Sad Somewhere Else

Plaża Stogi, Gdańsk. All images belong to the author.

Content note: this article contains references to grief and bereavement.

I was first introduced to the concept of Paris Syndrome on a snowy day in Year 9. A scarf-bound French teacher, indulging a rare aside from her usual, disinterested drawl, perked up as she rattled off all the reasons that the City of Love was really just a grotty tourist trap. 

The central heating had broken. We rushed to sit next to the small, whirring heater in the back corner, where the soft smell of burning toast welcomed those lucky enough to remove their dripping jackets. Shivering just beyond its reach, my friend popped her bubblegum and dropped it into my coffee, laughing as I wondered how Paris, or indeed any place other than my sticky desk, could ever be disappointing. 

This tendency to romanticise anywhere other than home has fared me well when avoiding Paris Syndrome. Dropped into some unfamiliar, even frightening new place, it is not harsh reality which rears its ugly head to me, but the overwhelming feeling that this is exactly where I am meant to be. 

When trying to pinpoint the root of my immunity, the only conclusion is that I spend much of my time, both at home and at Cambridge, feeling decidedly inhuman. Moving mechanically between tasks, I tell myself that fuel is only food when it’s eaten under blue skies, when your skin is dark and your hair salty. I put off reading, writing, listening, swimming, smelling, drinking, until it feels free; unsullied by academic commitments and the laundry and the shopping. 

In some far-flung, sun-soaked, heavy-aired garden: this is where I allow myself to exist, and the sad part is the truth in it. When stripped of familiar, unnoticed blessings, only the self remains. When nothing but yourself is constant, you emerge in a strange city and a stranger language as the only thing you know for sure. This chance to behave organically, to experience yourself anew, prompts a surge of self-reflection I’ve always found to be one of travel’s most comforting and cathartic aspects. 

Of course, the flaws were always apparent, and this summer the cracks began to show. Paris Syndrome took full force. Disappointment crept in like mould. I realised that the longer we economise on moments of happiness, saving them up until the right place, the more likely we are to find that no city can coax out all our moments of postponed joy.

It was the rain which caused the dam to burst. When the sky started to spit, I took out a raincoat left to me by a friend. Catching her scent on the collar, I was struck with how much I’d loved to have sent her a postcard, or a magnet, or a photo of every bird I saw. My surroundings, once new and exciting, became hollow and unappealing. My eyes welled up and the rain stung, despite the piece of her wrapped around me. When asked, I blamed it on tummy ache. 

Without warning, grief transformed my trip. At first an opportunity for adventure, travel became nothing but a chance to be sad somewhere else, a chance to prove to myself that “gone” simply meant “away for now” or “just not here”. Like some vase glued tentatively together, shards of memories and snippets of glossed-over truths came shattering down. Even my first trip to Paris seemed uglier in hindsight: the hotel’s grubby floor, the pickpocketing, our wide-eyed horror as the Calais Jungle was torn apart on TV. 

This summer reiterated many valuable lessons. Perhaps through my love of language and culture, I had convinced myself that my version of travel, devoid of downsides and disappointments, was reflective of some whole and sustainable approach to the world. 

What I failed to see, however, was how often I saw the world as being there to provide a service, to soothe the growing pains of some better, second self which only appears when I’m abroad. Travel as a form of escapism, even from yourself, provokes a warped sense of appreciation for the world. Other countries, peoples, cultures and communities do not exist as scenic side tracks to make the main route more bearable, no matter how responsibly we interact with them. Every place is central, and no place exists merely to take from. 

There is no single solution to Paris Syndrome. We cannot preemptively expect the worst of everywhere, nor varnish and brush aside feelings of despondency when they arise. What is clear, however, is that travel is a fickle nurse and a half-hearted remedy, for when sadness abroad seems out of place, it is partly because joy at home seems more so.

Now, these joys seem more apparent than before. I’ve realised, the goal is not to wade through my time at home, pushing through unseen, simple comforts like a traveller through a dense forest, head down until I stumble upon the exit. The goal is to make the traveller see the emerald of the forest’s leaves, to smell the black earth and smile at only that.

There are days when I find stillness in the smell of my shower gel, or the yawn of my neighbour as she dumps her dishes in the sink. In these moments, I remember there is space to be human, even in the “wrong” place. There is room for joy: in the laundry room, in the winter, even in the dreaded, historic city I can’t truthfully say I love. 

There is no pain which simple ritual can’t ease. There is no place where life is on pause.