The Paris Bed Diary

June 14th, 2017

She got her first full-time job and first stable health insurance plan at 21. Even the ability to go to a doctor when she is coughing up phlegm is not something that was given to her. She had to earn it on her own.

So at 23, when she clasps her first passport in her hands and gets on an airplane to Europe for the first time, everything makes her heart beat fast. London is a lovely whirlwind, but it is travel on easy-mode for a States girl like her. She knows this.

Paris is her first true step into the unknown. She’s practiced her French for months, though she’s still terrified to utter her first je voudrais… to an actual French person. The little hotel they arrive at in the morning in the northern part of Le Marais is already a Parisian experience.

They are placed on the fifth floor in the cheapest room she’d booked half a year in advance. They cannot both fit inside the elevator with their single bag each. The elevator has precisely the space for one human and one backpack. Nothing more.

Giggling, they close the manual metal doors. He sends her up first. She waves at him through the grate. She unlocks the door with the delightfully solid metal key. She’s still so very excited for the view, but she can see why this was the cheapest room; it was once an attic. The ceiling slopes low on both sides.

But the full-sized bed, tucked in a corner below the sloping ceiling, is right beside a window. She drops her backpack, propping the door open for him, and scurries to the window. She looks across the way and sees that the building across the street is apartments. Flower beds. Laundry hanging. Real Parisians. It’s all too delightful for words.

Her lover makes it up to the top floor from his separate elevator journey. She bounces about the room, showing off every detail she’s absorbed in these few minutes alone. They flop onto the bed, side by side.

The bed is not overly comfortable, but the sheets smell fresh. The low ceiling makes her feel cozy and lovingly tucked into this bed.

She looks out the window again. This is her home for the next three nights. Could anything be better? She doesn’t think so. It’s all too perfect.

~

January 7th, 2023

Graduate school is happening much later in life than she thought it would. Graduating at 22 in 2016, she fantasized about finishing her PhD at 27. But instead, she’s just finally starting her master’s at 29. Life, mental health, and many jobs got in the way before she could make this diluted dream start coming true.

So she has mixed feelings when she returns to Paris for the two-week intensive of her grad program. Her fiancé waits at home, because he needs to work, and that is just what is practical. But it feels wrong and strange to visit a familiar airport without him and navigate check-in at the hotel in terrible French, again, without him.

She booked the cheapest room she could get, close to grad school as she could get. She had never booked so many consecutive nights at a hotel. It makes her feel like a very fancy grown-up lady, yes indeed. There’s even enough space in the elevator that someone else could have fit inside with her, even with her cheap rolling bag. Still an upgrade from the big backpack she’d brought on her first visit to Paris. She’s made progress on life in other ways, even if her education hasn’t moved at the pace she desired.

She has to work at being charmed by the room. The wallpaper is a drab, striped brown. It doesn’t have that light and airy feeling of her first, brief hotel room in Paris. But there’s a small desk under the TV, an open-faced closet, and still one of those beautiful Parisian windows with its intricate ironwork.

A kettle sits on the table, but no tea bags. She makes up her mind to buy a big container of tea to get caffeinated each morning on a budget.

After a day of sightseeing and frequenting stationary stores, she returns for the night. She lies down on the bed to find it firm and a little thin. But this is fine—an adventurer doesn’t need palatial accommodations.

But sleep doesn’t find her easily. Time zones drag at her. And then, around eleven, after enough hours of meandering through grad school homework, she turns off the lights and lies down.

She hears voices through the wall. There’s a couple in the room beside hers. This makes her miss him. They chat the evening away, pleasant French voices.

The couple goes from chatting to, well, much more than chatting. They are energetic. She salutes them for their romantic Paris rendezvous.

Three hours later, somehow the man still has stamina, and she is starting to think that maybe the woman isn’t faking those orgasms after all.

The second night, they’re at it again. She is impressed but also annoyed and digs her airplane earplugs out.

Five nights in, different guests are in the room beside hers. Then she hears a baby start to cry. The full lifecycle has unfolded.

~

July 8th, 2023

At first, she shares this bed with a friend (yes, really a friend) because they are like souls who want to experience the world with their finite days. “You’ll never be any younger than you are today,” her friend says thoughtfully as they apply their makeup in different mirrors. She will remember these words for years to come.

This bed has a strangely shaped, rectangular pillow that no amount of Googling has revealed the secrets of. It was perfect for doing upper back stretches. They do stretches together each night, discussing things from poetry to having children to their mothers.

The hotel is far from grad school, but she’s nabbed a good deal, and the rooms near her are silent. She walks twenty-six minutes each morning and evening, because that was the distance required for her to afford a hotel. But she passes through the Jardin du Luxembourg. Her pace is closer to the Parisian joggers than the tourists leisuring through.

But she loves to feel like she has purpose. Before, she was a tourist. But now, she is a student.

This room becomes a little bit lonely after her friend moves on to the next stop in her travels. But it’s time for her to focus on the words she pens on paper. It’s time, it’s time, it’s time.

~

January 7th, 2024

She barely recovered from one of the worst periods of illness in her life before this trip to Paris. She wears a mask on the plane because, though she is well, she has a lingering cough, and she doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.

She treats herself to a more comfortable bed this time. Closer than in summer since the days are shockingly cold.

The room is small, but the bed is luxuriously large and soft. She almost can’t believe that the bed is this nice in a hotel she can afford. She cuddles under the delightfully heavy blanket and reads books she bought in London.

It’s quiet and perfect.

And it snows in Paris. Who couldn’t sleep like a baby when they’ve witnessed the beauty of Parisian snow?

~

June 4th, 2024

This is her last summer in Paris, and she is aware of this fact acutely. She feels adventurous again and chooses a risky bed–a small attic apartment with slanted roofs that remind her of that first summer in Paris.

She meets her host’s contact person outside. The woman kindly shows her how to manage the tricky Parisian locks. The building is old, but has the loveliest courtyard, and such a quaint little elevator. It fits them both and her little suitcase. These small details make her feel so accomplished in this life. She gets the loveliest view of Notre Dame through the elevator window.

Yes, yes. This is life. This is accomplishment.

The bed isn’t terribly comfortable, like that first Parisian bed. It’s a little studio apartment. She can see every inch of the space from the bed. The bathroom is so nautical themed, there’s a porthole-shaped window dividing the kitchen and shower.

When she opens her eyes and sees sunlight falling upon the roofs of the Latin Quarter, it’s so beautiful, it sweeps her away.

~

January 5th, 2025

She is a person who plans. She plans her life, her trips, and even her ordinary days. This is the last planned bed in Paris she will have. She is graduating.

She has to say goodbye to this city from this bed.

She treats herself to a fine bed again. Winter is favorable for this. The sheets are clean and perfumed. The walls a clear white.

She lies on the bed, but she also lies on the sofa, for this lovely little apartment has two rooms. There’s even a kitchen table for her to write at.

This is how she will remember Paris. Quiet. Small, but space enough to be perfectly comfortable.

And the boy who is now her husband joins her to share this bed with her. To celebrate her accomplishment alongside her. She doesn’t

This time, she is like French woman who kept her up late into the night.