I ate my salad standing up, as I watched my steak gristle in the pan with the butter, onions, and mushrooms that I had tossed in. A TEDxtalk played on my phone next to me as I watched my sizzling meat, glancing over every now and then to see the charts that the speaker was referring to on the screen. The talk ended about the time I removed my meat from the pan, placing it on the waiting plate off to the side, and I decided that this was the kind of dinner I wanted to sit down for.
I took a little bite of the meat and mushrooms and realized something was missing. I covered the plate again with the lid of the frying pan and quickly threw on my coat and boots. I figured if I was going to eat a gourmet dinner, I may as well go all out. So I decided to walk to the Franprix up the street to get cheese and a bottle of wine (a cliché I haven’t yet indulged in in the three weeks that I’ve been back in France) and then stop in to get a fresh pain cereal (loaf of multigrain bread) from the boulangerie on the corner.
I didn’t leave the apartment during the day, so the little walk to the store was just enough of an outing to make me feel at least a little productive, and I suddenly had more patience than usual for the throngs of people pouring through the street by my apartment.
As I made the five minute walk to the store, I immediately began weaving around the ladies with the massive strollers and the older women who recklessly drag their grocery carts behind them. As I turned the corner of my street to head up toward the grocery store, I passed by the prostitutes who had already resumed their posts for the night, and I maneuvered my way around two men buying roasted peanuts on the sidewalk from one of the vendors with his portable stove (or small fireplace, really). On the main street nearest the metro, I walked in the road, as out of the way of cars as possible, in order to avoid the chaos of the shouting vendors selling Lyca mobile cards and knock-off watches and bags. I smelled the butcher before I could even see the goat heads, intestines, pigs feet, and tripe hanging at the front of his shop, and I heard the loud chatter of a group of ladies speaking their tribal language as I approached the crosswalk. Living in the African quarter is never dull.
As I returned home, I smiled to myself a little as I worked my way back through the chaos, content with my purchases and amused by the fact that the five minute walk between my apartment and the grocery store holds so much life. I glanced inside the colorful shops that sell weave, coconut oil, and dried fish all in the same place on one side of the street, and then peered over at a vegetable stand where a man haggled over the price of a cabbage. I paused for a second to look in the window of a beauty salon where a woman select her weave, surprised at how many people were packed into such a tiny space, and that they were so busy at 5:30pm. The liveliness of the street was so amusing to me after a day spent inside that I could hardly be bothered when a woman sorting through a bucket of okra accidentally bumped me with her rear end before hitting me with her grocery cart.
The outing itself only lasted about 15 minutes, but I came home energized by the diversity and electricity of my neighborhood. People often ask me what it was that brought me back to Paris after I finished school, and I always try to explain what it is about the city that makes me love it so much. Describing what I love most about Paris isn’t easy for me, though, because I catch myself falling in love with Paris for new reasons all the time. While I’m still enamored by the romance and charm of the French culture and language, and I still adore the architecture and endless lack of activities that this city has to offer, there’s something a little deeper that makes Paris a wonderland to me. I can’t quite explain it or put my finger on it, but as I sit down in my cozy little apartment to enjoy my butter-grilled steak with a glass of Bordeaux, listening to the quick exchange of Arabic conversation and bursts of laughter of my neighbors below, I feel extremely content. Despite being at the center of a neighborhood overflowing with smells and sounds and life, I’m tucked away in the calm of my apartment feeling right at peace; I’m home again.
The Transition Artist 