paris diaries, vol. vi

There are mice that sneak through the ivy. Not rats, though I’m sure they are there too. I saw these mice one day as I was sitting on a chair in the Luxembourg Gardens, reading until I was distracted by a rustle, leading me to look down and make eye contact with a little mouse looking up at me from the ivy. The mouse reminded me of smaller things, things we often overlook.

Today, I have been reminded of the poem “Late Ripeness” by Czeslaw Milosz. I’m not sure where I first read it, perhaps it’s in the stack of clippings in my room from the New Yorker, or I saw it on Pinterest and pinned it to my board titled “words.” Or I, quite possibly, heard one of my professors quote it and I then took it for my own. However I found it, it is now saved as one of my bookmarks online, and something today pushed me to reread it.

I am sitting in a Starbucks at the moment, nothing romantic or cutely French. The sound of the espresso machine behind me has become a background noise–something I can hear over my playlist. I hear the drip of the espresso filling little espresso glasses and the milk as air shoots through it, creating frothy foam to be poured over the tops of lattes. Smelling the ground coffee gives me this particular feeling, the one of being comforted, but feeling like you’re missing something and it is very obviously creating some kind of void in the caverns of your insides. Do you know what I mean? It makes me feel like I should have a latte in hand (which I did, until I drank it all), while wearing a coat and scarf, sitting on the bank of the Seine, reading poetry.

I’m aware that not everyone has that specific desire when the smell of coffee hits their nostrils or the air coolly carries leaves, despite the weight of the rain falling from the sky. For some, the smell of coffee acts like Pavlov’s dog’s bell, telling them to do a certain thing or reminding them of something they should do.

Regardless of someone’s different reaction to these things I mention, my own reaction led me to search up Poetry Foundation online, which then pushed me to read some of my favorite poems. I nearly teared up at William Wordworth’s “Daffodils,” was transported to a class I had last spring by Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” started to reevaluate my choices and hardened heart with Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.” Then I rediscovered the poem I mentioned earlier, “Late Ripeness,” as I opened my list of bookmarked poems on Safari.

The theme of “dwelling” has been on my mind recently. As I live my last month in Paris, I begin to dwell in the memories I have created, dwell in the comfort of a park I frequent, dwell in the warmth of a hot latte in my hands. In this Starbucks, I dwell in the text of my art history textbook, putting myself in the world of Neoclassical artists, looking back at Baroque and forward towards Impressionism. Walking to the metro stop on my street, I dwell in the rush of wind pushing me as I descend the steps into the underground station; I dwell in the sound of my Navigo pass successfully admitting me through the turnstile. Dwelling in the message of the book I’m reading, or the poem that pops into my head that I haven’t thought about in ages.

Here in Paris, I find it easy to be torn between borderline-homesickness and an extreme desire to stay here forever, 90 days be darned. Life in Oldham County is vastly different from life here. At home, I see far more fields and far fewer sidewalks. At night in Paris, windows of apartment buildings glow yellow and the sky is painted a rich deep blue, infected with light pollution. Something I didn’t anticipate when I came here was the sky at night. I thought that all I would see is that deep blue, never completely dark like it can get at home. I didn’t think I would see as many stars as I do. But I do see them. I lean outside of my dorm window and crane my neck up at the sky, looking at those same stars that would be visible in a few hours from my bedroom window at home. In that, I dwell. The stars I see here are the same ones my parents will see when they go outside at night to stand in the fresh air, talking to the stray cats that have adopted our family and waiting for our dog to finish her duties. When I get home, I will look at the stars and remember the nights that I looked up at the sky in Paris, looking for connecting constellations.

Maybe I’m simply feeling nostalgic today, or the feeling that the smell of coffee and the temperature of the rain-scented air outside is creating a stream of words from my brain to the keys of my laptop. Or maybe I am at the point in the semester that I realize my time in Paris will soon come to an end. In 28 days I will travel to London for a few days before heading home, and I will have officially shed myself of Paris and the content that fills these Paris Diaries. But will physically removing myself from Paris, from France, be a marking separation that creates a mental void between me and this city I have called home for two months now? I hate to look at the future like this, but I think this time I can excuse it. It’s like, maybe I can start grieving this time now, because I know I will when I get home. But in this kind of grief, am I able to both grieve and fully enjoy the time I have left? I think I can answer it for myself, but nonetheless I feel the impending departure slowly affects me, no matter how often I shut down one of my friends when they begin to acknowledge aloud how soon we will return to our homes in other countries.

I'm sure that these sadder thoughts about the end of my time here are a result of the weather, or possibly the sad playlist that I am studying to, or was studying to, I guess. But these feelings, without looking at what prompted them to surface at this moment, are simply a part of studying abroad here. It's a bit unfortunate that I'm only here for three months: it's enough time to settle in but not enough time to feel content that I've done or seen enough. I'm sure that once I get home, I'll write another blog post very similar to the first one I wrote in June, encapsulating the tumultuous feelings that accompany the transition of moving home after being at school. Except this time around, I will be leaving a little more behind that I cannot revisit the following semester.

I know this blog post was slightly more solemn than most of my Paris Diaries posts have been, but like I stated previously, it's apart of my time here. And I want to share those lows, even when those "lows" are just being sad about leaving soon.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and hope even more that you will take a minute to read "Late Ripeness," which I have attached the link to at the bottom of this post. Thank you for reading, either my post or possibly Milosz's poem. A bientôt.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49453/late-ripeness