Ile-de-Noirmoutier, Saturday, March 28, 2020
On my last day of work at Le Cordon Bleu two weeks ago, I wore latex gloves. The boulangerie class I often translated for had visibly shrunk. “They left France already,” explained the remaining bread students, two of whom wore masks.
It was their artistic piece exam day, but that’s not the only reason why everyone was so tense.
“No need to panic,” joked one student when the chef stepped out of the room. “We’ll have plenty of decorative bread baskets during the crisis.”
It seemed more wasteful than usual to be making art out of perfectly good flour and butter.
On my walk home from work, I passed by the public pool where my son was supposed to have a swimming placement test in a few days. “Closed until further notice,” read a large sign on the door. I could have sworn it had been open that morning. Things were moving fast. Just two days before, President Macron had announced that all French schools and universities would be closed jusqu’à nouvel ordre. I had a strong suspicion that my son’s tennis class that afternoon was going to be canceled. I called the courts and sure enough: the sports stadium where he had his weekly lesson had been closed by municipal order at 2 pm that day.
By late afternoon, we learned that all cafés, restaurants, and “unnecessary” stores would be closed to the public starting at midnight.
It was happening. Paris would become a ghost town just like Milan and Wuhan.
Usually when things got rocky in Paris, I could torture myself by imagining how life would be so much easier back in Southern California. But this time was different; the same nightmarish mess unfolding in France seemed to be imminent in America, too.
We were all trapped.
The next day, Sunday, strict lockdown (or confinement) rumours began circling online. After dinner, while our children played in the living room, we hurriedly phoned friends and neighbours from our tiny Paris kitchen to tell them that we were packing our bags. We would drive to Noirmoutier—an island off Nantes— early the next morning. My husband’s family had a house there just a minute’s walk from the beach. There was also a garden and more rooms than in our Paris apartment.
We weren’t the only Parisian family to flee the capital that week. The French phone giant Orange estimates that seventeen percent of Parisians—roughly over one million people—escaped the Paris region when we did.
Just the Friday before, parents had been musing about organising play dates in the park and study dates with friends to help pass the long days when schools would be closed. “We won’t go to the movies,” one friend had told me outside school Friday afternoon, “but I can’t keep my five children indoors for five weeks.”
The idea of remaining inside a Paris apartment with children for weeks on end with none of the usual reliefs like museum outings; picnics and bike rides in the parks; coffee and goûter with friends in cafés; or extracurricular activities was unthinkable for many.
So we left. We left behind our decent WIFI connection, boxes of Lego and Kapla, and puzzles galore for a slice of green, open space.
It almost felt like going on vacation; we could hear the roar of waves like freeway traffic from the front yard as soon as we arrived. The first two days, I even took the kids for short walks on the beach; we made sure not to go anywhere near other people. But these brief escapes wouldn’t last; by Thursday, metal gates and large white signs barred our entrance to the beaches.
We were left with the garden. In the evenings—after densely digital days of juggling screens, scanners, and printers, so our son could connect to his distant learning class and do his homework and my husband could work—our household could finally unwind. We’d all made it through another day. The kids cut branches for the fire, and after dinner, they brushed teeth, grabbed their jackets and pulled boots on over their pajamas. The nights were clear and beautiful. We never could see any stars in Paris.
Timeline:
Thursday, March 12: President Macron announces schools will be closed as of Monday, March 16
Saturday, March 14: the French Prime Minister announces that all restaurants, cafés, movie theaters, and unnecessary stores will close at midnight; municipal sports facilities close in Paris
Monday, March 16: President Macron announces lockdown for all of France beginning at noon on Tuesday, March 17
Tuesday, March 17: all city parks and gardens close in Paris
Thursday, March 19: French authorities begin closing access to beaches
