We'll Always Have Paris

Every time I sit on the toilet I think of Claudio and Sadiel. I don't know what they look like. I don’t know what music they like or their favorite foods. I don't know their professions. I don’t know their age, their gender or race. I don’t know where they are from. I do know that they have been in Paris. Good fortune and opportunity has taken me on several international adventures, including studying for a semester in Costa Rica, celebrating my marriage anniversary while drinking wine in Tuscany, and riding a camel in the United Arab Emirates. The majority of my days spent exploring parts of the wide world took place before the arrival of my two children. I found that time-zones shifts destroyed sleep schedules, and carting cumbersome car seats through airport security took all of the adventure out of my travel experiences. When I was younger, growing up in a small town in Massachusetts, I wanted to live internationally, to speak a second language with fluency, and gain insights about cultures unlike my own, by living alongside those with unique lived experiences. Instead, I landed in upstate New York, I’ve lost most of my Spanish fluency, and almost everyone looks just like me and was raised in a way that mirrors my own upbringing. For years, I urged my spouse to consider moving but he fell head over heels in love with our small town, trading his Midwestern, suburban roots, and big box store childhood, for a quiet, rural life in a place that calls itself, “America’s most perfect village.”

With time, my appreciation for where I live has grown and I stopped sending my husband links for jobs out of state. I focused not on where I could go, but where I had arrived. My small world raising children has been full, busy, and an adventure of its own that I never dreamed of or expected. Yet, the wanderlust of my youth remains. Which is why, when my husband suggested setting a date for the annual Disney trip, I exasperatedly replied that we could go anywhere in the world other than Disney. It is why, when he confusedly asked me where possibly else in the world we could go besides Disney, without hesitation, I answered, Paris. Six monthly later, we smooshed into a dark circular room, looking up at a ceiling where special effects gave the illusion that it was growing in height. A pre-recorded, spooky voice announced that we were entering a haunted mansion. The doors opened and we shuffled toward a ride, watching our footing as we stepped from the moving walkway onto the hard seats. As the bar lowered to my waist, I smiled at the cast member and thanked him. “De Rien.” He replied. A day trip to Disneyland Paris was our European vacation compromise. Without car seats and diaper changes, and with more cash in our pockets than we had twenty years ago, our nine-day stay in Paris was a nearly vacation perfection. At 9 and thirteen, the kids could walk miles around the city without complaint. They didn’t cry in fear when we descended underground to examine thousands of skulls in the catacombs. We turned marathon museum visits into gallery games. They rallied despite the time difference and challenging sleep schedule. A night time ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower paled in comparison to witnessing their dad fight off pick pocketers on the train. With each passing day, we participated in all the tourist activities, like touring the museums, making perfume, and adding our own heart shaped lock, personalized with our name and the date, to a chain link fence next to thousands of other locks. I drank champagne on a boat cruising down the Seine river and dined on crepes. We climbed tiny stairs in old churches and castles. As we bought overpriced trinkets and used Google maps to navigate to and from our hotel, I was aware that we were as far from living an authentic, local life as possible, yet for a brief moment in time I pretended we were locals, an ex-pat family living in Europe. I may have pinched myself to be sure that the magical, relaxing family adventure was real. Most of the plane passengers slept on the ride back west, but my insomnia kept me from gaining any rest. Convinced my family were ready for more worldy adventures, in the dimly lit cabin, I plotted our next trip. I considered Spain, where I could use my long-forgotten language skills. I've always wanted to go to London or Scotland. Maybe I could convince my husband to travel to Costa Rica where we could retrace my college days adventures. Feeling utterly wired, my mind drifted and I watched a series of movies to pass the time, including Contagion, a thriller with Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, where government officials and humanity find themselves in the middle of a pandemic while the CDC works to find a cure. I was still recovering from jet lag a week later when I scrolled the world news. I had to re-read an article about the Louvre shutting down due to an increase in cases of the coronavirus. Apparently a flu that gained momentum, weeks before we were in Paris, was spreading quickly. I sent the link to my husband with a comment, "Is this real?" Yes, the first person outside of China, a tourist, died in a Paris hospital on our first day of vacation, but I forgot all about the virus during over whirlwind week and bumpy return home. Two weeks later, we joined the rest of the world in shutting ourselves in our homes, only leaving to get groceries while donning masks and carrying hand sanitizer. We watched as hospitals filled, health professionals wore scary biohazard suits and body bags became a norm. To pass the time, and escape from our hellish, sci-fi reality, I decorated our recently renovated bathroom in a Paris theme. I carefully selected images to make photo tiles for the wall across from the toilet and sink- a carousel horse that was inside a loft where we made hats, a view of the city from the top of the Sacre Cour, my champagne class resting on the railing of the boat, the girls posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, and our family's lock, hooked to a chain fence beside hundreds of other locks from visitors to Paris, including Claudio and Sadiel. The chance to travel is a privilege and a gift. I will continue to prioritize travel as part of my children's lives, hopefully experiencing some of it beside them. Whether partaking in the the tourist life or settling in for an extended stay, being abroad teaches us to discover customs, values and cultures unlike our own, and gain and appreciation for differences. It tests our abilities to thrive outside our comfort zone and become flexible with the unexpected. It reminds us that the world is one big community, separated geographically but not in spirit. My girls and I haven't been on a plane since I watched Contagion on a dark plane in late February of 2020, but we will again when it is safe to do so. Until then, we'll always have Paris.