On September 29, 2017, I had my fourth yearly date with an agent at the Prefecture to renew my Titre de Sejour (residency card). Each year, it gets a bit easier to prepare for it. The French want to make sure that 1–I won’t work meaning take away a job from a French person 2–I won’t end up living on the street and 3–that I’m covered by health care and don’t need to use their social security system.
I seem to get anxious anyway. I know something will go wrong and this year, it was the printer that ran out of ink while I was making the required copies of all the documents I needed to bring with me and my translator’s vacation. (All English documents must be translated into french by an official translator). She arrived home two days before my appointment and meeting up with her the day before demanded a dexterity of mind that is not a strong suit of mine.
The morning of my appointment, I went to the nearest Post Office to make copies. I was under the impression that it opened at 8am and I arrived at 9:30am. My appointment was at 10:30am. The sign on the door informed me that this particular Post Office opens at 10am. So I took myself off to a nearby Cafe for a cafe allongée (long pull as opposed to a short pull which is an expresso). At 10am, I was back at the front door of the PO. There was a man standing there looking very bewildered, checking his watch. The PO was very closed. I walked closer and read everything on the PO’s front facade. In small print up in a corner of one of the windows, there was information telling us that this PO was no longer open on weekdays. I had 30 minutes, and probably less, to find a printer.
I stopped in two cafes and asked if they had one I could use. No, madame. I called my old neighbor from my Git-le-Coeur days knowing she had one and was close by. I reached her at the hospital where her mother was dying and she could barely get four words out. I rushed to a Gibert Jeune, an all-purpose station for students of any age to buy books, supplies, maps and more. The Security man told me that ‘No, madame, we don’t have a printer but if you go up that street, cross over past the Pharmacy, there is a Internet store that has a printer.’ I rushed there and, acting like a spoiled American, thought I could talk my way to the front of the line. No dice. I had to wait my turn which I did extremely ungracefully. My heart was beating so fast and my anxiety was so high that I thought I might make myself sick. With my copies in hand, I rush-walked back towards the Prefecture–it was 10:20am. I asked myself what was the worst that could happen? The Prefecture would ask me to make another appointment in the future, it wasn’t the end of the world.
I made it to the door at 10:30, made it through the TSA-like security and, after handing all my documents to a lady at the front desk of my particular department, receiving a number in exchange, waited two and a half hours to be called to one of the cubicles. After twenty minutes, she renewed my Residency Card and told me I would receive a text of when I could pick it up.
I relate this experience without accompanying photographs because so many of my American friends are envious of my living in the city of their dreams. And indeed, I am extremely fortunate to be able to afford to live in Paris. However, at some point, one is no longer a tourist or a visitor but a resident. And being a resident comes with a lot of anxieties, dealing with the French administration and a lessening amount of time to explore museums and tourist points of interest which continue to be interesting to me.
Days will go by now that I do not see the river or my favorite bridge, Pont Neuf. I have responsibilities and commitments. I live here. I carry around a card issued by the Mayor of Paris saying I’m an official citizen of Paris! It’s actually not official but gets me in to many places that I wouldn’t see if I didn’t have that card.
Some mornings, I wake up thinking of the Bay Area, my other home, the way I used to think of Paris. With an affection and longing that surprises me. Sometimes I think it’s time to go home–meaning Oakland. Paris is really home but I’m not saying that anymore. It’s a luxury dilemma that doesn’t always feel so luxurious. And a universal dilemma I believe–wanting to be somewhere else when the going gets tough.
For now, I will take my fiscal stamps to pay for my new residency card. Paris will have me for one more year. For one more year, I will wake up with the joys and the aches of being a resident in this city.
A bientôt,
Sara
My day of the appointment arrived. It was hard. The woman who looked at my documents looked at everything very closely over and over. Then she finally wrote a list of things she wanted me to bring back for another appointment in about seven weeks. Meanwhile she gave me a temporary card. When that appointment came, she didn’t look at any of the documents she had asked for. She told me to come back in two months to get my Titre de Sejour. It turned out that almost every American I know was asked to return for a second appointment. Maybe it’s a test of some sort
Out My Window 