Six Days in France: On The Rue des Archives I Stopped and Wept

There are four places in the world I want to live: the Centrum in Amsterdam, the East Village in Manhatten, Soho in London and the Marais in Paris. Don't misunderstand me: if you would like to give me the keys to your flat in St Germain, or Kensington, or the Upper East Side, I'll move my books and CD's in tomorrow. But those are the places where I would spend my own money to live.

And when I am where I want to be and brought back to myself, I am brought face-to-face with the truth that I am not living the life I would like to lead in any of the places I would like to lead it. This is something I know, but rarely feel. Walking through the Marais that Sunday, I felt it. And I did what any decent, feeling person would do: I cried for the things that I have missed, and not been brave enough, or hard-working enough, or lucky enough, or talented enough, or courageous enough, or connected enough, or wealthy enough, or foolhardy enough, or sober enough, or clear-headed enough, to have tried for.

The rules changed during my lifetime. It turns out that to be my age and employed in a proper full-time job is not, after all, to be taken for granted. I have survived five or so years of unemployment in the last two decades, sunk into alcoholism in my thirties and spent eighteen years in recovery, have had and lost a long-term relationship, gained enough weight to have been diagnosed with so-called "type two diabetes" and then lost enough and become fit enough to be passed more or less flawless in my medicals, and I am still learning abstract mathematics and reading philosophy. It is also a life with little rest or ease. Even my sleep is filled with detailed, busy dreams. Sometimes tears are a relief. A relief from the endless effort of pretence, of being thankful for what I've got, of living in the moment, of resisting the temptation to turn round and quit everything, of showing up every freaking day.

And that's why, on the Rue des Archives, I stopped and wept. Because it was beautiful, because I was tired, and because I could afford for a few moments to feel honestly.