Paris is an undeniably romantic city. You can feel it in the air all around you. Words won’t do it justice, it’s something that needs to be experienced. Every other shop is a boulangerie or patisserie with an enticing aroma leaking out the door and an astounding display of baked goods in the window. The buildings rise above you but they don’t dominate you like the towers do in London, although skyscrapers are beginning to encroach. Florists with fabulous bouquets, bistros with flowing wine. The city feels old, but not an ancient old. It’s a recognisable old, full of sentimentality and nostalgia for a more innocent time. The people are as beautiful as the place they inhabit, and quite friendly when you make the effort to speak to them in French.
I was there to meet my friend Anna for what happened to be the 10th year anniversary of our friendship. I’ve mentioned her in a post once already so she’ll be thrilled to know she’s featured twice now. I hadn’t seen her for two and a half years but the moment we sat down together it felt like no time had passed at all. It’s funny because so much has happened since we last met, including a global pandemic, but it still felt like the same Anna I’ve known since I was 16. When she mentioned she was coming to Paris for a while it seemed a good idea to meet up before she runs off to New York for four years. It’s no bad thing either that I’d have to be in Paris, a place I love very much. It’s also just a train journey away.
Speaking of the train, I don’t want to devote too much energy to recounting the specifics of my journey but fucking hell you really do see all kinds of people when you travel. Why do they run for the train? Don’t they know it’s not going to leave? Likewise for people with bags, have they never played Tetris? They just cram their shit into the racks and then I have to help clear their mess up so other people could use them. I saw people use the electronic passport machines in ways that you wouldn’t even believe – yes Doris you need to take your mask and sunglasses off for the camera and yes Phillip you need to open your passport in order for the machine to scan it. To be fair I understand that people find travelling stressful but man these people couldn’t perform such basic tasks. We’re living in their world. Okay rant over!
So, I get to Paris, disembark, and make my way to the Metro. It’s a pretty self-explanatory system with a straightforward map of numbers, letters, and colours like basically every underground metro in the world but theirs is really easy. Within about 15 minutes I was standing outside the station looking at the corner where my hotel was, but I wanted to walk around the area first to see what it was like. Having been told that it was the cool/hipster area, I needed to validate these warnings myself. I walked past the hotel in a sort of circle, going up and down different streets. It was hard to not buy cakes and pastries at every shop I walked past – this was a fact-finding mission for now. Eventually I had seen enough and checked into the hotel. It was a grand building, something that fifty years ago would have been state of the art and fashionable. It hadn’t been neglected but its age was showing. The décor was opulent yet cheap, a touch garish and quite worn down too. However, it had one thing that every hotel needs but cannot manufacture; character. Character is all that matters. My room was 101 and was fortunately nothing like its literary counterpart. This was a quaint little space with a lovely view of the surrounding area. I wasn’t planning on spending much time there though so I dumped my things and set off again. I had no direction in mind, I simply walked around for an hour and a half eating every croissant I came across to judge them. My results? Each one of them was better than the last and not only are they cheaper than their London equivalent, they were larger and nicer. There’s really no comparison it’s not even close. I watched a group of old and likely drunk men playing the classic game of Pétanque, which made me feel like I was in a classic French movie. The kind of movie that’s shot in black and white, and it would have quiet music in the background, possibly an accordion, and the French narrator would be describing it with no emotion in a thick accent: “The boy watches the men play their game. He understands not why they do this. Why they throw the balls. But he knows they must.” Then it wins best film at Cannes.
Okay carrying on. I found a restaurant that was exactly what I wanted from Paris, and Anna arrived there first with her friend who lives nearby. I was excited for this place; it was certainly one of the reasons I was so enthusiastic for my trip. We drank and talked and ate, the food was great and the ambience perfection. I honestly couldn’t fault any of it. Then we made our way to a bar to meet a few more people and then the group decided to hit up the Moulin Rouge for a 90s night. Keeping in mind I hadn’t slept since 5am and we were now approaching 2am, I was pretty fucking tired but what the hell. Next thing I knew it was 5.30am, 24 hours without sleep (why does that always happen to me?) and I was in bed in my room. The walk from Moulin Rouge to my hotel was nice if not a little dodgy but if I’ve walked through Brixton at midnight then I could survive anything. Hit the hay for a mere four hours sleep and then I just did the same as the day before; I walked around, ate far too many pastries, brought some snacks that you can’t get in the UK, and just took in the world around me. I thought about things. I wish I’d brought my notebook but then I’d have been too distracted, not that I wasn’t already fairly distracted anyway. Soon Anna was ready and we met up to go and eat at one of my favourite places, the ridiculous and silly Terminus Nord. It was awesome to spend one on one time with her and talk about some more serious stuff and lord knows I love unloading my shit onto other people. Sadly though like all good things it did come to an end. I had a lot of work to catch up on, I missed my dog, and I was completely drained of energy. We said our goodbyes and I made my journey home. Who knows when we’ll see each other again.
I am truly grateful to be able to make a weekend visit to Paris, and I did have a fantastic time, but there is of course something still on my mind. It was on my mind every step of the way as it is on my mind now. I felt guilty for not being more in the moment but I’m being drawn away from what’s going on in front of me by something that can’t let go of me, or something I can’t let go of. It’s much easier now but I still don’t feel happy. I used to be so happy, so happy, but now I don’t know if I can get there again. If a weekend in Paris can’t get me right then what can? I know melancholy is the luxury of a man who has nothing better to do than think about himself but that doesn’t take away from the very real struggle. Whether you drown in 5 metres of water or 500 metres of water, you’ve still drowned. I’m alone like I’m supposed to be. Good things are reserved for other people, I might get a taste occasionally or a glimpse of happiness but then it’s snatched away from me lest I get used to the flavour. At this point I really don’t know if it’s all a cruel joke or maybe I’m playing the game wrong. It sometimes feels like the only way to win is to not play at all.
It stirs up a lot of anger within me. It’s frustration, frustration at not understanding the reason for why things happen or indeed the lack of reason for what is ultimately just ungoverned chaos. I struggle to find value in the things I do, made evident by my recent trip. What little value I do find is temporary and I have to work hard to get to the place where I can enjoy a moment. It feels so forced and faked but hopefully in time I will start to believe the lie. There’s a piece I once wrote about apathy, and how apathy is far worse than any strong negative feeling. I sense apathy inside me and it’s worrying. It means no drive to move forwards nor a will to progress. Stagnation and waste, may as well be a rotting corpse. What good is an outlet, even writing, at that point? It’s a vulnerable state to exist in where the tiniest thing can set you off down a dark spiral with no way out. I can see it in the corners of my eyes, clawing its way out from behind the sofa or the edge of my bed. Something dark waiting to pull me into its lair and take any energy it can grasp from my soul while keeping me alive just enough to really squeeze it all from me without causing enough damage to kill its food source. It’s calling me now as I sit here to write this and to succumb is the easy way out. I don’t really want to fight it anymore; it’s been close to two decades of fighting it. I wonder what happens if I just let it take me.
I recognise the spiral that I’m in, both the long term one and this immediate one I’m in right now. My body is tense, shoulders hunched, frowning, teeth grinding. If I could release the physical pressure I’m putting on myself then maybe I can get out of this. Even typing on my keyboard is fast and loud, my anger coming out through my fingertips. My body is showing me signs that I’m not doing okay so I guess it would be wise to listen. Awareness is only one part of it though, and it brings me not a step closer to a solution, but at least it makes me aware that a solution could be possible. I’m not sure if this writing has helped, I certainly feel worse and have already done a few bad things this evening that I said I wouldn’t do anymore (and of course hurt myself in the process). I don’t really know why I’m writing this and I don’t know what it’s for.
It feels so desperate and needy. Like I want to delete all my social media and remove everyone from my life but I’m too scared to face real solitude because I’m not strong enough to look at myself in that way. This started out as a trip to Paris but it’s grown into this pretty fucking depressing shitshow. It’s probably worth admitting that I’m just depressed now. I hold a lot of resentment and I can’t find a healthy outlet. Maybe with more time it will be easier but for now it feels like people just scheme against me to do things behind my back but they’re so unsubtle about it because they want me to know how they truly feel about me. Maybe it’s my fault, I’ve driven people to be this way. I don’t know how I’ve done it but obviously I must suck at this whole human thing. I strongly doubt whether any of it has been worth it, but one thing I do know for sure is that I don’t want to go through it again.