The Soloist Lands in Paris
Nov 10, 2024
For the past few years, I’ve kept a list of places where I could envision living out my retirement. I kept up-to-date on the candidates. Every time I proposed an addition to or deletion from my list, my friends rolled their eyes. I’m not sure how many of them took my quest seriously. Now, of course I take for granted they will all come visit me.
France, but not Paris, was on that list. The recent host city of the summer Olympics does not have a reputation for having an affordable cost of living, which those who attended the Games and wrote about it reinforced. The serious contenders for my retirement were nearly all located in northwestern France and northern Spain. Apart from Mexico, I was not considering countries outside the EU for reasons having to do with familiarity and convenience. Scotland would have been my first choice, but the UK no longer welcomes pensioners, like me, with no family ties. I don’t function well in heat, so I crossed off Italy and Greece, two countries I nevertheless know well and love.
Portugal north of the Algarve stood on the list for about a day. Friends of mine moved to Lisbon a few years ago and still love it. However, as comfortable as I am speaking passable French, Italian, and Spanish, the Portuguese language was a bridge too far. My hearing has diminished by 30% in the past decade, which would make starting a language famously difficult for learners to adjust their ears to an exercise in frustration. Somewhere in the rainy parts of France and Spain would suit me fine. The problem was, I came to realize, that my friend would rarely, if ever, come visit.
Paris entered the candidate city list after I found posts on expat forums and cost of living calculators that suggested I could afford to live modestly in the French capital.1 According to Numbeo, the cost of living including rent in Paris is 29% lower than in Brooklyn. Not that I’ve ever lived in Brooklyn. But the part of northern California where I did live is comparably expensive. The relative affordability of Paris, a city I’ve come to know as a tourist, was news to me. In addition to rents, utilities, cell service, and public transport are cheaper, particularly for seniors, than they are in most US cities.
Two considerations convinced me to give Paris a try for a year. For one thing, although I’ll miss my many friends in the US, most of them travel regularly. Nearly all of them pass through or spend time in Paris on a regular basis. Now that it looks like I might be able to afford a two-bedroom or a roomy one-bedroom with a fold-out couch somewhere beyond the 1st through 11th arrondissements, I know I can count on, at the very least, my sister as a guest for one or two visits a year. “You’ll be sorry,” a friend said to me last week. “You will soon feel like you’re running a hotel.” Maybe. Luckily, while I have a high tolerance for solitude, I enjoy having quests. No matter what — feast or famine — I’ll be fine.
Paris also has the advantage of good train and air connections to other parts of Europe. It has always been a strain for me to fit into one annual trip to Europe all the friends and places I want to visit. Now, in one year, I’m likely to visit Ann and Jonathan in Somerset, Lorna and Russell near Glasgow, Chris and Alessa in Berlin, Barry and Jim in Lisbon, and my brother-in-law, Tao, and his family in Greece during the summers. A smörgasbord of visits awaits me.
And so, here is my situation. I will arrive very soon in Paris to begin an eight- week stay in an Airbnb one-bedroom flat in the Montparnasse district.2 I have a feeling the time will pass quickly. I’ll search for an apartment with a year-long lease to begin in January. Also, I have signed up for a four-week semi-intensive course at Alliance française, located close to where I’m staying. I’m relieved their placement test slotted me into an intermediate class. Those two activities will keep me busy. When I’m not in language class or looking for a long-term rental, I will be walking everywhere with my little Maltese mix, Billie Holiday, in search of good produce, cheese, flea markets, bookstores, and all the other delectable things that draw people to Paris.
This bi-weekly newsletter is for me, mostly, because I like to write, reflect, and re-write. Also, I plan to post photos. If you are interested in how my nouveau resettlement develops (especially if you have tips and suggestions), please join me and subscribe. The newsletter is free.
I have an old-fashioned generous pension, the kind corporate executives, some long-term federal employees, and University of California employees hired before 2011 are entitled to. Together with my social security benefits and investments, I consider my circumstances in retirement as comfortable at this point in time. That makes me a member of a small, privileged minority in the United States.
If you have serious reservations about Airbnb’s impact on affordable living in the cities you and I visit, so do I. Unfortunately, a two-month stay in Paris practically requires the reliance on the service.