solo in paris
[Visiting my long-distance friend, late july in parisian suburbs. Then, a few days later sitting alone along the canal Saint-Martin.]
Sitting on the balcony with the door open just enough to hear the hum of conversations inside, yet maintaining a safe distance from the noise within the quiet haven of my own making, I'm engulfed in darkness, safe for the glowing windows of the facing neighbours. I'm left wondering at their distant lives. There is little else that evokes such estrangement as existing within the restricted bubble of long-distance friends' intimacies; to be familiar only with a few facets of them but a stranger with most.
Wherever, whenever, I carry this heaviness that is vaguely shaped like grief or maybe homesickness. A kind of apprehension of loss. The grief is not necessarily directed at the thing that is lost, but at grief itself, which, through this reflection, is magnified. I'm tempted to eavesdrop on strangers' conversations, especially the person sitting beside me on the waterside, who is on a call with a woman who might be his good friend or lover. Their dialogue is movie-like, as if scripted, switching spontaneously from English to French and Spanish. In moments when the heaviness becomes merely intolerable, I find consolation in strangers having similar conversations to mine.