n*ggas in paris
this was a lost opportunity, Pompidou
Lawrence and his mom are back to the US and I was still feeling melancholy when I woke up yesterday. But I put my big girl pants on and hit the streets anyways. A new exhibit at the Pompidou opened on March 19th called Paris Noir, and it features works from all the black artists who were active in Paris at some point between 1950 and 2000, artists whose work has been celebrated in other places and cultures, but never shown before in Paris. Center Pompidou wasn’t on my To Do list this trip as I had been there before (another ghost of my past life), but this showcase of talent from the black diaspora seemed too good to miss. I’m so glad I went.
A bunch of yall will hate that I am not including artist names with the pictures of their work, and unfortunately you are gonna have to get over it. I took too many pics of gorgeous pieces and had too difficult a time trying to organize everything I saw. Besides, this visit wasn’t for academic purposes, but rather for the singular joy of seeing and being moved by the art. Thankfully I got the accompanying book for the exposition so I can revisit a lot of these pieces with access to the artists names.
I was moved to tears more than once in the gallery. Stunned by the beauty of these works created in times of such cultural unrest for black folks, and bewildered at how little has changed. Black people have always been trying to name themselves, be seen, find mirrors for their experiences, make space for themselves outside of the comforts of what is most familiar to them. It is both the pleasure and the pain, that we will never stop shining the light on ourselves, and that we will always need to. I sat and watched a video of Grace Jones singing in front of an audience in a shiny pink metallic dress- no matter how casually she tried to sway her hips, the repercussions of her movements ricocheting off my eyeballs. Her presence too bold, her power too great, she couldn’t do understated on her death bed, much less on a stage.
There were paintings and films and magazines and drawings and collage and sculptures and all sorts of amazing pieces in this exhibit. I had so many favorites.
After the museum, where I stupidly bought a 17 euro ticket to see the exhibit, not realizing I could have visited the entire museum for one euro more, I stopped at a kiosk and bought some silly souvenirs for friends who I knew would appreciate them and then made my way to a vegan restaurant called Cafe Mōpa where I had a lovely lunch. My appetizer was the oyster mushroom satay- the mushrooms were cooked beautifully but the satay could have been a touch sweeter IMO. Still tasty enough that I finished the plate. For my entree I ordered the currywurst sausage, something I had never heard of before. The sausage’s texture was surprisingly good and it was very flavorful, served in a chunky, tomato-forward curry sauce that worked really well with the sausage and the perfectly fucking cooked french fries that came with them. I hate to be so basic but I have not been served a shitty french fry yet. Abundance.
Today I woke up and felt even sadder than yesterday, which made me smile for some reason. I felt uninspired. Kind of blah. Not much energy. A little under the weather. Ready to go home. I know it’s because I feel lonely for the first time on this trip and that’s how loneliness tends to manifest for me: boredom. Seems like the exact right amount of ennui to balance out the excitement of the first part of the trip- nothing too terrible, but worthy of paying attention to. I made myself write in the morning while I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee, what felt like a gift a few days ago now feeling like a chore. To cure my boredom and curiosity I did some research online, about butter, about beauty products. After a while I felt my energy start to seep back in (yes, retail therapy still hits when I let it), I did a pilates video and then showered and headed to the city.
I saw the sweetest puppy on the metro yesterday. She was absolutely precious and reminded me of Rosie, the dog me and my partner shared. I wanted her to look at me and love me. She didn’t. This is one of those times when it’s okay if the admiration isn’t reciprocated.
I had lunch at a vegan Jamaican spot a friend recommended called Jah Jah. I loved it. I sat at a table by myself cause I’m shy sometimes ok?? and ordered the Bol Chaud. Chickpeas and sweet potato curry, turmeric rice, plantains, spinach ndolé (apparently that means peanut), escovitch oignon, red pepper, carrot, and soya protein jerk sauce with avocado slices, creole sauce and cilantro. Only 13 euro! Soooo good! The ingredients were so fresh, that avocado was perfect, the flavors were all delicious. It was honestly an unexpectedly excellent meal, and I’m so glad I managed to make it there (I tried two other times to go here but kept missing their opening hours). The place was busy, the music was great, the staff was all African diaspora and the walls were lined with reggae and Afro-beat greats like Fela Kuti and Gregory Isaacs. I was jealous of all the people chatting animatedly with their friends at the tables around me. I know Lawrence and Carmen would have LOVED this spot.
After lunch I made my way down to Le Bon Marche, mistakenly believing they had a grocery store inside of it. Le Bon Marche appears to be a very high end department store, from what little I saw of it. It oozed pretension the moment I walked inside, and after doing one loop and realizing they didn’t have what I was looking for, I quickly sortied my ass on outta there. Overpriced, underwhelming brand named merchandise has it’s audience, and I ain’t in it.
The place I was looking for was actually across the street, called La Grande Épicerie de Paris. Reddit told me that this was one of many places I could buy some french butter, La Buerre Bordier. Yall. I would much rather wander aisles stocked high with exciting and expensive food items than rifle through manufactured garments in a guarded Chanel store any day of the week. No one told me about this place so I didn’t know what to expect but still it did NOT disappoint. I’m surprised I’m not still on the chocolate aisle of this market to be honest with you. There were international foods, a small but colorful produce section, a boucherie, an intensely curated fromagerie that made me so grateful I still mask inside and that my nose is stuffed up so I didn’t have to smell it, and then a section for all the dairy stuff.
Butter took up an entire refrigerated wall section, and no I was not the only one there buying multiple blocks of butter to bring back with me- there were at least 6 women all hovering around the glass doors, whispering to each other. By the amounts they put in their baskets, I am assuming they were also bringing butter back to their countries of origin. Immigrating butter is a popular enough practice that there are dozens of Reddit threads dedicated to talking you through the smartest way to do it. The store will even vacuum seal your butter for you, although I just took the vacuum bag without getting it sealed because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, haha. I’m gonna push the air out and tape it really tight after the blocks of butter have frozen in the freezer, then put it in my checked luggage and claim it. A couple to keep for myself, and a couple as souvenirs for a lucky handful of people, assuming it survives the flight (and I think it will).
After that successful stop, I had one last thing on my agenda for today and headed back to CityPharma. I went here early into my trip but felt very overwhelmed and I only bought the couple of items I actually needed at the time: a comb and some hair elastics. But this morning in my research on French beauty products, I found a great blog post that provided a whole list of popular brands and products that Parisians love and the blogger swears by. I’ve never been much of a big makeup or beauty product person, but as I get older I become more interested in finding products that work better for my changing skin, which seems dryer than it used to be and bit more dull. What worked for years doesn’t seem to have the same effect anymore, so I am down for trying out some new stuff.
When I got to CityPharma it was even more crowded than the first time I went, which was hard to imagine. It is a very intense experience. I’m not exaggerating when I say that there are almost as many employees on the floor as there are customers in the store, that’s because the shelves are packed so full with hundreds of products, there are three floors, and the aisles are so painfully narrow that it’s virtually impossible to know where everything is- you have to ask for help to know where things are or to find out what you need. I would not recommend this place to anyone who is claustrophobic. I would however recommend this place to brave souls who have a list of exactly what they need and are prepared to duck, dive and jump around other customers to get it and then get the fuck out. I don’t actually know how I managed to get almost everything on my list (they were only out of one product I wanted to try) with my heavy bag of butter in towe, but bitch, I did it! I was so proud of myself!
I got back to the flat (didn’t take any wrong trains!) still satiated from the Jamaican food, armed with more souvenirs, and reinforced by sheer will to push through to Friday. I thought that getting myself to Paris would be the hardest part, but it turns out that staying might be. I have a history of leaving places/people/jobs early if they don’t meet my expectations. Sometimes I did this as an act of self care. Sometimes it was a symptom of my codependence. Sometimes it was my inability to tolerate unpleasantness. Now, maybe staying and seeing this journey through to the end is my self care.
At one of my Al Anon meetings months ago, we had a wonderful speaker that I have never forgotten. My home Al Anon meeting is a “double winners” meeting, meaning people who identity as AA and/or Al Anon can come together and work towards recovery (usually 12 step meetings with different focuses are kept separate to protect anonymity and not conflate the work you do in other groups). The speaker was a recovering alcoholic with decades of sobriety under her belt and she told us this story: years ago when she was very early in her sobriety, she found herself living in a house with a bunch of alcoholics and drug addicts. They were having a great time downstairs and kept asking her to join them. She politely declined and went up to her room, closed the door behind her, and laid on her bed. She desperately wanted to go downstairs and party with them until she realized that she knew exactly what that scenario would look like, because she had done it a million times before. She knew the cycle of taking that first drink, then not being able to stop, then blacking out or doing something she would regret later. She could see the scene play out like she was watching a movie. But she didn’t know what it would look like if she didn’t do it. She had never sat with her discomfort and simply refused to do the thing she always felt so compelled to do. She had so many memories of saying yes to it, but zero of saying no. She got curious about the no and the discomfort it elicited, decided to pay attention to it instead of ignore it, and she successfully made it through the night safe in her bedroom.
I think this story is so powerful. I don’t relate to it with substance abuse but I definitely know what it feels like to be addicted to a pattern of behavior, or a relationship dynamic. We all know what it’s like to do the thing we always do, the thing that feels comfortable and easy. Many times, doing that thing is how we protect ourselves and it’s an important aspect of our intuition. But we have to get good at knowing the difference between what keeps us safe and what keeps us comfortable. Safety is sanctuary, but discomfort is where the growth happens. I know what it feels like to leave when I’m unhappy or disappointed and I don’t want to feel that way anymore. I know the initial feeling of freedom that leaving gives me, the sensation of safety and calm that I sink into… and then the creeping regret that sometimes inches it’s way to me soon after. Regret that I missed out on something. That I closed myself off to an experience that would have been significant. That I will never know what would have transpired if I had stayed. What happens when we don’t judge our desire to leave, to numb our feelings, to not be alone, and instead get curious about what it would be like to do the thing differently? Can we still feel ourselves in that moment, feel our fingers and our toes, feel our bodies and our emotions while we make a decision based not on what we are afraid of, but based on what we have faith in?
My faith has gotten me this far.
Three days left. Let’s go.
I don't quite want to say that I'm proud of you. Maybe that I'm so happy for you to have this experience and sit with all that it means.
I love reading these dispatches - thank you for sharing them with us. Your last few paragraphs were gorgeous and compelling. (As was that beaded masterpiece!! Holy wow! Beauty abounds)