In this issue of Amplify, Globe editor Amberly McAteer talks about her time living in Paris as a young woman, and what it showed her about being “cool”
The Globe and Mail
This week, when the Notre-Dame burned, I felt frozen again. The possibility of it being gone forever, as so many watched around the world, was horrifying. That city – and that place – shaped who I am. The Notre-Dame is the beginning of my relationship with a city that taught me how to be an independent. I’d learn how to speak French, but I’d also learn how to live French: très confident.
My eyes welled up. It was the first of countless times the city would initially shock me with coldness, only to reveal incomprehensible beauty. “The south tower has closed. But if you’re not too long, go up the north. Quickly," he said.When I got to the top – already breathless from the stairs and the claustrophobia of the ancient, endless spiral staircase – I gasped. The sun was just setting behind the Eiffel, the city cloaked in gold.
But that first real day in Paris, in that tower in Notre-Dame, was the beginning of the end of my imposter syndrome. The city, over time, would teach me the only way to be truly cool – and that is, cliché as it may sound, to stop comparing myself to others. Stop trying to be someone I’m not. And to stop looking for love – which, now as a 35-year-old woman, admittedly, sounds ridiculous. But tell that to 22-year-old me, standing on a bridge over the Seine, watching proposal after proposal.
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