Krystal Kenney - Paris, A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir

Copyright 2020 by Krystal Kenney

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Authors Note

This book has been eight years in the making. When I was studying how to write a memoir, I learned that you should never write a memoir in your thirties. Well, just like everything in my life I decided to try and go against the grain and do what others told me shouldnt or couldnt be done, so here I am at the age of 34 dishing out all my secrets.

I didnt want to write another fluffy Paris book full of Paris clichs, bike baskets full of baguettes, and all things pretty and happy. My Paris journey was more full of rough patches than happiness but if Ive learned anything in life; its that joy lives at the end of the struggle.

Peoples names and identities have been changed to protect their privacy. I relied mostly on my glossy memories of the past eight years, but to rely on ones champagne infused brain cells, mistakes are sure to be made.

Contents

This book is dedicated to my parents, Lawrence and Kimberly Kenney, you pushed me to sit down and show up to my dream of writing a book, thank you for always believing in me and for giving me the space to find joy.

Prologue

Its pouring rain, dark and cold, and Im sitting on the front stoop of a church in Paris. Tears stream down my face, falling harder than the rain. Im crying so hard, it scares me. Its the type of crying where you have a hard time catching your breath, thats been waiting to unload from months of stress and self-induced trauma. Im ugly crying in public. This isnt my finest moment.

Id spent the morning in a French police station filing a report on my French boyfriends attempts to blackmail me into leaving Paris. He had sent me several texts stating he had all the proof needed to report me to the authorities for working illegally, and that if I didnt leave Paris, he would do just that. He knew just the spot to hit me hardestmy love for Paris. He knew Id never loved him the same way that I had loved her from the moment I set foot on her cobblestone streets. He knew that taking Paris away from me would hurt me deeply.

Ive never felt more alone in my life. Sitting on this little church step, knees pulled into my chest, hugging myself for warmth and self-assurance. I try to cry quieter so as not to disturb the Parisians crossing my path and to not make such a scene. But the truth is Im swollen with grief and fear. Fear that I will have to go home back to my parents house, fear of deportation, fear of being forever alone, and failing at all my Paris dreams in one take.

Eventually, I drag myself up from the stoop and try to hold back the emotions that seem to just keep pouring out. I make my way up the dark Belleville street full of party-goers and late-night cheer, and slump down in a kebab shop, knowing I should eat. Hardly French cuisine at its best, but its all I can afford before I cautiously make my way back to my six-person hostel dorm room.

My blonde twenty-year-old bunkmate is babbling on about finally climbing the Eiffel Tower and trying croissants for the first time. She is dizzy with excitement and so full of joy to discover her dream city. And then she asks me how my vacation is going.

I cant reply. I just look at her, my eyes swollen from crying and then I curl into a fetal position on my top bunk. This wasnt my vacation; Paris was my home. Shes been my home for the last two years. And now, I find myself homeless, full of doubt about everything Id ever dreamed of achieving here.

Chapter 1

An Escape From Suburbia

America is my country, and Paris is my hometown.

Gertrude Stein

Your daughter has been selected to be one of only thirty kids traveling abroad to represent her country, the spokesperson announced to my parents.

I was just fourteen years old when I became a student ambassador and spent a month in Europe. When my mother told me the news, my heart raced, my stomach filled with a thousand butterfliesexcitement or fear, I couldnt tell whichbut I was aching for this adventure.

We werent a wealthy family but my parents and grandparents managed to pull together the four thousand US dollars to send me on the trip of a lifetime. Mom would forever say that in hindsight, she wished she had never sent me on that trip.

We traveled all over Europe, and as a young girl who had never even left her state, let alone the country, it felt huge, overwhelming, and exciting. This trip quite literally opened up my world. I felt my place in history wandering through winding cobblestone streets, past crooked buildings falling onto one another in medieval cities. Nothing in my American upbringing had prepared me for this. The vibrancy and richness of the experience were intoxicating. I couldnt understand all that my eyes showed me. Everything was foreign and new, despite its true age, a world I had never known existed revealed itself.

A constant energy pulsed through my veinsanything and everything felt possible, life had a new shine.

My most vivid memory is arriving at the bottom of the Sacr-Cur Basilica in the quaint quarter of Montmartre, Paris. I gazed up at the white-domed church and felt a strange connection to this place. I immediately fell in love with Paris, and especially with Montmartre. As melodramatic and clichd as it sounds, my whole being was connected to this space without any reasoning, I felt pulled into this city by some unexplained force. I needed to be here. My heart ached to rest and breathe easy in these winding, hidden streets, oozing with creativity and expression.

The quarter was famous for hosting an array of artists over the centuries including Van Gogh, Picasso, and Renoir. I would wander her unpaved maze-like streets, staring into the buildings sliding sideways down the hill. It felt like I was taking a walk back in time, surrounded by the architecture of the 1800s as I gazed into tiny doorways and dimly lit interiors full of wooden beams and warm candlelight. I felt the echoes of all the artists who had roamed her same streets, connecting with a newfound desire to create and be still.

Soft snow fell over my face and I closed my eyes, wishing I could live here one day, knowing that this was my place.

Little did my fourteen-year-old self know Id be returning fifteen years later to pursue my creative dreamsand meet the love of my life.

Returning to America sent me into a tailspin of disconnectafter discovering Europe, it no longer felt like home. My gut was pulling me back to Paris, and although I didnt know then how or if I would ever return, that little secret connection was tucked deep into my subconscious, waiting for me to take the leap and trust that the net would appear when I needed to land.

Life continued in my small-town America. Always feeling like the black sheep in my family, I was the weird creative one, the dreamer. Mom would ask, Where did you come from? In school, I was quiet and kept to myself, spending most of my day staring out the window dreaming of faraway places. School felt like such a stifling bore.

Didnt they realize I knew so much more and could be more than they conceived? Living through my adolescence felt like a social experiment gone wrongI could not wait to get out of school and into adulthood. I was forever going against the grain of cultural norms, but too young to truly understand and be comfortable in my skin with these counterculture feelings.

Uncomfortable became comfortable from a very young age. Being a fish out of water became the norm, feeling no connection to the people in my town, everyone looking and acting like perfect strangers. My escape was the public library where I could enter the minds and adventures of others through tiny written script. Writers I had never met became my companions, my tribe, giving me an entrance into other worlds, other cultures, other lives.