Tag Archives: france

Limestone bas-relief of a chariot race carved in the first or second centuries, reused in the ramparts of Narbonne. Musée Narbo Via / Tylwyth Eldar, via Wikimedia
Narbonne, France
Commentary

Tightrope Walking in Narbonne

On a whim, I headed to the other side of France on a music pilgrimage.


It’s 13:59, and the intercity Bordeaux-Narbonne departs at 14:00. I have sixty seconds to decide whether or not to stay on the train. I reread the text I just received from my Airbnb host in Narbonne: “I can’t receive you today, my apologies.”

Creative Commons logoMy son, who took me to the station, has already left in time to manage the afternoon shift at the Irish pub where he works. I’ve never been to Narbonne, the town in southern France where I’d hoped to spend my break. I’ll be forced to orient myself in an unfamiliar district and scramble—in 30°C heat—for a room in a pricey hotel.

I spiral into a panic, which grows in intensity even after I decide to stay on the train and begin planning for contingencies. I can’t find my password journal, which means I can’t message my Airbnb host, Rodolphe, via the app. I convince myself that I must have mislaid the journal while buying a pair of Reeboks earlier in the day, and perhaps someone is wiping my savings account while I agonize on the train.

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Lee Nash writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies and has won international competitions. Site: leenashwriting.com | Instagram

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At a vigil in Paris the night after the November attacks. Garry Knight, via Flickr
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Helpers


It was the last night of my conference in Paris, and I was sitting with some new friends in a Brazilian restaurant near the Avenue de la République. We had just wrapped up a day of panels and presentations on the topic of race at the Sorbonne, and the six of us—two Dutch scholars, an Italian, a Belgian, a French woman, and me, the American—had gone out to celebrate. I felt a bit sheepish, as an American, to be eating food from the Americas in Paris, but a few drinks erased that feeling.

We had just finished eating and were sitting around chatting when the once emptying restaurant became full of people again. A young French couple hurriedly slipped into the restaurant and sat down at the table next to us. The man spoke English to us. “Don’t go outside,” he said.

The people at my table huddled anxiously around him. People were running in the streets away from something, he told us. I glanced around the restaurant and saw that everyone was already staring at their phones. Looking at my own, I saw a news alert that said that several bombs had gone off in the Bataclan concert hall.

“That is just 1,000 meters from here,” the French man said, eyes wide. Some of the women around me gasped.

“How far is that?” I, the American, asked.

“Very close, very close,” he said.

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Chinyere Osuji is the author of Boundaries of Love: Interracial Marriage and the Meaning of Race, uses social science to understand how Blacks interact with ethnic and racial “others,” and has watched Something in the Rain five times. Site | Instagram | Twitter | Clubhouse

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also: