Naps and daydreams

When I was 4 years old, I was a terrible napper. We lived in Quebec city, having just moved from China a few months ago, where I had also been a terrible napper. Instead of sleeping I spent nap time picking paint off walls and carefully collecting each cracked piece in my pocket; until one day, when my mom was doing laundry and the hundreds of white little bits spilled out on the floor, scattered, along with what little remained of my dignity. My secret was exposed, I was ashamed. And so, in Quebec, I gave up my old passion for vandalism, and instead surrendered to a noon nap time spent quietly lying flat on my back on a navy blue plastic mat, along with eight other 4 years olds who, in an ultimate display of weak will and feeble spirit, all fell asleep. But not I. I aspired to loftier goals. Eyes wide open, I spent every nap time pondering life's greatest philosophical questions, memorizing the patterns (abstract art?) on the ceiling tiles, and most importantly, listening to music from the radio.

This remains the most pervasive part of my memory from those years. Every day during nap time, they would turn on the radio to lull us into sleep, and it was always the same kind of music, old french songs, the kind where old men crooned about lost loves and autumn leaves and hot midsummer nights and bittersweet partings. Even then, the songs carried the weight of nostalgia, they seemed to forever belong to an unattainable past, the kind we long for and reminisce about but never encounter ever again. This memory happened to me so early on my life that I think it has affected me in some intrinsic, immutable way. When I was 11 years old and sleeping with a night light due to my fear of the dark, I'd turn on the radio and listen until I fell asleep. The commercials were particular soothing, it was reminder that in a room where you could mortgage your brand new car for monthly payments of just 1000$, nothing scary could suddenly jump out of the dark. It grounded me to a reality, but also to an unreality rooted in the past: hazy, dream-like, but certain, predictable, comforting.

These last few weeks, every morning on my way to work, I listen to a singer called Barbara. She is an old french singer, and she has the kind voice that suspends and lingers in the air. It is bright and clear and effortless, and her lyrics timeless. It plays me in every morning as I round that last turn into the parking lot, towards my daily doom. Let's be real here, work is killing me. Last week I covered two doctors, and worked 13 hour days, with 30 minutes for lunch and dinner respectively. This week, less volume, but no shortage of unexpected surprises, things I have never managed before, difficult patients, acutely unwell patients, and the worst combination, difficult patients who are acutely unwell with conditions I have never managed before. In the span of a morning, I have gone through rollercoasters of sudden stress, that have left me mentally drained by noon. I can feel myself aging by the hour. The other day I examined my face in the mirror and could have sworn that the lines that temporarily wrinkle my thinking face had become more pronounced, more permanent, leaving me perpetually perplexed.

I don't know how to feel anymore, I am not upset or acutely distressed, or scrambling to find an escape, or hop on the next plane, plan a trip to somewhere far away. This year's brand of post-Europe withdrawal is different from last year's. I am not deeply unhappy, but not for a lack of things to be deeply unhappy about. It's a slow burn this year and I'm surviving surprisingly well. But perhaps because I am too tired to think about how unhappy I could be, or maybe how happy I could be.

Am I moving to Paris? Some days, this feels like the most obvious decision ever, and some days, I feel silly for chasing after daydreams like this. I am 26, almost 27. Goodness, it feels a little too late for impulsive decisions like this. But at the same time, I was 25 just turned 26! I am still plenty young! When I am 50 will I look back on this period of my life and think about how insignificant a year in my 20s was in the grand scheme of this whole life?

And it's Paris! I love Paris. I love it not for the things that are easy to love, the Eiffel tower and Notre Dame and even the buttery croissants get stale after a few days. I love Paris for the parts that you have work for to find and to love. I have tried to write about these specific memories many times in the past, but I have always avoided it or given up halfway. I feel like I am not able to do it justice, and I worry that revisiting these memories will wear it down, leaving it but a pale vestige of what it once was. You will just have to believe me on this one. The fact is, Paris is magical, and I am magic when I am in Paris. I am meeting friends new and old, I find myself say yes more often. Yes. Oui. Impromptu picnics at the Invalides? Yes. A round of beers? Oui. Meet me in that small tucked away bar in which long endless nights are spent discussing politics, metro systems, moldy cheese, the long list of things in this life that make us happy, nervous, or riddled with regret, time, getting old, getting old and not feeling old. In Paris bars the tables are round, just like in Chinese restaurants, how did I just realize this now. The night only ends because it must, but there is tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and what a joy that is. The very substance that keeps us alive is at my fingertips when I am in Paris.

Minuit à Paris, et ce soir, je suis de retour à ce même petit bar. En bousculant aux toilettes après trois pintes, entourée par des gens et des conversations animées, je me suis rendue compte du fait que je me sentais tellement à l'aise ici. C'est dingue, à quel point je me sens à l'aise ici. D'entendre le français, et de répondre en français, quel plaisir! Ma deuxième langue, apprise avant l'anglais même, à Québec dans les années 2000s, une petite insomniaque âgée de 4 ans, qui passait ses midis en écoutant des vielles chansons françaises à la radio. Des chansons qu'aujourd'hui encore m'apportent autant de confort, et qui évoquent des souvenirs d'une belle jeunesse, d'un passé lointain, et peut-être d'un avenir qui est entièrement possible, pour lequel je devrais au minimum, tenter.