Café Life in Paris
By: Philippa Hughes
Tags: Travel Writing, Identity, Conversations, Paris, Travel

Café Life in Paris

Le Pré aux Clercs had been a favorite haunt of Hemingway, along with others of the Lost Generation and writers ever since who search for inspiration, or maybe just a strong drink. I imagine they went there to take a break from the grind and frustration of writing, or to find company in their misery. Maybe they critiqued each other’s work, or encouraged one another through the inevitable slumps and blocks. I’d hoped to capture a little of that magic by meeting my new friend and fellow writer David there for writing sessions. He’s a hopeless romantic about Paris like me.

Le Pré aux Clercs serves the basic Parisian breakfast of coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a choice of buttery croissant or pain au chocolat. I always choose the pain au chocolat, which isn’t as fresh as the one I usually get from the bakery around the corner from my apartment. A mediocre pain au chocolat in Paris is still pretty good, though. The coffee in France isn’t great, however, but I usually order a second cappuccino anyway because I feel guilty about lingering there for so long. Once we approach the third hour, the lunch crowd starts filling in every table and more people hover nearby waiting to be seated. I can’t drink more coffee so we order large glasses of Sancerre.

David had only just returned to Paris and was still adjusting to the time difference, so I arrived at the café before him. I staked out a small table with two seats facing the sidewalk and warmed up my writing muscles by scribbling thoughts and details of the previous day in my journal. I have noticed that writers often obsess over specific pens and notebooks and any deviation will upset the precarious balance of inspired writing versus wretched despair. I’d brought a box of Pilot Precise V7 rolling ball pens from home, which glide perfectly across the smooth surface of the Moleskine notebooks I prefer.

David and I sat elbow-to-elbow in wicker chairs at a small round bistro table crammed between more wicker chairs and small bistro tables filled with diners. We chatted about the writing habits of writers for a while. One of my favorite authors, Graham Greene, would write 500 words per day before he would allow himself to do anything else. He said that so much of the writer’s work happens in the subconscious. This is how I justify the amount of time I spend staring into space while walking around the city, or while sitting at the café.

After a while, we realized we’d been talking about writing more than we had actually been writing. We turned to our laptops and tapped at the keys until one of us would ask something like, why do you like Paris so much, or have you read this book or that book, and then launch into another conversation, procrastinating in the great tradition of writers everywhere. The lunch crowd started filling up the tables around us again. David announced that he’d written the introduction to his book. I sheepishly turned my laptop screen away from him so he couldn’t see that I’d spent an hour organizing the headings on the pages I’d written earlier in the week.

We decided to switch things up and meet one morning at Les Deux Magots, where the literary and intellectual élite of the city once rendezvoused in the heart of Saint Germain des Prés. Every time I have visited Paris, even when I had only a long layover on my way to Provence two years ago, I have visited the Deux Magots. A historical marker in front of the establishment says Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre drank there, and so would I.

This time, I cringed when I arrived. All I could hear was American English. Being surrounded by cafe chatter doesn’t bother me when I can’t understand the language. I can tune people out when I’m working in a coffee shop back home. My ear zeroes in on American when I am abroad, though, and it throws me off. I couldn’t concentrate. I never thought I could be annoyed at Les Deux Magots, but this time in Paris is different from every other time I’ve been here when I never stayed longer than a week. I feel like I live here now, and I don’t think real Parisians actually go to the Deux Magots anymore.

I walked back toward my apartment to another classic Parisian cafe, Les Antiquaires, where I’ve been trying to become a regular. It’s farther away from the more touristy parts of St. Germain and feels a little more like a neighborhood place. After splurging on a big lunch there on my first day in Paris, I returned for the reasonably-priced Parisian breakfast several times to establish my local cred. George works there every morning and no longer asks to see my vaccination card so I think I’m making progress.

Everyone around me was speaking French and I imagined they were my neighbors. A woman of a certain age wearing a chic gray dress embroidered subtly with large gray dots and a perfect chignon at the nape of her neck sits at a table nearby with her attentive silver fox husband. A younger woman wearing a beret and fitted pink dress with a subtle flower pattern sits at another table with a man wearing a blue and white striped t-shirt and white pants. They all look like extras in a movie set in Paris.

A group of people smoking endless cigarettes were sitting at the table in front of me debating something. They’d arrived about the same time as me and were still there when I left nearly two hours later. The French are really good at the art of conversation. I’ve spent time with three different French friends since I’ve been here, so I admit that my sample size is small. In the conversations I’ve had with these Parisians, though, I have noticed a few common characteristics that made them great conversationalists. They didn’t interrupt with little clarifying and non-pertinent questions that interrupted my thoughts, nor did they disrupt the flow with excessive verbal cues and head nodding. They asked follow up questions and shared impressions on what they’d heard me say rather than skipping to something they wanted to talk about. They offered opinions and critiques that didn’t feel like attacks when we disagreed. Maybe these skills have been honed over thousands of hours of café conversations.

Les Antiquaires was bigger than Le Pré aux Clercs so we could spread out our laptops and notebooks over two tables. It had been a quiet place to work when I first arrived in Paris, when everyone was still on vacation and the city had been empty and quiet. Last week, I started noticing more traffic and the restaurants becoming fuller. The Rue de Bac, though narrow, is a major thoroughfare. City buses and construction trucks roared down the little road, their side mirrors precariously close to the pedestrians walking along the narrow sidewalk. Drivers blasted their horns and motorcycles as they raced to the stop light. I’d forgotten my preferred pen at home that morning and couldn’t bring myself to borrow a different pen. I couldn’t write a thing. I left there feeling dejected and frustrated at having written so little.