Constant Vigilance, Meet Yogini Française

As crazy up and down as things have been, I feel like I'm gradually finding my center again after moving, my family's visit, and the end of vacation. I finally started going to a yoga class here. It's expensive, like everything in Paris, but well worth it. It's at a Bikram studio tucked away into a courtyard in the sketchy part of Montmartre. They even have a few classes in English, although it's yoga, so if you can see the instructor, it's very doable in French. And I forgot what a good workout it is -- the last French yoga class I went to felt very much like organized nap time for grownups, so a 90-minute workout with much sweating and kicking your legs in the air and spinal twists is just what I need. Especially when Paris's impression of western Massachusetts means running is a little limited. Although today there was some blue sky, and Montsouris is a really wonderful place to run. It's two minutes from my apartment and just really beautiful and almost always full of other runners.

Then I realized that my job contract ends in April, and I decided that I needed to make a list of things I want to do before then:

see Agnes Varda at Denfert-Rochereau
write at Les Deux Magots (one of Ernest Hemingway's hangouts)
go running in Luxembourg Gardens
buy Ben Simon sneakers
see old French movies in theatres
go to Musee d'Orsay, Musee du Quai Branly, Jeu de Paume, Fondation Cartier
go to the Brigitte Bardot exhibition
ride a Velib' around my neighborhood
learn how to make lasagna, enchiladas, and a crustless pear tart
eat Senegalese food again
go to The Red Wheelbarrow (English-language bookstore in the Marais)
find a third job
traveling: Amsterdam/Berlin/Prague with one of my oldest friends from home (coming up in February), London, maybe Barcelona
Bikram yoga in Montmartremore trips to the Butte de Montmartre
see a movie at the film institute
drink cheap wine beside the Seine
go out for onion soup and cafe creme at the brasserie near my metro stop
have a picnic in Parc Montsouris
cardboard box dinner parties
go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
visit Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway's houses
go out for moelleux au chocolat and ice cream sundaes
visit the Centre Pompidou permanent collection for free with my visa
get a Jean Seberg haircut and frolick around Paris in a red dress
read a book on a bench in Parc Montsouris

Okay so that list is just going to grow.

Also, you know you don't go to Smith anymore when you get back to your apartment after dinner with your closest friend in the Marais to find it full of French guys smoking, drinking, and playing a guitar while listening to French rap, offering you whiskey and Coke, and asking you if you know who Kurt Cobain was because you happen to be from Seattle.

And okay, so that kind of made me happy.

Every morning, I wake up and listen to NPR on my computer, and I keep hearing about the earthquake in Haiti. It goes without saying that while I wish no horrific earthquakes on any countries, I think about Haiti, and I just think, why did it have to happen there? It's very devastating and the images on the New York Times web site are really disturbing. And I realized that this is the first time I've been hearing about such a significant tragedy in the news and haven't been at home or at Smith. At home, we would talk about it at dinner. At Smith, we would be talking about it everywhere. In Paris, I'm not sure who to talk to about it. My friends and I talked about it for sure, and it's been in the newspapers (well, the free ones I read on the way to work, anyway) but it's disorienting to be living abroad when things like this happen. Sometimes the language barrier really bothers me, and not being able to talk about what's going on in the world with other people is something that really gets to me. Dear Megan's French, please improve soon. I also wish I could contribute money, and I would have when I was in college, but my budget doesn't really allow for it right now.

Here's something that bothers me about Paris, and the Haiti thing made me think about it. There are a lot of homeless people here. You see them pitching tents in swanky neighborhoods, perched on stairs in the metro, sitting on the ground outside the metro, begging outside of Notre Dame, sleeping at metro stops, sleeping on the metro. This confuses me for a couple of reasons. First, I kind of always thought that a country like France, which has such a good healthcare system and resources for its citizens, wouldn't have such a big problem with homelessness. Secondly, a lot of the homeless people here are really aggressive about asking for money. When I lived in Northampton, it was full of homeless people, but I would always say hi to the guitar dude outside of CVS, or the marimba man, or the bucket-playing Motown guy. It was always a gesture I could provide even if I couldn't or didn't want to give these people spare change. In Paris, I feel like I can't even do that, and that's hard for me. A certain level of vigilance for my own safety kind of takes over, which ultimately is probably a good thing.

And I really love cities. But I don't think that this kind of adopted hardness is something that I would want to keep up for too long. And I guess that's why Bikram yoga has been so important to me lately. It's a chance to acknowledge strangers and focus on the present moment, something that can be nearly impossible when you're in a crowded metro car.

It reminds me of that dumb graduation speech song. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in southern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. It's all about balance, I guess. And it makes places like Northampton and Seattle look pretty good.

Then I remember that I live in Paris. Paris is my present moment. It's where I wake up and open my shutters every morning. It's where I go grocery shopping. It's where I meet my friends for coffee. It's where I friggin' go to yoga class. And as hard as it can be sometimes, I am really lucky to call it home.