Head in a garbage can, puking my brains out. Here I am, at the Cité metro stop, the classiest broad in Paris. It’s hard to realize that the Notre Dame cathedral is directly above my head…. And I am here, a vertigo-inducing view of black latex garbage bag, and nothing else.
I actually like the fact that I can throw up at 11 am on a Wednesday in broad daylight, commuters brushing past, and then just hop on the metro again with zero acknowledgment, not to mention words of encouragement. It’s not that Parisians are bad-hearted people, or being rude. No, in fact I have come to find this behavior actually rather understanding. Who really wants to be bothered when they have food poisoning?
“Yeah, ça va. It’s my own fault for eating rancid cheese, don’t mind me. I just need to finish ralphing up the entirety of my internal organs and I’ll be fine. Really.” Sure I might be able to say all of that in French 5 months into my stay, but that really isn’t a conversation most people care to have, even in your native tongue. Vomiting, I have come to fine, is a deeply personal act – almost spiritual and, dare I say, cleansing. Whether I worship 100 steps above with gargoyles overhead, or here at my own delicate, silver altar… it’s the sort of experience that I care to have alone.
And that’s the sort of thing I love about Paris. Of course I miss eye contact, small talk and, most namely, hugs; but I do appreciate that I can throw up just about anywhere and no one will give me a second look. The French are private people. They have boundaries, and even if you vomit in your hand in the hallways of the Sorbonne in front of 50 of your 18-year-old classmates mere seconds after telling some geek from Tufts that no, you have not read the material (as I had previously that day), that is your business. There is no need to have someone hold your hair, let alone your hand. This anonymity, though deafening, is appreciate at times.
A few hours later I’m attempting to choke down some soup at our favorite Ramen eatery. I end up taking a nap on the table in misery, fairly certain this soup won’t be staying in me for long. Not a single waiter stops by in concern. Some may think this is rude, but in France – it isn’t. In France - I paid 1.50 for that soup and I can do whatever I damned well please with that table. We could set up a tent and a camp-stove underneath and spend the entire day watching satellite television. Nobody really cares. Maybe this is the big city mentality. Maybe everyone is just too busy to deal with the collection of weirdness Paris has to offer. Me passed out on the table? Only passably odd compared to the man painted head to toe in gold on the corner, the woman walking four identical pugs down the sidewalk, the mariachi duo on the metro. For a city, for the most part, dressed in head to toe noir it’s bizarre to realize that nobody is fazed.
And I love it. I love being left alone. Whether it’s at a restaurant with a friend over a cup of coffee, in my bedroom with a pile of books, a few hours, and no word from my host family, or here, curled up on the bathroom floor in misery – Paris is a place to be self-reliant and that I have become.
A few moments later I have retired from the tabletop to the bathroom floor. “Wow Clara, it’s time to admit defeat. Go home… you attempted to save face, but really this intoxication alimentaire has gotten the best of you. This may truly be the lowest moment of your young life, but you know what? You’re in Paris – and that kind of trumps everything.”
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