You say goodbye, and I say hello

I wrote before about the death of one of my former professors; I’m back in Paris now, which meant I was able to attend her memorial service yesterday, on what would have been her birthday, in one of the rooms that used to be part hers. She would come in — tiny, blonde, often in a red coat and usually dragging a wheeled suitcase — say, “Okay,” and then lecture for ninety minutes, without ever once looking at her notes.

I loved hearing people talk about her. They all said the same things — she was brilliant, she had a terrifying reputation but was a genuinely kind person, she held everyone up to rigidly (but not impossibly) high standards. One of her colleagues, another of my former professors and still a dear friend, said that he was so happy that he was able to teach with her and not be graded by her! I was crying by then, but that phrase made me laugh out loud.

I wish I’d known her better, or at least longer; even so, something about her death has made me deeply sad and I notice her absence on campus and in my life, somehow. Forces of nature don’t go missing; but she has.

A couple of strange things about funerals (or rather, memorials), and this one in particular: (1) I always feel incredibly hungry afterwards. It’s probably just a desire to remind myself that I am still alive, but I devoured two glasses of grapefruit juice, half a pain suisse, and some kind of strange lemon poppyseed cookie right after the service, and in a way this was also part of saying goodbye. (2) This service gave me a chance to see several people I hadn’t seen yet since arriving in Paris, very dear people, old friends, old professors, etc. Having to greet old friends on the occasion of someone’s death is very odd — there’s a slight awkwardness at the joy of it, but the joy is also intensified by the reminder of its fragility.

Afterwards my very dear friend Lily and I spent a long time on the Champs de Mars (the park near campus and directly in front of the Eiffel Tower), catching up and processing each other’s lives, talking about our old and new homes, old and new relationships, and ending up, as always, with Virginia Woolf.

And all of this was, in a symbolic and particularly poignant way, representative of my first two weeks in Paris: made up of goodbyes and hellos.

I’m just starting my MA and realizing (as usual) that I don’t know ANYTHING, that academically I am pulled in about fifty-seven different (and opposite) directions, but that everything is exciting and thrilling, I love my professors, my classmates are v. interesting, intelligent, and fun, and Paris seems like a brand-new city, not at all like it was two years ago, except for the quality of the pastries, which is and always has been exceptional.

Not that anything particular has changed about Paris; minor things only; but I have changed, and all things are ready, if our minds be so.