A postcard from the past
A video from the present
Dear Friend,
I am in London this weekend visiting family and enjoying the chocolate fever that comes with Easter. Many happy returns for the spring season!
In my last couple of letters I have written about the cultural particularities of Sweden, France and to some degree the UK.
I am enjoying observing the British particularities on this trip, for example, the litany of awkward thank-yous.
The other day I was at an old-fashioned pub where the entrance-way was made up of two consecutive wooden doors close to one another. When I held open the two doors for a fellow patron I was simply dazzled by the chain of different ‘thank yous’ he felt compelled to provide:
“Thank you! Cheers, thanks, nice one! cheers”.
When my boyfriend held the door open for another man, he got the man-to-man version:
“Ah legend, thanks mate! cheers, very kind of you, cheers!”.
England is a magical place.
Read: Doing well is its own reward (an ode to my mum on her retirement a year ago)
For the main passage of this week’s letter, I am going to do something a little different. We’re winding the clock back to March 2020 and that infamous first lockdown of the pandemic.
Ever since then, the arrival of spring always makes me think of that period of time, and I thought it’d be interesting ro revisit it. So put on your memory hat, and let’s go for a little journey back in time! At the end of it, I’ll ask you a couple of questions.
A postcard from Paris, where the streets are empty and residents are stockpiling fine wine (March 2020)
I have lived in France for half my adult life – today in Montmartre in the north of Paris – and the French still get me with their Frenchness: their at-all-times Frenchness. “C’est la merde,” said the waiter at my local bar-brasserie following prime minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement on Saturday that all “non-essential” establishments would be forced to close the following day to try and stem the spread of coronavirus (which, at the time of writing, has over 9,000 confirmed cases in France and has caused 264 deaths).
As the affable waiter poured me a last wine on the packed café-terrace, the atmosphere was the same as it had been all week, despite public health advice for social distancing. Friends did “les bises” on each cheek, there was glass clinking all round, and the usual smoking across each other. It was almost extra jovial that night, but with an edge; a surprise party where everyone is waiting for the birthday boy, except the birthday boy is called quarantine.
That was Saturday. On Sunday morning, Paris’s bars and cafés – which stayed open amid wartime occupation, general strikes, and one of Europe’s deadliest terrorist attacks – were all shut for business. It was also the first truly warm spring Sunday of the year, and sun-loving Parisians couldn’t be stopped from going out and strolling with ice creams (for some reason ice cream parlours were still open) and promenading in the city’s manicured parks, moto helmets looped round their arms like Hermès bags.
Still, we were aware that more constraint on movement was coming. Florists and plant shops held everything-must-go sales and Parisians – who largely live in six-storey Haussmann-style apartment buildings, and don’t have gardens – stocked up on home foliage. At a local upmarket florist, the friendly owner put a crate of potted daffodils out the front of his shop with as sign saying “servez-vous” (help yourself). I did, and now my cheery yellow blooms accompany me in my confinement in my sixth-floor walk-up.
The government knew too well that the French are not, in general, inclined to follow rules closely (have you ever seen people queue for a bus in Paris?), and so Papa Macron needed to place stricter measures in order to keep people at home. On Monday evening I watched with a glass of wine as the president told the nation that we are “at war” with the virus, and in order to fight it, the French would need to grin and bear total confinement except for essential déplacements.
People were given until noon on Tuesday to get where they wanted to be for the duration of the confinement. Many Parisians, notably those with young families – as well as those lucky enough to have or to know people with country houses – packed up their bumper-battered hatchbacks and headed for the countryside in Normandy, Burgundy and beyond.
As of Tuesday, we have been required to fill in a form called an “Attestation de déplacement dérogatoire” each time we leave the house, and take it with us, or else face a fine of 135 euros. So far, I have not been asked to present mine to anyone, though the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, reported that 4,095 fines were handed out on Wednesday.
A tendency to unruliness and protest (a contrast from Britons, who are more inclined to grumble and get on with it) means the French president knows he won’t get away with not providing for the nation at this time. So he has reassured the public with a number of measures including deferred tax payments and financial support for laid-off employees and struggling freelancers. Perhaps as a result of this, there is not so much panic here as there seems to be back home in London, and a little less stockpiling – though my local wine-seller said she did double her usual business on Sunday. Her shop is still open today.
I am amused and sort of delighted with the reminder of what is considered essential in this country. As the first blossoms pop up on the long-bare branches, Parisians go out to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables from their local primeur, where there are still cheerful piles of different kinds of lettuce and precarious towers of hearty apples.
My local fromagerie is open, and as I pick out a slice of nutty Comté and pleasingly tangy Rocamadour goat’s cheese, the cheesemonger explains that “bien sûr!” they are still open, as cheese is an essential.
The local boulangerie-patisseries are fully stocked with the normal range of freshly baked breads – wholegrain, seeded, and of course the perfectly crusty baguette. I had thought maybe pastry production would slow down, but I see all the usual delicious suspects: rows of chubby chocolate éclairs, delicate tartes aux pommes and endless varieties of invitingly flaky croissants.
And, of course, as a potentially deadly respiratory disease spreads, which establishment has the biggest queue? The Tabac cigarette seller, of course! A perfect example of the joie de vivre French attitude: if we are going to die, we may as well do it enjoying fine wine, good cheese, baguette and a cigarette.
I lived here during the Bataclan attacks in 2015 and was moved then by Parisian stoicism in the face of adversity, evoking the city’s Latin motto “Fluctuat nec mergitur” or “rocked [by the waves], but does not sink”. I must say, being here now – despite its many imperfections – I’ve fallen more in love with the city than ever.
Beyond anything else, it is so stupidly beautiful. From the sandstone loveliness of the Haussmann apartment building opposite (and yes, I am now intimately familiar with the daily routines of my neighbours), to the sweeping vista from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur Basillica, where I and a few dozen other locals came for a runabout today (with permission slip in the pocket, of course).
Though it is difficult being separated from my family, and being cooped up, there is no place I’d rather be. The Parisians have a grace about them that is irrepressible. Yesterday as I went to get some fresh fruit, the young local fruit-seller wished me a “bon confinement” and I marvelled, still, at the Frenchness of it all.
Where were you in spring 2020? What was particular about lockdown (or non-lockdown) where you were?
“There’s a lovely kettle, which will just make all the dreams of travelling Brits come true”
My tour of Paris’s hotels
A few weeks ago I spent two days filming a video for The Times. It’s a tour of five hotels in Paris, from Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the suburb Saint-Ouen. I have stayed in some 50 hotels in Paris as a travel correspondent, hence my expert pronouncements, such as the kettle observation above!
I hope it transports you to Paris, and that you can forgive my many and varied hand gestures.
Thirty-second book club
Few people capture French joie de vivre quite so effectively as my friend
. Her podcast Dinner For One and book of the same name explore her life as Jamaican New Yorker enjoying the poetry and pleasure of her life in Paris. Luckily for us all, she has now started a Substack letter, . She’ll be sharing delicious recipes and her delicious attitude towards life. Subscribe and enjoy!I continue to make my way through the delightful, The Seine: The River That Made Paris, by Elaine Sciolino. Despite reading a whole chapter on the subject, I am still unable to predict with confidence whether the river will indeed be swimmable in time for the Olympic Games. I am crossing my fingers!
Last year I bought my mother the book Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman, an American artist and writer. It’s a beautiful book that explores, through glorious paintings, the things women hold literally and figuratively. An example:
Irritated woman holding a giant cabbage
See more here.
Thank you for reading this letter! I’m always pleased when you write back and love to read you. Please also consider giving me the Easter prezzie of liking or sharing Pen Friend so more and more people know about it until eventually I can run a huge benign cult!
Have a lovely week!
Yours,
Hannah
"Where were you in spring 2020? What was particular about lockdown (or non-lockdown) where you were?"
In March (Spring) of 2020, I was working 3rd shift as a pharmacist (chemist?? Sounds better) at University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center, a rural hospital in the heart of Amish country in Northeastern Ohio. I worked alone and took on all comers on 3rd shift for 10 years, and I was nearly age 67 in March 2020. The Amish did not vaccinate nor did they practice social-distancing in their communities, especially during Easter 2020, after which there was an explosion of covid-infected Amish piling into our hospital.
Of course, hospital workers were considered essential; we didn’t know from day to day whether we would be allowed to go home or have to stay in place for a few months. If anyone has ever worked in a hospital you know that in the best of circumstances the trains don’t run on time; so during the first 6 month of the pandemic, it wasn’t Bedlam, but close enough.
On 3rd shift, the sickest people show up after midnight because they’ve waited all day long to see if the symptoms lessen and show up in the ER when the situation is dire; during the pandemic that situation increased exponentially. One night in May 2020, about 10 people showed up in the Emergency Room, all with covid, and 3 died within 50 minutes of showing up and two of those were people in their early 50’s.
In March of 2020, the EEOC declared the covid pandemic a “direct threat” to health. This was only the 2nd time a direct threat was declared in U.S. history. It was especially a “direct threat” to the health of those over 65 (I was 67) and those with a disability (I had a disability, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia, and used a wheeled-walker to get around at work). The bureaucracy in our hospital was allowing lax infection prevention practices, exposing nurses and front-line workers to covid infected patients and, shamefully, fellow staff who they refused to allow to quarantine for the recommended 10 days after exposure to covid. https://www.laboremploymentlawblog.com/2020/03/articles/coronavirus/ada-disability-laws-confronted-pandemic/
I sought a waiver for my age and disability because under the “direct threat” standard, I was a direct threat to myself by showing up in the workplace. One morning, the managers refused to allow two staff members who had been exposed to nuclear family members, who were covid-positive, to quarantine and they showed up at work. I protested and I was terminated.
I was a union activist in another life and knew enough labor law to be dangerous, so I represented myself, Pro Se, in a discrimination lawsuit that is currently (4 years later) on appeal to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Frank Dundee v. Geauga Medical Center; 23-3906
I was a pharmacist for 44 years and I never felt like my life was at risk, but during the covid pandemic it was a different story. I don’t have any right to complain compared to staff who provided direct patient care, such as nurses, doctors and technicians; they were in a minefield of infection every shift. As were grocers, check-out people and cashiers in food stores; the unsung heroes.
I'm sure the story was the same in France.
“Ah legend, thanks mate! cheers, very kind of you, cheers!”. That’s my new adopted thank you!
“Tulips in my mum’s garden, Hannah Meltzer” Simply beautiful.
“We’re winding the clock back to March 2020 and that infamous first lockdown of the pandemic.”
“C’est la merde,” said the waiter at my local bar-brasserie.” SOOOO FUNNY!! And perfect! My feelings: La pandémie était un sandwich de merde et chaque jour, vous preniez une autre bouchée.
“A few weeks ago I spent two days filming a video for The Times.” Two accents consecutively from one person? Just marvelous! That video is a keeper; I will pass it along with the Pen Friend newsletter.
I will buy “Women Holding Things” for my wife (and me!)