On Being Alone in Paris and Finding My Way
By: Suzanne Falter
Tags: Self Improvement, Short Story, Paris

There is a certain vulnerability that comes with travel that can bring you to your knees.

I’m talking about that cold, stiff breeze of unfamiliarity that settles in once you’ve arrived, looked around and dropped your bag. You don’t know these people. You barely speak their language. You realize you are are far from home.

So I found myself this week alone and forlorn in the most beautiful city in the world.

When I was younger, I could fling open the windows of the dingiest garret in Paris, and feel utterly alive and on fire. This mood would last for the entire visit. But now in my mid-fifties, things are different. Paris brings out my tristesse.

I notice myself ruminating more as I walk the streets. I’ve seen the colorful shirt haberdasher before, and his stack of men’s shirts covered with everything from peppermint candies to taxidermy. And I’ve seen the winsome toddlers, dressed in perfect little biker jackets and powder blue Uggs.

I’ve also seen the look in the French man’s eye as he gazes across the table on a Sunday afternoon at the blonde he’s just climbed out of bed with. His love is both measured and mercurial. Love mixed with just a hint of distraction.

Paris puts me in the mood to feel. Or perhaps, because I’m in Paris, I’m finally free to feel.

I can untie the parcel of woes that follow me through my days, but never get opened for one reason or another. I find I can have a really good cry here. Because now I am a stranger in a strange land, emotions pour through me that I never would expect.

Perhaps this is the point.

In an instant, I miss my partner with a deep stab to the heart. I look at her picture and feel all undone. Who thought this was a good idea, this traveling alone? I mourn my daughter, now dead three years, and I long to sit and eat breakfast with my son. I even miss the squeak in my office chair.

But eventually, because I am a grown up, I rise from my maelstrom and go out the door. I’m decide to do something good for myself, like yoga. I will go find my people, I tell myself determinedly.

Instead, I stumble into a swirl of Sunday afternoon Parisians, all milling about an ancient cobblestoned street lined with fashionable shops. They hobnob in their down jackets and jeans with the air of people at a really good cocktail party. Come join us, they seem to say — Fashion est tres important, n’est-ce pas?

This is what Sunday in Paris is really for, I realize. Or at least it is today.

So I slide right in, and find myself trying on big, soft interesting sweaters and perfect little cotton tops. A woman with searing red hair, leopard leggings and I.M. Pei glasses stops cold in front of me. She rattles off several phrases in French, which I do not follow.

“English?” she says. I nod.

“This one looks tres, tres better … much, much better than the other one.” I look in the mirror. She is right. She holds another garment up appraisingly and looks me up and down. “No, no, no …” she mutters, shaking her head. “Too pale.” She looks genuinely concerned.

In that instant, I return to the bosom of Paris. Just one moment in the radical heart of this place can turn everything around. When I am here, I realize, I do indeed belong here.

I buy my sweater and my perfect little cotton top and head out the door into the afternoon, ready to do business once more.

I have arrived.