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Nadine Walks

stories of trekking and travel

Returning to Paris, Returning to the Camino; (‘You Can’t Go Home Again’)

March 5, 2015

Have you ever gone back to a place that you loved and found that it had changed? Or that your experience of it was very different?

Two years ago I was planning my first return to France in over 10 years, and I was nervous about seeing Paris again. Paris had defined travel when I was in my early 20’s; it was the place I’d always wanted to go to, and the place I traveled to the most during my year abroad in college. I’d imagined that it was a beautiful, magical place, and my actual experience of it didn’t let me down: Paris did feel magical. Being there made me feel alive and so full of hope and possibility.

I was young, and I hadn’t traveled overseas before. I learned- in small doses- how to be brave in Paris, and it was something I didn’t even really think about because I was desperate to see as much of the city as I could. So I would set my alarm for 6am and wake up before the other students in my program. I’d wander through the streets with my camera in hand, then return to the hostel and join my friends for breakfast. I learned how to ride the metro, I learned how to find my way around cemeteries and museums, I learned how to drink coffee.

When I returned to Paris, on the eve of my 33rd birthday, the city felt different. The buildings still seemed to glow, Notre Dame was just as majestic as I’d always remembered, but something was off.

I still wandered through the streets, taking photos and drinking cafe cremes. Weaving through the tombstones of Pere Lachaise, I tracked down Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. I slept in the same hostel that I had when I was 20, I ate the same baguette breakfast. Climbing up the 400-odd stairs to the top of Notre Dame, I put my face up to the wire fence and looked out over the city.

This was still Paris: beautiful and enchanting and foreign.

The changes that I noticed? It wasn’t Paris that had changed, not really.

It was me.

Drinking my first cafe creme was probably the biggest tip-off. It’s difficult to explain how important cafe cremes were to my year in France, when I was a college student: I’d never really drank coffee regularly before, and I’d never made  ‘sitting in a cafe and watching people and spending hours talking about life with my friends’ an everyday thing. As I moved through my twenties and looked back on my time in France, the cafe creme became symbolic. It was France, and it was travel, and it was me, at that time.

So when I returned to Paris and sat in the basement room of my hostel with my red breakfast tray spread out before me, a cup of creamy, hot coffee in my hands, I smiled before taking my first sip.

I took the first sip, and then I frowned. This was what I had been waiting for, all of these years? This was a cafe creme?

From 20 to 33, I’d changed. It wasn’t just about the coffee, although that was part of it. Back when I was 20, I didn’t know what a really good cup of coffee tasted like. And I suppose I didn’t know what the world tasted like, yet. I still haven’t traveled all that much, and there’s still so much more life I need to experience. But I’d grown in 13 years. I still have a somewhat childlike sense of wonder and innocence, but it’s very different than what I had at 20, when it defined so much of my life and how I saw the world.

Recognizing these changes, as I wandered through Paris, was a little unsettling. I walked through the city and wondered what I was looking for. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the 20-year old girl who had been here that first time.

As the days passed I realized that these changes were okay. On my 33rd birthday I walked into a cafe that I’d remembered being in with my friends on that first trip to Paris. On that night, years ago, we’d crammed around a table on the terrace of the cafe, drinking hot chocolate and giggling about life.

On this night, I walked into the cafe and I asked for a table. I was seated outside, with a view of the Seine and the spires of Notre Dame. After ordering a glass of wine, the waiter complimented my French. I’d made several mistakes- fumbling over the word ‘boisson’ (which means ‘drink’)- and we laughed. I wasn’t self-conscious in the way that I used to be; my French was more rusty than ever, and yet, I was more confident about speaking than when I was 20.

I’m thinking about changes and how we experience the same place in different ways because of my upcoming Camino. I’m nervous about returning for a 2nd time, even though only a year separates my two pilgrimages, whereas over 10 years separated my visits to Paris. I haven’t changed all that much in the past year, and yet, I know that my second Camino will be very different from my first. Will my return to the Camino be like my return to Paris?

Will I be more confident? Will I relax a bit about my fears? Will I use the knowledge that I gained on my first trip and hit the ground running on my second? Will I be able to work on the lessons that I feel I was just beginning to learn as I ended my first pilgrimage?

Will I still love the walking? Will I still avoid blisters and still make some friends? Will I still love the cafe con leches??

I’d love to hear about your experiences of a place or an experience that you returned to- whether it was the Camino or something (somewhere) else. Were you disappointed? Did the return exceed your expectations? Will you continue to return again and again?

Paris at 20

Paris at 20

Paris at 33

Paris at 33

 

Leave a Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago, France, Travel
Tagged: cafe cremes, Camino de Santiago, change, confidence, France, life, Notre Dame, Paris, past, return, travel, walking

Camino Lesson #1: Be here, now.

October 23, 2014

Fall, as a season, is a transition. It’s warmth to cold, sunshine to darkness, long days to short. In the past five years it’s been a strange kind of season for me; it’s either been the start of a slide into something not so great, or else the beginning of something new and wonderful. It’s like my life transitions coincide with this season. The days change, and so do the circumstances of my life.

Two years ago I was in the beautiful beginnings of a new love, and life was great. Fall was great, because life was great. I was enjoying the season, but I was also full of the feeling of change. I was so focused on where my life was moving and how to get there, always thinking about the future: about the next trip to Vermont to see my boyfriend, about his next visit to see me, about the next year and whether I would still be living in my apartment, about searching through craigslist and monster.com for new jobs.

A year later my relationship was falling apart (or, it had already fallen apart, but I was still holding on as tightly as I could), and fall was practically nonexistent. I didn’t want to see the changing leaves, I didn’t want to enjoy the pumpkin-flavored-everything, I just wanted to figure out how to make my relationship work, and how to be happy in my partnership again. I constantly thought about the past and what had gone wrong, and I kept looking to a point in the future, when I would feel better and when things would work out.

This fall? I’m trying to be here, now. I think I only really started trying in the past couple of weeks, and in a way, I’m amazed that it took me so long to practice this Camino lesson: don’t dwell in the past or the future, but just enjoy where you are.

I’ve always known that this is a valuable life lesson, but it’s a tough one to put into practice. On the Camino, it was almost effortless. There was so much going on, so much change every day, so much to engage your senses that it was almost impossible (for me, at least), to focus my mind on what had happened the day before, or what would happen tomorrow. And it was a strange practice for me, to not be constantly reflecting on what I had experienced, or preparing for what was to come. I was just letting things be- doing my best to process stuff through blog and journal writing- but otherwise just letting it be.

And it was a wonderful lesson for me to put into practice. Being present made me so happy: when I walked, sometimes I had a smile glued to my face because of the beauty and wonder of where I was and what I was doing. I’ve written about leaving my guidebook behind (and the lost guidebook ties into several Camino lessons for me), but it helped with the act of staying present: I didn’t read about what was going to happen in the future. For the most part, I stopped planning. I just woke up each day and I walked. I didn’t know who I would see or where I would stay, and it was an incredible and freeing feeling.

But when I came home, I got a bit stuck in the past and the future again. Missing my Camino, thinking about it and reflecting on it, going through my photos, even reading my own blog posts to try to get back to that time. And I’ve been very preoccupied about my future, about figuring out what my next step is, about whether I want to make a change, about how to know what is right for me.

It’s important to remember the past and to prepare for the future- what would life be like if we didn’t do either?- but it’s also extremely valuable to sometimes just let it go, and be in the moment. To just enjoy where you are.

So this fall, maybe it will end up being a time of transition for me, but I can’t know that right now. Right now, I’m in my kitchen, and I just pulled a warm loaf of pumpkin bread from the oven. I’m listening to XPN’s 885 Greatest Songs of All Time countdown (which is simply wonderful, right now ‘Wouldn’t it Be Nice‘ by the Beach Boys is playing, and just before was a long jazz number from Miles Davis). I’m noticing the changing leaves and the cooler air as I walk in loops through my neighborhood. I’m cooking foods like chili and butternut squash soup. This weekend, I’m going camping with two of my closest friends.

The last two weeks have been a great time, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve been trying to just be in my days, and to enjoy them as much as I can. I know that I’m going to continue to miss things from my past, and that I’m going to be a bit anxious about figuring out my future, but I’m trying to give those feelings a time and a place. And then I’m moving on… to now, to this beautiful fall season.

Ridley Creek State Park, October 2014

Leave a Comment / Filed In: Camino de Santiago
Tagged: autumn, being present, Camino de Santiago, fall, future, happiness, hiking, journey, life, life lessons, past, pumpkin, travel, walking

Welcome! I’m Nadine: a traveler, a pilgrim, a walker, a writer, a coffee drinker. This is where I share my stories, my thoughts and my walks. I hope you enjoy the site!
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