The first time I climbed the five flights of stairs, it felt like a hysterical joke. A hysterical joke that left my chest burning, my lungs nearly convulsing and my mind racing. It may be sick humor that I was going to have to climb 119 steps to reach my new humble abode, but it was also the makings of a really fantastic beginning. Top of the stairs, then all the way down the hall to the second-to-last door on the left – that’s where I found my first Paris home.

Parisians call it a chambre de bonne: former  living quarters for live-in maids of bourgeois families that have since been converted into teeny, tiny apartments for students who don’t mind a toilet down the hall. Reached by a separate staircase, you enter through a “service” door, prepared to climb to the high heavens as elevators simply do not exist for maids and poor graduate students.

There wasn’t much to it: a bed, a desk, an armoire and a kitchenette complete with sink, mini fridge, microwave and hot plate. A shower and pedestal sink were halfway blocked off in the corner by a wall. By American Texas standards, the size is inconceivable, by anyone’s standards, it was humble, but what I learned was that I didn’t need much. And besides, with Paris out my door, there was little reason to ever stay home for long.

 

My window, old and wooden, swung out over the building’s courtyard with sublime views of one neighbor’s enviable terrace (probably 3 times the size of my apartment) as well as the apartment that occupied the top two floors of the building’s west side. There were so many nights when I would stick my head out the window to hear the city’s night whispers. Lights glowed from within the apartments below while the Orsay next door was usually dark and closed for the night. On weekends, late night rebel-rousers’ shouts of glee and inebriation would split the silence as they walked on the Rue Université. In the mornings, the cacophony of traffic would usually wake me before my alarm, but on quiet mornings I could hear the scrapes of a broom as sweet Madame Anta, the building’s guardienne, swept the cobblestone courtyard five floors below. In the evenings, my stomach would rumble as I climbed the staircase and smelled with each floor a new dinner being prepared for the family inside and late at night I loved to stand in the bathroom with the light out and stare up at Montmartre; from the top of its hill, Sacré Coeur was a white ghost floating above the city with dark skies above and descending arrondisements below.

 

 

 

My last week in Paris began with packing up my apartment. As my mom and I folded clothes and keepsakes into suitcases I thought about the first night I spent here, my first night  completely on my own in a foreign city. So much had happened since then – and this small space had in one way or another been witness to it all.

As I went to my window one last time, my bags now packed and waiting downstairs, the emotions that had thus-far hidden away finally rose up. With tears filling my eyes, I looked out at the courtyard and the surrounding buildings one last time. Chances are that I will never again be in that tiny apartment to see that particular slice of Parisian sky to which I had grown accustomed to telling bon matin and bonne huit. And as I went down my 119 stairs, one at a time, one last time, my mom told me that this was just like the end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, just the beginning of a new, great adventure. I couldn’t pretend to know the reference, but I did understand the moment and hoped that in closing one door, another would open somewhere else.

Isn’t it funny how the things that mean nothing to your everyday life, that blend in like oxygen, are what you remember most profoundly? Like the smell of the building and the weight of its doors. The clinking sound of keys and the clicks of locks undone. One floor, two floors, three. Four floors, five. Hello, Bellechasse, goodbye Bellechasse. Goodbye one beautiful hunt, hello to the next.