Summary

An American woman living in Paris shares her affection for the city's rain, the quiet life in a bustling neighborhood, and the comfort of familiar routines amidst the city's charm and occasional civil unrest.

Abstract

The author expresses a deep appreciation for the ambiance of Paris, particularly the rain which evokes childhood memories. She enjoys the blend of business and residential life in her neighborhood near Gare Saint-Lazare, where she finds a sense of community and privacy. Despite the city's occasional riots and demonstrations, she feels safe walking at night and is reassured by the presence of police near the Renaissance party headquarters. Her daily experiences, from shopping at local markets to the familiar smells of the city, connect her to both her present life in Paris and her past in New England.

Opinions

The author loves the rain in Paris and finds it reminiscent of her childhood.
She values the quiet residential life above the bustling business district and appreciates the lack of tourists in her neighborhood.
The author has a fondness for the local café owners, shop clerks, and neighbors, enjoying the recognition and community.
She appreciates the convenience and charm of the local shopping street, rue de Lévis, and the public amenities like the Wallace fountain.
Despite concerns from friends about safety due to news of riots, the author feels comfortable and safe in her Parisian neighborhood.
She

I love the rain in Paris.

A quiet life in a busy city.

That’s the big Nexity building across the street. I’m growing the ivy because I love ivy and I need just a little more privacy. Just a little.

It’s raining in Paris this morning. Real rain, like when we were kids — not floods of rain, just….rain. The cooking odors waft through my open windows from the lunch cafés downstairs in my business-oriented neighborhood. The pavements release their accumulated oils, dirt, pee, and smoke in the intoxicating city smell of Paris in September.

The largest restaurant close to me, down the street and around the corner, closes over the weekend, though on the weekdays diners pack the house and in the nice weather spill onto the widened sidewalk from noon to ten. It really is a business neighborhood. Business, with lots of quiet residential upstairs. Very Parisian.

My street is *meh* and I love it that way. Although we are a block away from Gare Saint-Lazare, one of Paris’s main stations, there are few tourists in this quartier. I have nothing against tourists as a class. I was one myself for years. But it’s nice, in the summer, not to fight crowds to get my errands done. It’s nice to say “Bonjour” to the café owners and shop clerks and neighbors and know that they recognize the old lady in jeans. (That’s me.)

I do a lot of my shopping at the tiny Franprix at the corner. It’s easy. The wooden structures in the street, platforms for café tables, will disappear in a few weeks and come back with the spring. I love the buzz of diners at lunchtime.

Up the hill, off the boulevard des Batignolles, there is a busy shopping street, rue de Lévis, with everything from a big Monoprix to stalls selling bedding, jackets, shirts, meat, croissants, and fruits and vegetables.

Rue de Lévis. The Levi’s sign over the street at the upper left is, I promise, a hilarious coincidence.

Two years ago my landlords-to-be walked me up there to show me the cool things nearby. I can’t begin to write about their kindness, trusting an American fresh off the boat, shall we say.

A quiet square: the Place de Lévis. The green structure is a Wallace fountain: a public water fountain, one of over a hundred that began as a gift from an Englishman in the 1870s.

As an American woman, I get nervous talking about public safety, like I’m going to jinx myself if I say how comfortable I am walking around at night. But I’ll risk the jinx. At least twice a week at midnight, I walk back from the metro to my building on quiet and singularly non-menacing streets.

Dear friends in the US write to me concerned when they see news reports of Paris riots or demonstrations — of which there have been a few notable ones in the last year or so. They know that statistically, my chances of harm here are pretty low, but still they comment, worried. I love that they care.

Also, this is like my being afraid to return to the US for a visit lest I be shot. Yes, it sure could happen, and it’s way more likely than it is here. But my fears are amplified by the huge doses of distressing news about my home country that I consume daily. The US is a big place, and there’s a lot of “normal” life between the all-too-frequent tragedies and the creeping madness. Also, since I’m old enough to be on Medicare, I probably would not go bankrupt from the hospital bills. Probably.

Up the street from me here in Paris is President Macron’s Renaissance party headquarters. There are police posted outside 24/7. That’s probably the only reason that the riots came to my neighborhood last year during the extended protests over his shoving through the big retirement restructuring.

Remnants of rage: the day after, March 2023.

The Tuileries closed early on this damp Thursday — world cup rugby, and no, I don’t know why. Sometimes these decisions are impenetrable.

It is still drizzling when I walk through the Tuileries and across the Seine on my way to the Musée d’Orsay. The ducks are thrilled.

The odors of autumn — wet leaves, oily streets, pissy sidewalks, crepes sizzling on the griddles — ground me in my Parisian life and also, weirdly, take me back, into my New England childhood, the return to school, the new fall jacket, the pencil case. I love this liminal life, even when it is unsettling, disorienting: time travel on a budget, without the sword fights and DeLoreans. The ducks love it, too.