Sundays in Paris

Probably two times out of three that I come to a café to write, the bartender (usually male, old, balding) will ask me “where are you from?”  I always answer “America” and they tend to pause for a moment, unsatisfied because that doesn’t explain my ambiguous features, but they rarely press me. Instead they smile and say “very nice!” and I thank them and they test out the few English phrases they know and I smile and they wink back. It’s always a pleasant exchange. They bring out my coffee and even though I’ve done it plenty of times I’m always surprised by how tiny the cup is. I used to milk the thing for four or five sips but that’s just ridiculous so now I gulp it down in one take. Then I sit back and breathe in the lovely smells of the bakery next door for just a moment before the French couple adjacent to me blows cigarette smoke in my face. I do my passive aggressive eye roll (two full turns) then eventually accept that they won and go about my afternoon. This is what my Sundays look like.

I think I've already used this photo, oh well. 

There’s something quite sexy about jotting notes in a journal out on a café terrace that you don’t get back home on your laptop in Starbucks. Sure, it’d be much more romantic if I were sharing my coffee with someone else and that someone else was kissing my hand and whispering sweet nothings in French in my ear like that damn couple next to me, but hey, at least the bartender likes me. The ambiance in French coffee shops revolves around relaxation rather than productivity (much like most things in French culture), and I find this actually makes the whole experience much more enjoyable. When I first arrived it bugged me that none of the neighborhood cafes had wifi but now I prefer to work at ones with the absolute basics (chairs, tables, and a toilet). There’s no fighting over outlets or complaining about shabby internet connection, and certainly a lot less facebook stalking and hashtagging. Instead I switch off between people-watching and daydreaming, staring into my empty cup and debating whether or not to get up to pee, and finally writing down a paragraph to justify the three euros I just spent on an itty bitty coffee. And ironically (sadly), that’s usually a more productive writing sesh than when I’m in a Starbucks.

I have a love/hate relationship with Sundays in Paris. For those of you unfamiliar with France, stores, banks, pharmacies and many other establishments are closed on Sundays. Not for religious reasons as might be expected in the states, the French feel they deserve Sundays as a day off because they’ve already accomplished so so much in the 35 hours they worked during the week. LOL.

Sure, it makes sense. Who likes to go shopping on their day off, when they could try to squeeze it in during the middle of the work week? People don’t ever have money issues so why have the bank open… in fact, let’s keep it closed on Monday too! (#truelife). Nobody ever gets sick on Sundays, so no need for a pharmacy to get medication (okay that’s not completely fair… probably a dozen stay open in a city of two million).  We should be thankful for the grocery stores kind enough to stay open until noon on Sundays, because why would we need to buy food in the afternoon when we can wake up early and do it hungover in the AM? 

That, in case you couldn’t tell, was the hate. Now here’s the love.

On Sundays, I actually relax. There’s no fretting about getting things done because even if I had to, I can’t! The errands can wait. It took me a good two years of living abroad to detach from my type A personality and finally accept that weekends are supposed to be spent bumming around. At least that’s the mentality here and I must say I don’t mind it. When no expectation is set to accomplish anything productive, that meager paragraph I actually did write back at the café suddenly feels like a major accomplishment. The pace of my days and my weeks has slowed down drastically, and I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s all about perspective I guess. It feels completely un-American and completely French and I’d rather not pick sides right now.

I wonder how Hemmingway and Fitzgerald and Stein and all the other greats who lived in Paris back in the 20’s spent their day off. I’m sure their pens just gushed brilliance constantly, page after page any day of the week, but I’d like to think that they too found it ridiculous that you can’t buy aspirin on a Sunday. Or at the very least they had to have wondered why the coffees are so damn tiny.