia, had a quiet way about him. I found myself trying to engage him with questions so that he could get a word in, although his silence was not due to any lack of opinions. He wanted to know – why did we come to France? I told him that I guessed we were Francophiles. He said he didn’t know there were any of those left, especially in America. Geoff responded that any country of people who have created over 400 kinds of cheese might hold some key to life. René understood.

Over the next several hours, we covered every topic from family to politics to the relationship between France and America, and the misunderstandings between the two. In this one evening, we had soared straight out of our malaise. We had opened up to new people with novel experiences and ideas. And suddenly it felt that we were part of something. It reminded me of the tingling sensation I would often get walking down the street in New York – when the rush of people and traffic made me feel connected to the world. Although I was small, I was here and I was part of it. This evening was exactly the type of rare experience I couldn’t have wished for because I didn’t know I longed for it. But the rush of philosophies unfurled more questions. We didn’t know why we were here, nor where the world was headed. But we knew we were willing to explore it all, and that was a start.

And it was at that precise moment that I realized the answer to why we have moved to Paris.  It isn’t to see the sights or eat great food or learn the language – although we enjoy doing all of these things. It is to learn how to live day to day, savoring each moment as the ethereal gift it is.