The boulangerie is bustling.
It’s early morning. Paris. September 2024.
Beautiful baguettes — dark, light, tradition, demi — poke like rustic flower stems from wicker baskets behind the counter.
I order a café au lait.
“Sur place?” the vendeuse asks.
“Oui, s’il vous plaît.” I answer.
I know the drill by now. And she knows me. But the first time I came in, the question flustered me...
“Sur place ou à emporter?” she asked. It came out all at once, rapid-fire — “surplaceouàemporter” — like a collision of bumper cars.
A simple choice made complicated. For here or to go?
The more I came back, the more I rehearsed. Two weeks in, and I’ve finally got the routine down.
She even knows my order.
She hands me a small tray with a porcelain tasse filled to its brim with coffee and steamed milk. Beside it are two tube-shaped sugar packets and a wooden stirrer.
Carefully, I balance it — carry it all outside.
The tasse — cup — fits perfectly into the palm of my left hand, which leaves my right hand free to journal.
I’ve been coming here each morning to sip, savor, and soak up the “infraordinary” happenings on this cobbled street at the foot of my apartment building. What began as an exercise from the Paris Writing Workshop has evolved into a way to start the day.
A short-haired woman walks up with a Bernese-type mountain dog.
I recognize them. They are part of the script, characters in the morning’s momentum. I know what’s going to happen next!
She loops the dog’s leash around a sign pole. Gives him a signal with her hand. Reste ici, I imagine it means. Je reviens tout de suite. Stay. I’ll be right back.
He points his nose in the air like he can already smell what’s coming. (And perhaps he can.)
The woman goes into the boulangerie, and the dog lies down on the sidewalk, paws beneath his jaw, eyes locked on the open door. In moments she returns with a baguette wrapped in a paper bag.
The dog stands. Then remembers his manners — and lies back down.
She tears off the first piece for him.
On the morning of my birthday, I snap pics of the sequence for my travel-buddy Wendi. I craft them into a comic strip. (Wendi is obsessed with Parisian dogs, but she sleeps later than I do!)
I have come to know this woman and her dog by doing nothing at all. By simply being still — and present.
Right here. Sur place.
According to a quick Google search, the literal translation of sur place is “on-site.”
But to me, its connotation is wider.
Whether I’m sipping a coffee, or taking a walk, or listening to a podcast at the gym, or writing this piece at my own kitchen table, sur place means, to me, to be in the moment, to find a certain centered stillness — a focused, quiet mind.
When I typed the words into Google, a variety of choices auto-populated the search box. AI predictions? Common typos?
One was the word surplus.
Uh-oh. The robots may be smarter than I think.
My sur place has been in short supply. How did Google know?
I could use a surplus!
The couch is cluttered with open suitcases. A sandal. A sock. A disassembled shower chair.
It’s early morning. Paris. One year later. September 2025.
Mom and I are rushing around, compressing clothes into small crevices, cushioning chocolate bars with ice packs and laundry.
We have been here a week, to celebrate my birthday, and it’s our last morning.
I want to slow things down, to sip café au lait at the boulangerie for one final morning as the neighborhood awakens. But we have to be ready for the Uber to take us to the airport.
Mom suggests a compromise. We’ll get our coffee à emporter — to go — and bring it back to the apartment to finish packing.
But I don’t want carry-out. I don’t want to keep moving.
I want to stop, to savor it. Sur place.
“It won’t take long,” I promise her. “Here. I’ll set the timer on my phone for 8:30!”
She agrees and we head out. It is 8:05.
We cross one small street and one larger one, following the fragrance of rising bread.
I order deux cafés au lait.
“Sur place?” the vendeuse asks.
“Oui, s’il vous plaît.” I answer. I breathe in the scent of this place — butter and almonds and espresso — as if I could take it with me.
She hands us the small tray: two porcelain tasses filled to their brims, four tube-shaped sugar packets, two wooden stirrers.
Carefully, I balance it — carry it all outside.
We sit, sur place. Soaking up our few last moments in Paris.
After a while, reality hits. “We’ve been here too long!” Mom says. “Your alarm didn’t go off!”
I open my phone screen. 8:25. I smile, calmly, show her the phone. “We have 5 more minutes.”
It’s a revelation to both of us: how time slows down when you experience it deeply.
How little time it actually takes to be present.
 |
| My birthday - 2025 |
Today is my birthday — le dix-sept septembre!
It’s early morning. Philly. This year. Now.
In the rush of everyday life, I’ve been craving that sur place feeling.
The yearning is constant. It sprouts up everywhere like baguettes from a wicker basket. I am grateful to be healthy — to be able to do as much as I’ve been doing. But also, September is half-over, and I didn’t even notice it go by!
I cram productivity into every crevice of every day, but it’s an impossible battle, like trying to fit Paris into a carry-on bag.
Birthdays make us pause.
We have permission to celebrate just being here, without doing anything at all. (Well, we did something — but that was years ago.) Woohoo!
This year, my birthday wish is to follow that feeling.
Not to dwell in the past or worry about the future. Not to rush through my days or count the minutes till I’m somewhere else. (Except maybe Paris.)
My wish is to feel a surplus of time — to linger in each moment — and savor it like it deserves.
To be present. On-site. Wherever this new year finds me.
So if you need that kind of wish too, my birthday is yours to borrow.
I’ll be sur place — here for it all.
Walk on,
Rebecca
No comments:
Post a Comment