Leaving Paris

I arrived in Paris on 10th September, 2024. When I first came here, I wasn’t sure if I were going to stay beyond the summer of this year but it has been one year and a few months that I have been here. In this time, I haven’t really left Paris except for a few days. It has not been long enough to call this hallucinatory city home but it has been long enough to not find it entirely foreign: it is a liminal city, like a person who you have known for a long time and then suddenly 

not 
at 
all. 

There are things that I will miss: the Franprix close to me, RER B, red wine, financiers, my coffee machine, the balcony with my now dead basil plant, the scent of sandalwood mixed with vanilla, the graffiti on the streets, butter from Brittany, farmers’ market at Port Royal, Boulinier, the half-comprehensible French chatter on the tram, the vintage coats and paintings at flea markets, Saint Michel Notre Dame, scattered autumn leaves, the always unfulfilled promise of January, its banlieues chéries, my always incorrect French. 

Until the end, though,

(and perhaps even then?)

no entry or exit is final.