good faith

a very jetlagged email about eating by yourself

in short - i’m randomly in paris, in the style of frances ha.

in long - i’m addicted to my phone and have a lot of social anxiety around social media in particular, so i googled around for some ways to detox from my devices and then i googled around some more and found a cohort of french benedictine nuns who would let me stay their abbey (in silence, perhaps with some manual labor? unclear) and now i’m in paris, on my way to the nuns. also all my ads look like this:

bonjour!

i’m gatekeeping the exact location of my retreat (if gatekeeping is good enough for saint peter, it’s good enough for me) but i packed my most modest apparel, my first communion rosary, and an analogue alarm clock so i can wake up for vespers and such. i arrived at my weird train station-adjacent hotel this yesterday afternoon, paris time, which i think is like 4am in LA. i took a 20-minute nap for 3.5 hours, and then i went to dinner by myself.

for those who aren’t ready to cloister themselves, i humbly suggest the annihilating calm of dining alone. i suspect that a lot of retreats function as some sort of altruistic self-absorption experience; we’re turning inwards, seeking a personal center. dining alone feels introspective in the same way, but deeply selfless—not as in generous, but as in, I don’t exist. in a world plagued by an abundance of main character energy, to eat alone is to be the world’s background actor.

when one removes oneself from the plot, squeezed into an afterthought table with a half-carafe of beaujolais, otherwise insufferable situations become downright enchanting. at dinner, the party of four across from me comprised a new york-based painter here for a show and his three friends, two of whom may have been a couple, one of whom was definitely a recently divorced forty-something man on a spiritual journey. the recent divorcee was mesmerizing in his Type of Guy-ness. he had unassailable opinions on everything from fish mongering (“all fresh fish in italy is sushi grade”) to neil young’s live tour (“i’m not gonna pay $250 to see an 85-year-old”). i ate leeks that had been poached in butter until pale and soft as tissue paper, dressed in vinaigrette, and let the thrill of voyeurism puncture the exhaustion of jetlag. my divorcee had been going to this restaurant for thirty years, and everyone needed to try the au poivre right now. no one in berlin was into ketamine anymore. he went to an invite-only—he emphasized a few times—burning-man-adjacent rave in new orleans last new year’s eve, and the rave was even more important for everyone to experience than the au poivre—though less important than the profiteroles, upon which he insisted.

there were a few moments when the personal podcast element of the experience felt restrictive, like when my divorcee couldn’t remember the name of and “an old producer”:

“he’s got a daughter in the office… jim’s girlfriend.”

“pam?”

“quincy jones,” i said at exactly the wrong volume, which was too quiet for their table but loud enough for two older ladies next to me to hear, like i was saying “quincy jones” for no reason.

i spooned creme anglaise over a cloud of perversely fluffy meringue and watched the men order more wine and tell each other they have antonio banderas hair. i paid my check just as the divorcee said he knows its wrong, and he’s sad they don’t get his jokes, but he wants to date “the young ones.” i walked back to my hotel alone. and now i’m here, walking to the train station in about eight minutes for a mostly unknown experience of silence and prayer. what a gift, to be the main character in a way that doesn’t implicate anyone else in your narrative. what a gift, to let someone else’s voice into your head.