My Favorite Things

So much of the joy of living somewhere consists of the small things. So small we never could have predicted them. Yet they're the things we miss the most when we leave a place.

When I moved to San Francisco, the first thing I missed was Southwestern food. With a father from Roswell, New Mexico, the state with the hottest Mexican food I've ever tasted, I was raised from toddlerhood to love the kind of food that would require a stomach transplant for a Midwesterner. I learned to replace it to some degree with Thai food, but my first request every time I go home is always to go to our family's longtime favorite hole-in-the-wall for a good Sonoran enchilada. For those of you who have not had the pleasure: tortillas stacked like pancakes, layered with cheese and green onion, covered in hot red chili sauce and topped with a fried egg. Its essence is beyond description.

When I moved to Palo Alto, I missed the homeless fights on line 38 of the MUNI, ordering Thai at 2 am, good karaoke, drinking as much as I wanted without worrying about driving home, and the pleasure of flâner, which the city introduced me to for the first time. One stumbles upon things in San Francisco; one discovers. And now that I'm in Paris, where Neutral reigns queen, I miss the weird and fearless fashion.

And of course, I miss now the luxury of making business calls, reading bills, ordering food and asking for directions in my native language. I have dreams sometimes in which I understand every word that is said around me, in which I don't have to dredge up the word for, and the word for, and the equivalent phrase for, and and and. Yet it's not bewildering anymore, not in the way it was, and the dreams seem part of a world that has largely vanished. Being foreign is part of my life now. I live comfortably with frustration; I've developed that blend of humility and patience that acts as its antibody.

Although at two months in I feel it entirely possible and desirable, I'm ultimately too restless, I think, to stay in Paris forever. So I wonder what I'll miss.

Here are some guesses.
I

Going to the boulangerie.

My boulangerie is right on the corner of my tiny street; twice or three times a week, I stop by on the way home for a loaf of bread that will serve me as a side for soup, a bed for cheese, breakfast toast and a palette for sandwiches for the next two days--although, to be honest, I can't always make it last that long.

As I type, I'm pulling off bits of a cold Tradition: a crustier, denser, more flavorful version of the classic white baguette. I went at an off hour, around five, so it was only me and my boulangère, a blonde in her mid-forties, in the long and narrow shop front. But my favorite time to come is around seven or eight, when the light pours out onto the street and the line forms along the bakery counter. The boulangère has a helper then, who helps manage the line of people buying their baguettes for dinner. As I file past, I look at the pastries and brioches that I always mean to order someday but never do, and I watch through the window behind the register as the bakers work.

Loaves fly off the shelves as the orders come in. Everyone knows and follows the script. Bonsoir, Madame, Monsieur? Une demi-baguette, une tradition, une tradition céréale, s'il vous plaît. Avec ceci? Ça sera tout. Un euro dix, s'il vous plaît. Voilà, merci, bonne soirée. Bonsoir? Children whose mothers have sent them down ask for three baguettes cut into demis and drop their change into the little wooden trough provided for the purpose. Everyone has change ready. I've readied mine and am jingling it in my pocket. Un euro dix. Céréale, un euro vingt. Baguette, quatre-vingts-cinq centimes; demi, quarante-deux. Traditions are slipped into a narrow sack; baguettes are wrapped in white paper, laid down diagonally, corners secured with a twist.

When the rotation is that fast, the bakers drop big baskets filled with fresh hot loaves at the counter. The orders change; everyone wants what's freshest.

I walk out with a tradition in a paper sleeve so hot it warms my hands like a coffee cup. As soon as I turn the corner, I bite off the end. There is nothing in the world that tastes as good.


II

The Métro.

I use it to commute now. It should hold no magic for me. The lines I use most often, the 12 and the 10, are nothing fancy; it's not like the 4, with its Art Nouveau station entrances, or the 1, with its state-of-the-art cars. They're just your basic rattling, mint-green, stained-and-worn-seated trains. And yet--there's such pleasure in running down the steps to catch one as you see a stream of people climbing like salmon from your direction. Slipping in just before--or just as!--the buzzer rings and the doors slide shut.

Most times of day that I travel, one can sit: either on the inner chairs that face each other, placed just close enough that one has to negotiate knee-space with the person opposite one; or on one of the fold-down chairs that must be sacrificed during rush hour to accommodate the volume of standing people. These are ordinarily in twos, but my favorite place to sit is the lone foldout in the corner of each car, next to a fire ladder or extinguisher. One can read, put on makeup (sometimes I wake up late, all right? sheesh...), write, eavesdrop, without worrying about one's elbows or one's coat invading a neighbor's space--and vice versa.

Between my stop, Convention on line 12, and my transfer for school, Sèvres-Babylone, there's a consistent cast of characters. One man gets on at Notre-Dame-Des-Champs, makes his way through the car begging loudly, and hops off at the next stop, Rennes. An accordionist occasionally gets on at around Pasteur and alights at Montparnasse-Bienvenüe, where I'm sure--with a train station and several arterial Métro lines--there's more money to be made.

Occasionally, when I don't need to be anywhere in a hurry, I decide my route--most destinations offer more than one--based on which Métro station performers I want to hear that day.

The stations, of course, are all different as well. Montparnasse and Châtelet, two of the major hubs of the RATP system, are large and labyrinthine and not relaxing to be in alone at night. Cluny La Sorbonne has mosaic signatures of artistic and intellectual luminaries that spot the platform arch like constellations; the blue-and-white tiled walls of Concorde look like an enormous word search. Others, like the Louvre, have small installations to amuse waiting passengers. Corvisart, where I get off for choir, is above ground. I watch the 13e flash by in the dark as I rattle down the eastern half of line 6.

Mine, Convention, is pretty standard: guichet (ticket window), entrance and exit gates, and a single platform featuring large sections of rotating advertisements and posters for upcoming events and films.

But without doubt, my favorite part of the Métro, now that I have my Navigo pass, is to go through the line that has no place for tickets--just the smart chip sensor. I used to watch, entranced, as girls casually ran their bags over the sensor and walked through. Now I've figured out how to place the card on an outside pocket, smart chip down. And no matter how I'm dressed or how many times I've made a fool of myself that day, when I swipe my bag and the green arrows light up and I walk through that turnstile, I feel like a parisienne.


III

Being taken for a parisienne.

It doesn't happen very often. But now and then, especially when I'm wearing a skirt and tights and boots and scarf and coat, all in neutrals, I do sometimes get asked for directions. By French people. And these days, I can often give them.

But predictably, the people who most frequently take me for a local are American tourists.

Now, it must be said that I agree with David Sedaris, my fellow expat, when he says that an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American. And oh, mes puces, how I do judge them. Not the ones who are trying--I find that too close to home--but I can comfortably turn my nose up at the kind whose first question to a waiter or salesperson--in English!--is, "Do you speak English?"

That said, I have stepped in a couple of times to act as an interpreter when it is clear neither party has a speck of knowledge of the other language. I'm not even going to pretend I don't love it.

Just because I'm highlighting a Poche edition of a Proust volume that isn't Du Côté de Chez Swann doesn't mean I'm French. But I'm grateful to the people who make that mistake.


IV

Getting lost.

I don't truly get lost anymore. Not only do I have my iPhone to locate me; I also have a sense of the city. The street signs tell me which arrondissement I'm in--should I be so "lost" as to not know already--but I can see the city now in a way I couldn't before: as a nautilus, spiraling outward. I know which central arrondissement connects to each double-digit--3e to 11e, 5e to 13e--and can identify the basic neighborhoods for about two thirds of the Métro stops (and often the lines as well). It doesn't take long to get to know a city, especially one as fundamentally intuitive as Paris. It's not a grid system, but it certainly has a logic to it.

Which makes it much more fun to get lost. I'm not worried about not reaching my destination, or arriving very late because I haven't any idea of where I'm going.

It's not exactly the same as my flâner habit. One can't get lost while wandering for wandering's sake. Lost implies that you're looking for something.

So how does one get lost with a nose for cardinal directions and a sketched-in working knowledge of the city? Simple. Choose a location--preferably an exact address--and don't look at a map.

I have a book listing famous Parisian patisseries. Sometimes I'll look one up in an arrondissement where I'm going, write down the address only, and make a game of trying to find it. Often I don't--which is probably best. One must, after all, be careful of one's ligne. 


Then again, if I do find what I'm searching for, I feel a great sense of accomplishment. And likely, by the time I do, I've explored a half dozen things I never would have noticed if I weren't looking for something.

Perhaps that's why I'm here.