Adieu

Last month, I traveled to Paris for work. While there, I gave notice at my job. After four years, it's time for a change. Like all changes, it felt poignant and emotional.

I left my last job on February 28, 2020. The following day, February 29, 2020, Claire and I packed everything we owned into a little rental car and drove from Bordeaux to Paris. I'm was already a little superstitious about traveling on a leap day. Now I sometimes I wonder if we slipped through a rift in time.

Ten days after we arrived in Paris, Claire caught Covid. Two days later, I caught it. The next day, Macron announced the first lockdown. Whatever friends we had in Paris fled. We were left alone in an empty city. Claire had a part-time job and I was unemployed — preparing to attend the bootcamp for which I had just relocated to Paris.

Those were somehow magical days. Time slowed, pooled, and unfurled. After we recovered from Covid, Claire and I spent our days waiting beside the canal for the world to reopen. When Macron loosened restrictions, we finally explored France beyond our neighborhood. We saw the Latin Quarter, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, and Mont Saint Michel, all abandoned.

In August, I started my new job, as a technical writer at a software company called Prismic.

In 2021, as France wasn't processing visas, we moved to Scotland. Eighteen months prior, Claire had shed a tear as we drove into Paris, she was so sad to have left Bordeaux. Now, as we sat in the back of a cab on our way to Gare du Nord for the train to Scotland, we both had tears in our eyes. This time because we were sad to leave Paris.

For the next three years, I kept one foot in Paris as I returned every few months for work. While living in Scotland, I got into the habit of traveling to Paris by train, drinking in the British countryside on the long journey south.

Last year, we moved to Italy, and I brought with me the sense of home that came with my intermittent trips to Paris — to that place where time had stopped and started again. In all of these years of change and upheaval, Paris offered a sense of continuity.

On my last trip to Paris last month, as I spent time working and eating and drinking with my colleagues, I kept the news of my departure to myself. I felt obligated to tell my superiors before I told anyone else. As a result, I had a quiet sense of tenderness in my chest through all of the mundane water cooler interactions. These coworkers had become my friends, and they had supported me through some difficult times.

On my last night in Paris, our team went out for drinks to celebrate two other coworkers who were departing. Not wanting to co-opt their celebration, I kept my news close to the chest. But, at the end of the night, as carriages turned to pumpkins and I said goodbye to coworkers, the emotions welled up. Finally, my friends Mabel and Lidija got up to say goodbye. "See you next time you're in Paris!" they said before noticing the tear in my eye. "What is it?" asked Mabel.

Lucie, who already knew, explained. "He's not coming back."

And that was it. I said my goodbyes to Mabel and Lidija and Lucie. Then I got up to leave and said goodbye to everyone else. The tears came as I walked toward my hotel.

The French tend to skip dinner, which has never worked for me. I wandered to a McDonalds on the canal, where I ordered a royal cheese with fries. The seating area was closed, so I stepped outside to find a bench on the canal, only to discover that the sky had opened into a downpour. I climbed the stairs of one of the historic wrought-iron bridges that crosses the canal and found shelter under a tree branch at the top of the bridge. I unwrapped my now-wet burger and watched the rain come down on the black water of the canal — just a few hundred feet away from the spot where I had stayed when I visited Paris for the first time in 2008 — and while I ate I said goodbye to this strange place outside of time.

The next morning, I walked to Gare du Nord to catch the train to the airport. The streets were empty as I walked, and I couldn't help but shoot these mundane photos.

As I stood in line for airport security, I stared at the strange x-ray machine that was processing my carry-on luggage. The realization slowly dawned on me that this next-gen high-powered luggage scanner was blasting my film. (Most film is safe in conventional luggage scanners.) The scanner damaged the film, distorting the contrast and creating a rather extreme grain. Of course, it's kind of accurate. It makes these photos feel like distant memories, which, I suppose they now are.