Malaise Moving In

It seemed like a simple plan. We only needed to get a traveler's check at the American Express office for our security deposit. But somehow, two American Express offices and a half dozen ATMs later we were still short 1,000 Euros and out of time. So, Geoff and I had to split up - me to meet Sylvia for our noon meeting and Geoff to check out of the hotel.

Sylvia readied the paperwork as she chewed on a cigarette. Meanwhile, we wrestled our enormous luggage up the stairs. Although the lease measured a single page, the entire packet included about 50 pages. There were photos of everything in the apartment - from the furniture to the inside of the closets (and contents) to the tops and bottoms of every pot in the apartment. She also created handmade manuals for every appliance and utility including the single unit washer/dryer and the stove/dishwasher (believe it or not, also one unit) and left detailed instructions on how to shut off the water and gas for the apartment if we were to leave for more than three days.

After she double-kissed us good-bye, we were left alone in the apartment. And that's when it set in - malaise. The past year we had spent extremely task-oriented - find apartment in Boston, rent apartment in NY, buy house in Newport, fix it up, move out, organize trip to Paris - not to mention the series of doctor's appointments and treatments scattered throughout that had always kept us thinking of the next step. But suddenly, there was no next step. We had packed up all our stuff into storage and fled our life. We accomplished the task of getting here, for what? Or to quote Geoff's favorite saying (usually uttered at 4 am after dinner and the rounds to 3 NY bars), "What's next?"

Suddenly the apartment seemeed very close and we worried maybe it was this place? I wandered off to look at the patch of sky I could see through the bedroom window. The panic took form of a hollow ache - like when you have this terrible moan in your gut that something is wrong, but you just don't know what - malaise. It probably didn't help that my head still spun from my cold and Geoff's stomach still churned from the steak tartare. Why had we done this to ourselves?

But somewhere deep down, I relished even this malaise. Because I realized this was what it felt like when you opened yourself to the unknown. And I trusted that this feeling somehow would give way to some of the best moments of my life. Of course, it also was possible we would drown in this disorienting homesickness and abandon our life experiment. But that seemed unlikely. It also seemed unlikely to me that this feeling had anything to do with this apartment, but rather just the sudden realization that we had just moved to France for no good reason and had no idea what came next. It reminded me of sleepaway camp. I arrived desperate to leave, cringing at the food and skeeving the bathrooms. But by the end of the summer, I wished it would never end.

Geoff made us some green tea. We had brought our own since France is not known for its tea. And he hooked up the internet. I started to feel a little better. We were both exhausted. That night we slept great - a quiet, deep sleep. And as we both agreed when we woke up late the next morning, that's saying something.