39. A True Paris Romance.
A story about a genuine Parisien couple.
Bienvenue to the 39th article in my Medium publication, Inside Me Inside Paris, a work-in-progress memoir about my 2016 deep-dive into Paris & my journey to find my soul amidst the onslaught of depression…
C’est 26 août 2016.
Didier and his wife Juliana invited me for a fine afternoon of lunch and backgammon. It was the least they could do after I had to climb their six flights of stairs and we all know how much I love climbing the stairs. It was sweltering as it has been and Didier took off his pants and he danced around in his white briefs to eighties songs.
For our lunch, Juliana prepared a rich Lebanese salad, an Italian pasta that wasn’t bad and we washed it down with a mild and modest French red wine. Afterwards, Didier and I played backgammon on a well-crafted homemade wooden backgammon board and he won four out of five games and he felt very good that he could beat me but I didn’t feel good about losing, but in life, I’m resigned to lose anyway, so whateves.
Didier and Juliana have been together for nine years and by the way they bickered, I gathered it has been a long nine years, but Julia and I were together for nine years, and we never bickered like them. Maybe it was just the harsh style in the Middle Eastern way of talking that just sounded like bickering.
It wasn’t evident tonight, but I imagined Didier and Juliana once had a love outwardly and freely expressed. What happened to that feeling, I wondered, and does this happen to everyone, to the point that this is something that I don’t want to be going through anymore in any kind of relationship.
They lived in an apartment that is very Paris in that it was tiny and encroaching. All three of us were in the same room, and it felt like we were right on top of each other. Their wedding picture hung on the wall and as I pondered on the idea of a couple sticking it out and making the marriage work after nine years, Didier made a comment about Juliana’s increasing weight. It was said in a tone of scientific observation than as an insult, but the damage was done and by Juliana’s stern look, it was clear this wasn’t the first time he had made the comment. I snickered — involuntarily, mind you — not because the comment was funny but because I was astonished he made it so matter-of-factly with her in the room. I would’ve never commented on Julia’s weight, either to her or to company, ever. And yet Didier and Juliana are still together, so somehow they managed to make it work.
Date Night in the Latin Quarter
Later that night, Didier, Juliana and I took the metro to the Latin Quarter where we found a cheesy piano bar. The cheesier the better for Didier.
At the piano, a singer named Dominique sang her heart out to entertain the tourists who wandered in for fruity drinks and stale pretzels. I wondered what her big dreams were once in her life and if she was holding on to the edge of her personal abyss by the tips of her fingertips like I was doing, but somehow managed to save face by holding on to her dream, albeit not in the fashion she had originally imagined. I couldn’t tell at all by her energy. She seemed to enjoy herself and her voice was beautiful in a place that also had the Barcelona soccer match playing on TV. Could I be satisfied with this life, one that was so promising and now settled in to the reality that was nowhere near the dreams she pursued and toiled for, but she was still singing. Or was she resigned to the fact that she had put all her eggs in this basket of being a singer and now had no skills besides her voice and this was the best she could do to pay the rent and eat a nice meal every once in a great while? Was she actually fulfilled with the smattering applause of the tourists who came in for a respite from the heat?
I wanted to know because I think this is where my life is heading. There was a window in my life earlier this century where I vowed that I didn’t want to live a mediocre life but would rather blow my brains out. Now I’m afraid that I’m heading right into the sunset of mediocrity, and it’s high time to make good on that vow, as accepting mediocrity feels like a living hell I don’t want to live through.
I’m fascinated by the dynamics of couples. I’m always curious about how long relationships last. It wasn’t evident tonight, but I imagined Didier and Juliana once had a love outwardly and freely expressed. What happened to that feeling, I wondered, and does this happen to everyone, to the point that this is something that I don’t want to be going through anymore in any kind of relationship. Maybe subconsciously that’s where Julia and I were headed as well, and I didn’t want to exist in a relationship of mediocrity, where we were going through the motions and bickering at each other because we were growing bitter because we were past the best versions of ourselves.
My mom and dad were together for twenty years, but as long as I remember, which was probably around seven years old, they never felt like a real couple to me. They didn’t express their love to each other. My dad was a misfit, playing Mahjong and raising fighting cocks to kill each other for betting sport, while my mom was the one who kept the family afloat. I had absolutely no sense of familial love and no familial traditions because there was none in my world except in the form of love songs and romantic comedies. I recalled, however, that there were family photos of all of us when I played baseball in Hawaii, and the photos seemed to indicate a nice snapshot of a Filipino family living in America, but I wonder what really transpired between my mom and dad.
For decades, my worldview about relationships was that romantic love was a farce; that you may find someone you may initially have an affection for but when that wears off the way that the bright colors of paint of your once brand new car just fades over time from being under the sun for so many years, it’s through sheer will and discipline for the sake of loyalty that the relationship stays afloat at sea; that you accept maturely that this is what happens over time and in conjunction, you accept the human foibles of things like infidelity, patches of resentment and scorn and no sex for the rest of your life as a couple, because longevity would be rewarded by…. you know. Something. Maybe a thirty year anniversary party with close friends. Honestly, I don’t know my current worldview on love, but I’m skeptical that the ideal scenario that I romantically have in my head, the idea of two people living authentically simpatico their entire lives doesn’t exist, at least for me.
At the piano bar, Didier and Juliana drank a Baileys together, but otherwise, she showed no affection except she rested her broken leg on his lap. I could see that he wanted to love her — in the way that he way he cared for her broken leg and that he did what she asked, even when she lightly demanded like a just-scolded child who knew she had the upper hand. He wanted to give her affection but not until she met him halfway. But she wasn’t giving in either until she herself received affection — an embrace, maybe one dance. This was the tug of war of love that a couple might experience, a result of Things That Have Happened, Stuff in the Past, Moments Unresolved. Holding hands goes a long way in my experience, but they were too far along to hold hands. Instead, they were held together by tenure, which tonight, was just enough for a hint of a spark, I thought.
While we were in the Metro on the line 1 headed home, Didier got past the hurt and past the past and he put his head and laid it on Juliana’s shoulders. But a little later at the bus stop in Nation, Juliana didn’t show him back the love. Instead her attention and energy was to her phone. Maybe she was still hurt by the weight joke he made at lunch, maybe it was from Stuff in the Past, but the result of it all was that the spark died, and thus resigned, Didier just waited for the bus like I did, just eager to get home and climb into bed.
I left them at the bottom of the stairs of their apartment on 9 Rue du Clos. I imagine they walked up all six flights of stairs, entered their apartment, brushed their teeth, washed their faces. I imagined that he farted, she burped, then Didier told Juliana to close the window to shut out the noise coming from the courtyard, and then they lay down in bed, and with their backs to each other said bonne nuit, as they have over nine years of les bonne nuites.
Thank you very much for reading this memoir I’m workshopping. I’m a writer/photographer based in Burbank, California. Some of my work is visible on my Instagram.
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