A Parisian Lexicon

On turning 40

Today, I turn 40. It's a milestone on its own, to be sure, but it also marks nearly two decades of living in Paris. I arrived at 20 with an obnoxious and very American oversized suitcase and a dictionary, thinking I’d have a grand summer studying and celebrating my 21st birthday and then return to Philadelphia to figure out what I was going to make of my life.

Who would I be if I hadn’t moved to France? I try not to get sucked into such queries because the only conclusion I reach is that I would have been different and my life would have been different. Point. It’s not a good use of my mind. But what is abundantly clear is that living in this country has completely bent and shaped my personality, worldview, and values in ways that have made me a better and more empathetic person. For that transformation alone, I am grateful.

Nineteen years later, the dictionary I arrived with is long gone, but a different one has slowly written itself into my life. Instead of a reflection or a love letter (Paris doesn’t care much for them anyway), I thought about a lexicon of sorts; words that have shaped my life here as I have evolved from an uncertain twenty-year-old to a fully-fledged adult with an unconventional career, a family (🐾), and friends I can’t fathom living without.

Résistance
Small, daily acts that feed into the bigger ones. Pushing back against the expected, the imposed, the uninspired, and the unjust.

Soin
Affordable care as a national right. There isn’t much coddling, but there is a level of humanity to health and wellness. And then there’s the quiet discipline of self-care through little rituals, pharmacy visits, and vitamin D baths—sunbathing alongside Parisians who plant themselves in bathing suits in the park on the first warm spring day.

En Attente
Waiting. On standby for the carte vitale, a new bank card, an electrician, and for the rain to slow. This city teaches patience, or at least an understanding that not everything is swift or immediate (even though some things really should and could be).

Râler
To complain, yes, but artfully. Paris doesn't do toxic positivity. It runs on sighs, eye rolls, and eloquent discontent. I adopted this a little too well, too quickly.

Paisible
A fleeting and often hidden calm. A quiet street after dinner. A patch of sunlight in the Buttes-Chaumont. Kicking my feet up on the edge of the central fountain in the Palais Royal gardens and spending an hour or two reading. Residents walking their dogs along the Seine before the day really begins. A coffee with the newspaper, à l’ancienne, in a neighborhood café.

Dépaysant
Disorienting and unfamiliar in the best way. What Paris once was for me and what other parts of the country still remain.

Impossible
Delivered with a shrug or a snarl. It never really means impossible, but rather convince me. It’s an exhausting game, but one I can respect. It will never change either.

Débrouillard(e)
Someone who figures it out and finds a way—not always gracefully or seamlessly, but somehow. It’s also an important word to grasp in the early years as an immigrant—help is out there, but you need to jump through the bureaucratic and professional hurdles to earn your place.

La rentrée
How the entire country conceptualizes any given year. There’s the one in January, after the winter holiday, which carries a touch of melancholy, and the one in September, which whiffs of fresh notebooks, roasted coffee, and second chances.

Chez moi / Parisienne
I hesitated using either word for years. And then one day, I did. Quietly, without thinking.

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Jay Swanson

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