Paris, je crois en toi

I just got home from a dinner at some family friends' apartment in the 13th, not far from where I used to live. It was really nice to see them again, and really nice to understand everything that was said at dinner. I started thinking about my list on the way home.

I like making lists a lot, although I don't always cross the things off of my lists. But given how little time I have left in Paris, I just revisited an old list of things I wanted to do before leaving Paris, and it's just silly to look at now. So many of these things ended up being kind of impractical or boring or just not the things that I love about Paris, which I stumbled into for the most part. In any case this is it:

see Agnes Varda at Denfert-Rochereau (not for lack of trying)
write at Les Deux Magots (one of Ernest Hemingway's hangouts)(this seems so touristy to me now, I've walked past it many times)
go running in Luxembourg Gardens (not as romantic as it would seem; there is traffic on the way)
buy Ben Simon sneakers(naturally, I accomplished the shopping goals)
see old French movies in theatres(eh, they weren't French, but I've seen a lot of old movies, so I think I can cross this off
go to Musee d'Orsay, Musee du Quai Branly, Jeu de Paume, Fondation Cartier
go to the Brigitte Bardot exhibition(I missed this one. Tant pis!)
ride a Velib' around my neighborhood
learn how to make lasagna, enchiladas, and a crustless pear tart(I didn't do this but our oven broke, so I don't really care...)
eat Senegalese food again
go to The Red Wheelbarrow (English-language bookstore in the Marais)(This just sounds really boring and touristy to me now)
find a third job(two tutoring jobs!)
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(Not quite Jean Seberg, but it is really short)
read a book on a bench in Parc Montsouris

And this is my new list of things I want to do before I leave Paris in two weeks:

go hunting in the vintage stores in the Marais
go back to Musee d'Orsay to see the portrait of Berthe Morisot looking badass again
Cluny Museum
ride a Velib'
blueberry pancakes at Breakfast in America
go back to the Pompidou permanent collection
see more old movies at the Filmotheque du Quartier Latin
pick up coffee at Starbucks and lounge in the Tuileries
photography the quartier
eating: felafel at L'As du Felafel in the Marais, crepes at Le Petit Grec in Rue Mouffetard, massive amounts of pastries from Dominique Saibron and my neighborhood boulangerie, cafe cremes, pastry and coffee at Miss Manon in the Marais, salade nicoise/Orangina at a brasserie, picnics, and tons of street food...
go on the Left Bank writers walk mapped out by Lonely Planet (hi, I'm a nerd, and, also, what up Ernest Hemingway's old house, salut, Edith Wharton's place!)
picnic in Parc Montsouris
Indian food in the Indian quartier near Gare du Nord
work on the chapbook in the Cafeotheque and La Mer a Boire (favorite cafes)
running in Parc Montsouris
Catacombs
SEE Agnes Varda, or at least her movie, "Les Plages d'Agnes," playing perpetually at the movie theatre near where she lives at Denfert Rochereau
Berlin part deux
see people I can only see in Paris
cook black beans and rice and pancakes on the stove top in my kitchen
go back to Bikram yoga if it's not prohibitively expensive
shopping: Uniqlo, espadrilles, H&M, etc.
get my short hair niced up by Daniel of the Rue des Malesherbes Franck Provost, the best hair stylist in Paris
read a book beside the Seine
buy presents for people I need to buy presents for
do nice things for the people who have helped me immeasurably since I moved here: dishes and cooking for the roommate, flowers and massive thank-yous for the family friends, declarations of undying devotion to my friends, etc.

When I look at this list I get really excited for the next two weeks. And really glad that I've gotten a chance to get to know Paris to the point where I even know the things on this list exist. And I'm really hoping that I'll have an Agnes Varda sighting, although I would probably say something dumb, like, I'd get the gender of film wrong. In front of Agnes Varda. Which -- who am I kidding? -- would be AWESOME.

Mostly I'm grateful for the people. Who would have thought you could make a family out of time spent over small cups of coffee and hours in parks and watching soccer games and half-understood conversations? And I'm grateful for the Paris I've discovered beyond the one I fell in love with when I was 17. Sure, the village-y neighborhood my aunt and uncle live in is probably the most beautiful, vibrant place in the world, but it's nice to know where to find the cheap Indian food and where to stalk Agnes Varda and what cafes will allow you to work on poems at a table for hours. It's not like living abroad is ever easy, and I still have a lot of angst over what happens when I come home. But I guess once we peel back the imagined Paris and the years of dreaming, we all have to make our own versions of Paris. This is mine. I believe in it.

Paris, je t'aime?

No. Paris, je fucking t'aime.

That's more like it.



(Latest favorite metro song.)