Not Emily In Paris
My real-life, middle-aged version of the hit tv show.
In light of part deux of the fourth season of Emily In Paris releasing today, I was compelled to write a different perspective of the celebrated, over-the-top, how-the-fuck-is-this-bitch-affording-the-clothing-she-is-wearing-to-her-mid-wage-job tv show.
The behind-the-scenes events to arrive at this moment of sitting “en terrasse”, typing on my iPad as I sip my café crème, was nothing short of a miracle yeeeeeears in the making. Emily arrived by chance: young, beautiful, with a job to back her up and no attachments with the exception of a mid-western boyfriend who doesn’t even realize she prefers wine over beer. I arrived with no job, a visitor visa that doesn’t allow me to make actual money here, which doesn’t allow me to get a proper bank account, which doesn’t allow me to get a proper long-term apartment, which relegates me to over-priced AirBnB’s which can’t be rented over 28 days-at-a-time in Paris which forces us to move a LOT with all of our crap which brings me to the question EVERYONE needed to ask before we moved: “Why are you moving there?” Well, my love story with Paris goes a little somthin’ like this…
Going from 8th grade into high school you had to pick a foreign language. We had three choices: German (no one teaches that anymore, and for good reason), French, and Spanish. One of my best friends and I decided that French would be much more beneficial to us as we pursued our future, fabulous lives of food, fun, and fashion. That was it. (Sounds a lot like Emily, no?!)
On the first day of class we met our teacher, Mademoiselle (Mlle) Magill, who looked anything but French. She was the tallest, butchest lesbian I had ever met in my fourteen years of life and she was NOT playing the fuck around. French was serious business and if you didn’t take it seriously, you were going to drown in a lot of merde, not to mention, maybe get clocked by her orangutan arms. She looked nothing like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina and truly did NOT depict the kind of result my best friend and I were going for.
But over the course of four years, Mlle Magill defined the truth of why French is, and might always be, the best language ever spoken. She taught that the backbone of the words and grammar we were learning was a testament to the excellence that the culture demands, from what it eats, to what it wears, to the manner in which one speaks to an elder versus an infant. The discipline to tackle this immeasurable beast of communication instilled things inside of me that I didn’t even know I had, or longed for. We all grew to love her and to love her meant you loved everything French. (Not to be confused with Canadian French. That was NOT the same thing.) When our class trip to Paris got changed to Martinique and then got cancelled altogether, it was devastating. I vowed to myself that I would one day get there and live.
But living in Paris would pose a challenge for a gal with no money and heading into college. However, a short-term version of my dream was fulfilled when one of my friends was doing his work-study there. We stayed in a hostile for migrant working men with whom we had to share a shower down the hall. Aside from that little setback, I was free to explore all the beauty that this city had to offer alone while my friend worked during the day. Breakfast consisted of a mille-feuille (the equivalent of a Napoleon pastry) and an espresso as I went from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower to The Rodin Museum, all in one day. We’d go gay-clubbing at night and get kebab at two a.m. while strolling the Seine. Then we would wake-up the next morning, rinse and repeat. He and I strategized about how we could both live here permanently one day, but life had other plans. I traded my love affair with Paris for the bigger dream with a purpose: NYC and Broadway. Turns out, the French hate musical theatre. (Something to do with a bad production of Les Misérables) and so, the shimmering lights of La Tour Eiffel dimmed in order to make way for the blinding lights of Times Square. The magic of the French language petered-out with each passing life-marker ie jobs, marriage, kids. And my “Français” seemed to have gone completely extinct.
Then, out of the blue for my 37th birthday, my soon-to-be ex-husband gave me the gift of a coffee table book called “Antiquaires of Paris” and said, “I’m taking you there. Happy Birthday.” The fact that we had been to SO many places other than France in our ten years together was puzzling. We’d been to Italy, Germany, Scotland, and even did a ten-day hike to and through Machu Picchu for God’s sake. Maybe it was because it meant so much to me and so little to him? I’m not really sure. We ended up separating three months later, never making it to The City of Light. I’d like to think this was a gift from God that Paris wasn’t tainted by memories with him. Somehow, she remained pure.
So, when my partner, Tor, and I decided to take our faux honeymoon there (we were never married and don’t plan to be) it was a two-week whirlwind of love, light, laughter and a re-igniting of that flame to become all things French one day. We were both smitten by the city’s love of art and respect for those who create it. We randomly turned up in piano bars and were greeted by the most inviting smiles and sent-off with the warmest of ovations. Syncronicities swirled and chance encounters fostered lifelong friendships. It felt like home to us and we vowed to someday get there and do what we do: create shit and share it with people who actually appreciate it.
And now we are here. In Paris for a year. Just like Emily. So, I suppose all of the above is a lengthy answer to the question everyone kept earnestly asking, “Why are you moving there?” Now, to get to the reality of why “Emily” in Paris doesn’t remotely resemble “Lisa” in Paris:
1.) I’m forty-fucking-nine. The cutesy joke they wrote in season one of the show about how the French count their building floors starting with “1” on the second floor, clearly adding an extra trip around the spiraling, OG StairMaster, isn’t as easy for me as it is for Mlle Emily and her 6th floor walk-up. Why isn’t it? Because she’s twenty-eight. Factor-in having a dog that has to go out 3 extra times per day more than you would normally need to. For those of you counting, that’s 4 American flights x 3 = 12…just for the damn dog.
2.) After a week, I am still being tortured by the washing machine pretending to also double as a dryer because it refuses to act like a fucking dryer without taking you through another whole wash cycle. Emily apparently has Christian Dior and Givenchy on speed dial whenever she goes to the grocery store, thus, never even having to bother with the monster machine.
3.) I spent two whole hours trying to navigate a municipal website just to order a year-long train pass for my son and now it is being delivered to an apartment that is only listed as a floor (no apartment number) and doesn’t even have my name on the mailbox. This is par for the course when it comes to all logistical things involving websites, sign-ups, and navigating the basic functions of life. Don’t even get me started on their public tennis court system. Emily doesn’t seem to bother with these things because she is too busy posting and hash tagging her amazing life.
4.) Coffee as we know it is dead. Here’s why: when we were about to board our flight to Charles de Gaulle, our sweet landlord asked us if we needed anything for the arrival and the only requests were, “coffee and cream for the morning.” We woke up to espresso and sour cream. France doesn’t make cream for coffee. They don’t understand it and don’t even bother trying to accommodate this ridiculous request. The best you can hope for being anywhere close to an American cup of coffee with the fixin’s is a “café crème” which is basically a cafe au lait which, unless you have a $2000 dollar barista machine in your AirBnB (which of course, Emily would, but not me) you won’t ever be able to replicate. So you learn to drink espresso with two sugars and smile through it.
5.) Co-habitating with a smoker. Emily cuts ties with her beer-drinking boyfriend back home in Chicago and jumps into bed with her French neighbor, a cheeky Brit, and even a barely legal manboy. I moved here with my partner of nearly thirteen years which comes with navigating sharing 1/8th of the space you normally live in and his cigarette smoking which has gone off the rails seeing as smoking is normalized by the French. Oh, désolée, did you ask if I knew he smoked when we got together in the first place? The answer is, “mais, oui.” In the beginning it was sexy. In the end, I am worried about getting second-hand cancer.
6.) Ain’t no Target or WalMart to make a one-stop-shop your go-to. The food here is super-fresh because the French government seems to give a shit about the overall health of their citizens. Or maybe they just care that much about the taste of food. Either way, it means that you have to shop at a different store for all of your needs: the pharmacie for the right beauty products and/or vitamins and/or prescriptions, the cheese shop for the best cheese, the meat shop for the best meats, the produce guy that gets his produce in THAT morning, the fish guy that only has seafood on Tuesdays and closes by 1:30 p.m., the bread/pastry shop with your daily baguette that hasn’t been sitting on the shelf for three days but was made literally an hour before. All this is to say, that you have to shop for things separately and replenish the fridge daily. Emily either subsists on espresso only (because, how can you be that thin otherwise?) OR she is fine-dining at her boyfriend’s Michelin star, gastro-restaurant for free.
These are just a few non-parallels of our American-In-Paris lives. But as fashion-forward and fabulous as Emily’s experience seems to be, I wouldn’t trade my middle-aged-me experience for a roll of Bounty paper towels. (Btw, do you know how bad the paper products are here?? They are bad. Really bad.) I am able to find a deep appreciation each and every day for this place, navigating its challenges in exchange for the soft beauty of its sunrises and sunsets. Moments like these may have been overlooked had I mustered a way to move here in my twenties. I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude when I hear, “Bonjour, bonjour!”, while I’m out walking the dog like that scene from Beauty And The Beast. I’ve been speaking presque fluently (Mlle Magill would be très proud!) to the vendors, the neighbors and the guy at the cellular store who, when I asked if he hated us because our eSIM’s weren’t processing he said, “Just a little bit.”
Hold please while I multi-task my writing deadline with trying to do a load of laundry.
Okay. You won’t believe this, but I think I just conquered the “dry only” work-around on the washing machine monster, which gives me a true sense of accomplishment. And though there will be more monsters to conquer, Parisian monsters are somehow, less daunting. Probably due to the lilt in their language, or their perfectly puffed croissants that only cost $1.50 each vs. $4.50 in NYC.
If I had to say one thing Emily and I have in common, it would have to be that can-do, American attitude of possibility and hope. We rise to the challenge with gusto. We make the best out of whatever merde is being thrown at us and somehow find a way to make it smell like Chanel No. 5. Only, while acting all American-in-Paris-y, Emily will be wearing Yves Saint Laurent with a pair of Manolos. I will be wearing my worn-out sweats and Hoka sneakers for borderline, geriatric comfort. I can’t imagine climbing the 21 steps from the rez-de-chaussée to the “1st” floor, or the 18 steps between each of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors any other way.
In Laughter,
LStL
RIP Mlle Magill. You touched many hearts and minds with your passion and love.
Another great Substack about a mid-life woman who just moved to Paris, Monique El-Fazy! Wonderful, poetic writer.
And if you are having trouble finding your next great read, check out this awesome Substack by Auraist!:
Thanks for the good story about your adventure. I appreciate the quotidienne mixed with the philosophical. I can see both the American and the Parisienne in you.
Thank you so much Lisa!