A God Damn Christmas Miracle!

I was not expecting that I would get my suitcase back today.

On Christmas.

ON CHRISTMAS!

Come on.

That’s like a stupid rom/com movie trope.

I mean, I can just envision the script, tired American in Paris for the holidays wears outfit four days in a row and cries in tepid bathtub after multiple delays and flight cancellations, losing baggage at Charles de Gaulle, battling with weary agents at Lufthansa who don’t give a fuck and just keep handing over a piece of paper with directions as to how to file a claim, buys wrong toiletries at Franprix (damn it I know better French than to buy sugar scrub instead of face wash), finally understands that French je ne sais crois of messy updo (fuck my hair is trashed after cheap toiletries and not being able to use a real blowdryer), no makeup (cuz was in suitcase that was lost) and world weary look-tres chic, tres sexy. Meets cute in a cafe when the regular notices same outfit on the third day in a row and falls in love when he takes her out clothes shopping in the Marais.

Well.

All of that was true except the last sentence.

I just took me out clothes shopping in the Marais.

But back to movie.

I mean, my life.

I mean.

Hmmm, what if my life were a movie?

What if the love of my life is just me?

What if I just keep falling in love with my own damn self?

An ex reached out to wish me Merry Christmas this morning.

Signal perfect teardrop rolling down face.

I am tired of this particular Christmas tradition, frankly, time for a new one.

I am ok with being alone on Christmas.

Not always, not for every moment of the day.

Not for the seven hours I waited for my bag, but you know, I wrote a lot, I watched Lady Chatterly’s Lover, I paced a bit.

I gave up the ghost around 4:30p.m.

I remember looking at my watch and thinking, well damn, there goes the day as it started to get dark and the suitcase had not arrived.

I sighed, thought about what I would make for dinner–I had planned ahead and grabbed a poulet roti, rotisserie chicken, from the frou frou boucherie on the block, so I would have a nice meal, yesterday.

So I was shocked and delighted when just after 5p.m. Paris time, my phone rang and it was the delivery driver!

I ran out the door (thankfully I had the keys in my pocket, I had a nightmare thought about running out the door and locking myself out, another movie trope, no?) and down the steps, opening the door to the courtyard just as the delivery service pulled up.

I have never been happier to see a suitcase in my life.

It looked like it had been dropped out the plane and dragged down the runway, but it was closed, and upon opening, all was there.

Thank goodness.

Makeup!

Bras and underwear!

My blowdryer!

My new boots!

My jean jacket I had just bought a month ago.

My favorite sweatshirt.

Note to self.

I over packed.

Of course.

I didn’t know I was going to wear the same outfit four days in a row, so there is that.

I put on some makeup, swept my hair up into a messy up do, I mean, I will fix that tomorrow with proper products and a good blow dryer, and bustled out the door.

Christmas night in Paris is not a real big night out, but I needed a walk after staying inside all day.

It was a lovely night, I caught the sliver of the new moon climbing over the rooftops of the Marais, walked by Hotel de Ville and smiled at the kiddos riding the carousel, I walked over the Pont Notre Dame and circled Ile Saint Louis, remembering all the many times I have crossed that bridge.

I have crossed quite a few bridges in Paris.

I have lived here poorer than a tit mouse.

I have cried in cafes here.

I have struggled.

Even with a little money in my wallet and my Air France credit card, Paris is not easy, the bureaucracy, the time it takes to get things done, it wears you, I mean, me, down.

My time in Paris has never been easy.

But.

It has always been beautiful, and perhaps those things most beautiful are not the things that are most easy.

I thought I was going to have an idyllic return, a victorious, sexy return to Paris, ten years later, turning 50, and eating at some fancy restaurant with my Parisian friends.

I was sitting in SFO instead waiting for yet another delayed flight to load.

I thought I was going to wear chic shoes and pretty clothes.

Not my Vans sneakers all week long, but hey, I still have two days to rock some heels (fyi, how the fuck does Emily in Paris totter around in those heels all day long? No fucking way) and will perhaps tomorrow night when I take myself out for a fancy dinner.

I did, however, master the messy bun, the scarf (grabbed at COS in the Marais), and the side bag swagger, and the no makeup look, except a red lip–the only makeup I had in my possession, a red lip crayon.

It’s been a trip.

Things I have figured out.

-How to turn up the hot water heater in the flat, sorry Air BnB person trying to save on utilities, I paid an arm and a leg for this place and I deserve a hot bath, I’ll return it to its lukewarm setting when I leave.

-I speak better French than I give myself credit for. Many, many compliments and looks of surprise when I say I am from the US.

-I still don’t speak French as well as I want, like, um, hahahaha when I told the delivery driver he was tres jolie (smacks forehead) and then quickly changed it to tres gentile (jolie is pretty, gentile is nice).

-I love the Metro, well, most of the time, there were some strikes and driver shortages, so it was rather packed, but it is simply an amazing train system, and off all the places I have been, probably the easiest to use.

-I don’t need to do the Louvre again, this time I skipped it, I went to the Palais de Tokyo, the Centre de Pompidou, Musee D’Orsay, and Musee de l’Orangerie. Those are my favorites, I don’t need to kill myself drowning in tourists trying to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa.

-Palais de Tokyo has the best book store and cafe hands down, of any museum I have been in anywhere.

-Saying please and thank you and have a good day and using manners gets you really quite far, I sort of already knew this, but I find it rather comforting the little formalities, the have a good day, have a good night, Bonnes Fetes, et al, makes things a little more human.

-I don’t like how much time people spend on their phones here, I was surprised, phone culture here has caught up with America, and in some ways, seems worse. Maybe it was the pandemic. It made me a little sad to see it, but there are still people on the Metro reading books.

-I don’t want to come back to Paris alone.

Yeah.

Your read that last one correct.

In my many times of traveling here I have not done it with a true partner and though I am my own good company, I am a little tired of being the solo lady traveler in Paris.

I’m not going to quit traveling, but after time number eight, I think I want a different experience with the city.

And with myself and with someone else.

I had an ex reach out prior to my trip on WhatsApp, a different ex than the one who caused the tears, (the only platform he’s not blocked on, but is now, thanks) and wish me a happy birthday and hopefully I’ll be enjoying a romantic time in Paris, and how I deserve to be with someone who loves me–can’t argue that, but please, stop.

I am my romantic time.

I’ll draw a bubble bath, watch a movie, have a snack.

And plan my last couple of days as a single lady in Paris.

The rom/com trope is that I am happy and ok single.

And that I can have complex emotional feelings and experiences and long for a partner too.

I have had some very intense dating experiences this year.

And I forgive myself for that.

The change now is to surrender, like I did my lost luggage, not look for it on apps, or dating sites, to not project myself as larger than life, to be vulnerable and let myself be approached.

I tend to have men project (and some former female friends) on me a certain fantasy of who I am.

Because I live grand, I write this blog (though, honestly, not always the best reflection of me it is sometimes taken to be a completely accurate picture of my life, when it is just a montage of snapshots) and I live with my heart of my sleeve.

I want to be gentle, be approachable, and maybe soften up the makeup and glitter (a little, not doing away with it all), wear my hair up messy, and be ok with being human and older and still not having it quite altogether.

I think it’s tres chic this.

Thanks for the lesson Paris.

I am not sure when I will see you again, but until then, thanks for teaching me all the things vulnerable and how to turn up the hot water heater in French.

Trop gros bisous.

Go Out Dancing

Is my new favorite acronym for God.

Others I like are:

Grace Over Drama.

Group Of Drunks.

Great Out Doors.

Good Orderly Direction.

But for the moment, go out dancing is my current fave.

I have made a new friend and she has gotten me out twice now in the past week.

We went out to the Polyglamorous party “Left Overs” last week, Thanksgiving weekend, with Dee Diggs from Brooklyn at The Great Northern, and to date myself, I hadn’t been there since it was Mighty, so, like, um, fifteen or sixteen years?

A very good friend and I used to go there in early recovery.

The sound system there was out of this world.

I don’t even remember who I saw.

Once I went there with a room mate to see a famous rapper, who, I really didn’t know, I had never heard of the guy before, but my room mate had a hard on for him and an extra ticket and so I went.

Much to her chagrin, I got pulled up on the stage at the club to dance with him.

I don’t remember the artist’s name, but I do remember my room mates look of incredulity as I was on stage.

Heh.

Sometimes when I went with my good friend and the acts weren’t that great and we’d just go hang out by his car.

He had a ridiculous sound system in his car, a convertible Mercedes Benz that I don’t even want to know how much it cost, and he’d pop the trunk and we’d just dance around the car.

I can remember more than a few times when the best party was not what was going on in the club, but what was going on out in the street.

We weren’t alone dancing around the car.

Last night I went with my new friend to Public Works and saw John Digweed and his opening set DJ Kora with Set Underground.

Kora was beautiful.

It felt like a glorious sound bath.

There was this gorgeous alter with disco ball lights and lanterns and incense that the DJ was playing behind.

Now.

Normally.

I’m not into this kind of spiritual hoo ha.

But.

His music was lovely, deep, soft trancelike house with some Middle Eastern Influence.

The crowd was diverse, older, dreamy, community.

I saw people I knew from years and years ago.

In fact, I told my new friend last night that I recognized the way that she danced, she has a unique style, that I know I must have seen her on various dance floors and clubs in San Francisco back in the early 2000s.

And later when Digweed came on and the floor got too crowded for her, she bounced out to the Mezzanine, and I found her dancing with an old acquaintance, that I knew from back in the day.

In fact, I used to be in awe of this man.

He was the best club dancer I have ever seen, and twenty (fuck my life, really?) years later, he is still a marvel on the floor.

I remember being in the back room at 1015 for Tiesto? Donald Glaude? Scumfrog? Jonathan Ojeda?

God, only knows, I wasn’t sober then, but I had danced like a crazed person and was taking a break with a drink and my friend who had come up from San Jose to dance that night with me, also a very accomplished dancer, and I saw this gorgeous African American man and a white guy with dreads dancing across the club room.

They were dancing so hard.

Enthralled I watched for a while and then got up the nerve to join.

It was magic.

And I was blown away by their beauty and prowess and grace.

I think I held my own for twenty minutes, they were going so, so, so hard, before I had to bow out.

Literally.

I bowed out.

And they both smiled, and bowed back.

Every time I have seen said gentleman since, his dark eyes always smile at me, and he bows.

And sometimes, still, we dance, before my knees give out.

He is tall and slim, almost slight, well dressed, in his own glorious interpretation of club clothes, and last night he had an afro mohawk.

Seeing him and my new friend dancing behind the sound booth in the mezzanine, I knew, I knew I had seen her before.

She was surprised when she realized that I knew him.

Ah, the club world.

So big and sometimes so, so small.

And I don’t know how it’s twenty years later and I’m suddenly back in the scene and dancing.

Granted, I go much earlier than I used to.

I gobble Ibuprofen.

I only drink water.

I’m completely sober, spiritually centered, and drowned in the ecstasy of dance.

I get lost.

It’s exquisite.

It doesn’t always happen, but more often than not, it does.

I love music.

I listen to music all day long.

When my ex in my twenties and I broke up we discovered something interesting–he owned the tv, stereo, VCR, and most of the cds (mostly because for five years when I didn’t know what to gift him, I gave him stacks of cds for birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, which bit me in the ass when I realized he owned most of the music).

I owned the furniture, bed, and all the kitchen ware.

He moved out.

And I had no audio visual.

I was a broke student working at a brewing company getting by on student loans and suddenly faced with paying double the rent I had the previous month.

I had enough to either buy a tv or a stereo.

There was no debate.

I bought the stereo.

I have not owned a television since.

(“I just realized something!” A friend said to me recently as we were hanging out and drinking tea in my living room. “You don’t own a tv, your living room is arranged so that people can see each other when they talk, not a tv!”)

23 years now.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have HBO Max (pandemic buy) and Netflix–I do watch videos on my laptop, but music, music is where it is at for me.

I dance every day.

Not always for very long, but every day, mostly in my kitchen.

I was dancing before writing this.

And I will go out dancing again this upcoming Friday.

Dimitri from Paris at the Great Northern.

I could even go out Saturday night too, a friend offered to gift me a ticket to a show at the MidWay.

I’m not sure I can do that, but I am tempted.

Go out dancing more, I tell myself.

Between six and a half years of graduate school (three years in my Master’s program and three and a half in my PhD–yeah, I got that faster than the average bear) and the pandemic, it’s been a long while.

I am happy to be back.

My knees are sore.

And I’m a lot older.

But that’s ok.

I plan on dancing until I die.

Music is one of the many ways I connect to God.

And thus, it is paramount to keep listening, keep dancing, keep drowning in the love.

“I love you,” he shouted in my ear, “I saw you up there, you kept it moving, you didn’t stop, you are beautiful.”

He hugged me.

Some stranger in a sweaty t-shirt with a happy glow on his face last night at the club who grabbed me before I left the dance floor.

Grateful to be seen.

Grateful for music.

Grateful for dancing.

Grateful for this rich, full life.

Even when my knees hurt and I rue the nights I danced for hours in platform heels for six, seven, eight hours, when I was young and anesthetized on cocaine, even when I can’t drop it like it’s hot, or even like it’s lukewarm, even when I can’t stay out late or all night long like I used to, or that I have all sorts of laugh wrinkles around my eyes, even when my hips hurt (gah), and I can’t believe I’m weeks away from turning 50, even then.

I am so grateful

So, I’ll continue to go out dancing.

And if you want.

You should come.

I’d love to see you on the dance floor.

Although I might not see you right away as I will be standing in front of the DJ with my hands raised to the heavens and my eyes closed shut in my own private ecstatic moment communing with God as I understand God.

Go out dancing.

It’s good for you.

Seriously.