The World Is Your Oyster

September 1 was my Paris Anniversary, although it somehow escaped my notice until today. All ex-pats celebrate their anniversary of moving to Paris. For one friend we drank champagne on her balcony and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle. I don't remember what I did last year-- I think when Cory and Kim and I rode the ferris wheel at Tuilleries and had hot chocolate at Angelina's that was around the 1-year mark, and that was such an all-around lovely day, it'll count as the anniversaire.

I haven't really celebrated my 2-year anniversary with anything more than an afterthought and a glass of wine that I was already drinking anyway because of ambivalence about this year of Parisian life-- mainly because it hasn't really started yet. I'll be a full-time student (of something entirely useless career-wise but interesting to me: French cinema and literature) and part-time English professor and when added up, that's a lot of time. This month is the calm before the storm (except in Lousiana), and although I need the time to sort out what I'm doing in my classes, I'm also impatient for the wind and rains to start.

What I did on my anniversary, without realizing it was the anniversary: I saw a Belgian film, hung out with Franco-Peruvian friends and walked home from Hotel de Ville and saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle. Yesterday, however, I cried on a friend's French shoulder and felt like I had no goal in life, and had nothing to show for 2 years in Paris-- except for mastery of the art of social anxiety and disappointment. I realize that I tend to make my circle of friends overimportant, because that's all I have (I certainly don't have job satisfaction or feel like I belong in France). I tend to overanalyze all social situations-- did everyone have fun, was my French good enough, was there some hidden agenda, which has been an issue lately. However, my friends are only human and all have their own quirks, issues and problems.

Parisian mécontent is palpable as everyone just got back to town after their rapturous weeks of vacation in the south of France or wherever they go and they now have to readjust to life in the metropole and all its imperfections. As this feeling of disappointment is French, even more specifically Parisian, it is complex in all its contradictions-- like we hate all people, especially in the metro, yet wish we had friends yet never talk to strangers or do anything to reach out to others. I have to admit that the misanthropic aspect of Parisian culture is seductive and appealing in its own way-- all ex-pats kind of secretly love to hate Paris and its inhabitants.

But it also raises the larger question, how much should you rely on others? The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould once said that for every hour you spend in the company of others, you need X number of hours of solitude and that ratio is different for everyone. I've resolved to adjust my coefficients of X a little and devote more energy to interesting and self-sustaining creative projects and less energy to socializing. It's time to try to make myself happy, instead of hoping that other people will do it.

A friend of mine once said that Parisians were like oysters-- totally closed off in their own little shells surrounded by other isolated oysters, all alone together, even in crowded cafes... Maybe there are pearls inside, maybe not. Maybe I'll discover these pearls, maybe not.