Today I woke up from an unpleasant feeling of nausea. It's like everything I ate before going to bed, remembering how it got into my stomach, is about to come out.
And I woke up at 6 a.m.
The day before, before going to bed, I opened the door to the balcony to fill the apartment with fresh May air, and at least get rid of this oppressive atmosphere, which covered from head to toe, like a thick and dark fog at dusk. I went out on the balcony, opened the window and, breathing in the air of Paris at night, just watched the neighborhood. Even at this time of day, the city remained quite mobile.
The most prestigious university in Paris, Sorbonne Université, was located right in front of my house. At the very corner of the university, students gathered in a small group, smoked and talked in slang jargon understandable only to them, listening to some kind of French rap. Homeless people have set up their tents under the canopy of the university. And those who could not even afford it, lay wrapped in a blanket along the building. Next to the tents, a couple of homeless people with blackened faces could also be seen squatting and drinking beer, talking furiously about something. On the other side of the street, near the store, a drunk student was vomiting right on the road, whose friend comfortingly held his hand on his back. The siren of either an ambulance or a police patrol was often heard.
After enjoying the night air, I went inside, closed the balcony door and, tipping over on the bed, immediately fell asleep.
When I got awake, I had to get up. I got out of bed, walked around the apartment for a while, then, without feeling any positive effect, went out onto the balcony again.
I began to look at the cars and people passing by. The sun had already risen and the city was completely illuminated by sunlight. Sunrise comes quite early at this time of the year, so the birdsong has long stopped, but the movement in the city has just begun. Despite the early sunrise, it's amazing to realize how people find the strength to wake up so early and still manage to go outside. While I was still going to school, I often met runners or other people doing sports along the way. I wonder what people are talking about when they talk about running?*
During my studies, I had to get up at 6 a.m. myself. My morning was a routine made up of systematic mechanisms like: get up, have time to take a shower, have breakfast, pack up and go out by 7 in the morning. After that, I went to the nearest metro, took line 7 at the Jussieu station of the Paris Metro, then made two more transfers from Barbes-Rochechouart to Anvers, and already at 7.55 I was at the lyceum. Sometimes I was late because of the finishing work in the subway. Well, later began to skip school altogether.
To the right of the subway exit, through a narrow elongated street that rose up the slope, the temple of the Catholic Church of the Sacre-Cœur, majestically located on top of the Montmartre hill, could be seen. The whole street to the church was filled with souvenir shops, and there were plenty of newly arrived tourists with suitcases crowding the streets, as if trying to catch a glimpse of the entire grandeur of the temple, from the top of which Paris could be seen at a glance.
To the left of the subway, the walls of my lyceum building stretched along the road. In my mind, the large buildings of the lyceum, with numerous windows and bars arranged on them, seemed like a prison. But because of the school desks filled with students visible from the open windows, it did not seem like a prison at all, rather on the contrary, people liked the architecture of Parisian buildings. By the way, the architect of the lyceum has the surname Napoleon, not the same as Bonaparte, but Napoleon. An interesting coincidence.
The entrance to the lyceum was on the other side of the street, and to get there, you had to go through a park located directly across the street from the lyceum building, across the street from the subway. In that very park, people gathered in pairs who were engaged in all sorts of different sports. Someone was boxing, someone was warming up, and someone was jumping rope. Most often, they were adults over the age of 30.
In any case, none of this applies to me anymore. For me, studying was no different from prison. At school, I only hung out with a couple of classmates, but since my level of language proficiency was quite different from theirs, I practically did not open my mouth, and my only friend completely transferred to another lyceum. That couple of my classmates were the very students who studied better than the rest, and one was actually the head of the class. I also had a good relationship with the others, but I still couldn't make friends.
After much thought, when I finally felt better, I went inside, turned on the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood" and went to take my water treatments. This song fit surprisingly well into the spring atmosphere. When I went to the sink to brush my teeth, I froze for a while. From behind the mirror, my reflection stared at me with a completely haggard face and disapproving eyes, like an extinguished candle forgotten on the farthest shelf among the room decor.
Having started eating breakfast, the idea came to my mind to go out and take a walk. I quickly packed up, put on a jacket and went down the elevator. It was about 7 a.m. on the clock. The city was already filled with cars rushing to work, joggers, children and teenagers running past on their way to school. I, in turn, went to the embankment of the River Seine, which stretches across the whole of Paris and divides the city into two banks. The river is five minutes from my house.
Gazing at the morning landscapes of the city, I reached the Quai Saint-Bernard embankment, along which Latin Americans gather in droves on weekends, and turn on songs on their portable speakers, dance salsa, bachata, or some other local dances and drink beer. Such places become a good opportunity for some people to earn money by selling a bottle of alcohol or traditional food prepared with their own hands.
I sat down on one of the circular steps that had descended and looked at a large willow tree standing alone on a small earth bed surrounded by stones. After getting a little saturated with the local atmosphere, I remembered about my appointment at the dentist, and after a while, I walked slowly back home.
In order to somehow relieve the situation and distract myself from obsessive thoughts, a couple of months ago I signed up for a gym. Because of the motivation that poured over me like a huge wave of the sea, and in order not to throw everything halfway, I decided that buying a season ticket for a year would be a good idea. It's easy to guess that I went there only a couple of times and abandoned everything. As a result, I just fell victim to the marketing of motivational videos.
After the dentist, I stopped by the potato chips shop on my way home. When I got home, I sat down at the table and began to read Toshikazu Kawaguchi's book "Before the Coffee Gets Cold," while crunching chips. It helps me focus on the book better. I try to read in French, which is why reading is less enjoyable than reading a book in my native language, but in order not to forget the language forever, I have to put up with my situation. After a couple of hours of reading, I was drawn to sleep, and I lay down on the bed and fell into an unbroken sleep.