Paris on fire

Too hot even to prepare for my death, I quest for coolness and sanity and discover shocking truths about French lakes.

I don’t think anyone in Paris thought about anything this week but the heatwave (the French call it the canicule) and how to survive it. My WhatsApp chats were full of advice on how to stay cool in a city where no one has air conditioning: Put your pajamas in the freezer. Sleep with a wet towel. Strap a block of ice to your back. People recommended museums, cafes, and hotel lobbies with air conditioning.

It makes me furious that the people most responsible for climate change—the industrialists and billionaires and oil barons and Republicans—are protected from its effects by their money and airconditioned mansions. They make the world worse and don’t have to suffer that worsening.

I’ve discussed my feelings about heat and summer. If I were going to be clinical about it I might say I have reverse seasonal affective disorder. My fear of summer is intense, my reaction to heat extreme. This week has caused such intense anxiety that I’ve been fighting off panic attacks every day, often with drugs.

My fears around my medical situation have intensified this. I am so full of fear there is little room for anything else. I worry about how I will be spending what is left of my life. I am afraid I will become so anxious I’ll need a psychiatric hospital. I’m afraid of suffering. I’m afraid of my abdomen swelling again. I’m afraid of spending a hot summer with a drain installed, unable to take frequent cold showers or swim. I’m afraid of being stuck at home all day at least two days a week waiting for the nurses to drain me.

I’m terrified of ending up in a hospital room that is over 100 degrees. Which they all are. I’ve never been truly homesick, but now I want more than anything to be in a country with airconditioned hospital rooms.

On a less physical level, I’m afraid of not getting writing done. I’m afraid of not getting my most recent two books published and out into the world. Above all, I am afraid that I will die this summer and ruin Theo’s summer plans.

Sometimes dying is about living, my therapist Troy said this week. Today, in the heat, you need to take care of your physical needs first. Focus on the foundational needs before thinking about the other things.

We had been talking about the things I need to do before I die. My pre-death to-do list. Finish writing letters to Theo. Make sure Tim and Theo have lists of all of the people who have offered to surround them with love after my departure. Write down my memories of my parents so that they don’t die with me. Write lists of my subscriptions so they can be cancelled. Make sure Tim has all my bank information. Death requires so much homework.

“But it’s too hot to prepare for my death!” I’d said to Troy. “I can’t do anything at all. I can’t write, I can’t think.”

So I focus on the foundational needs. Every day I soak my clothing before I put it on. It helps. I do sleep with a wet towel. Friends come to my aid. My insanely generous friends Paula and Penelope gave me cooling machines that have made life in our flat measurably better and I am just infinitely grateful to them. My entire mental health is reliant on these machines, on electricity, and the fragility of Paris’ electrical grid sends me spiralling.

Here are ways we coped this week:

Campground pool

Sunday night I was on the phone with Cat. “Now hear me out,” she said. “I have an idea.” She knew a campsite just an hour outside of Paris with a pool. “What if I rent a campsite but we don’t spend the night, we just go to spend the day in the pool?” A pool sounded blissful. And I don’t know how long I will be able to swim.

So we packed our girls into Cat’s airconditioned electric car and drove south to Rambouillet, where we landed at Huttopia. Huttopia is a chain of camping grounds with several different kinds of huts as well as space for tents. Temperatures were above 100 when we arrived and we headed straight into the water—where we stayed until 6 p.m. As soon as I was underwater, I felt sane and capable again. It’s dramatic, how coolness restores me to myself.

Despite periodic dipping to stay cool, Theo spent most of the afternoon preparing for her French orals, which are next week. It made me a little sad to see her working so hard by the side of the pool while we were playing, but I admired her discipline.

When we came home after 9 p.m. it was still 100 degrees.

Cinema

The following day, just for the air conditioning, Tim and I went to see Disclosure Day, the only film we thought we could sit through. It passed the time, but there were too many car chases and not enough aliens. Spielberg also ended the film just when it was starting to get interesting. I remember being frustrated as a child when I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the movie ended just as the protagonist was about to meet an alien. Something similar happens here. Also, an entire movie could be written about what happens after humans find out about the aliens who have come here. In the film, the humans all fall silent watching the suppressed footage of the aliens and their craft on earth. Stunned, mesmerized. But no one panicking, which was interesting. I like to think I wouldn’t panic, that I would try in whatever way to be friendly. But what came after the initial viewing of the footage? What did people do then? Did they demand an apology from the government, the dismantling of the FBI? Did they all surge towards the desert where the aliens were found? Did they immediately start learning alien languages?

All of this distracted me somewhat from the fact that I was having a panic attack for most of the movie. Even though I was in a cool room, I had to keep counting my inhales and exhales, keep telling myself I would be okay, that the feeling would end. But when the lights came up, it hadn’t ended. I was still so anxious I could barely talk. Could we sit down for a minute? I asked Tim. We sat in the corridor outside the theaters, downstairs where it was still cooler than outside. I told him everything that was scaring me. Once I had unspooled all my fears, I felt calm enough to head home.

Hospital lobby

Early Wednesday morning I had my first echographie, in a hospital a few towns south of us. Dr. L wanted to see if I had enough ascites for a puncture. The woman who examined me was mean, angry, refused to answer questions, and misunderstood the kind of scan I needed. She also told me that there was a mass next to my pancreas. What is it? I asked. Knowing what it must be. You have to ask your doctor that, she said, so he can compare it with your last scan. She, I automatically corrected. She will compare it.

We went straight to the hospital with my results. Why did you come in person? Dr. Leary’s secretary said. Because I am hoping I can be punctured today, I said. I can’t go on like this. I gestured to my rounded belly. I will show these to Dr. L, she said. Wait here in the cool waiting room.

The waiting room was deliciously cold. We sat there reading for a couple of hours.

Here’s the thing about French hospitals; they aircondition the lobbies, but none of the treatment rooms or the rooms where patients live. I can’t stop thinking of the patients in those fourth-floor hospital rooms right now, without air conditioning or fans (unless they brought them from home). I think the hospital should prioritize keeping the fragile patients who are sleeping in the hospital cool, rather than the lobby, which people are usually visiting for just a short time.

This week I confess I was grateful for the lobby airconditioning. I ended up in the hospital until nearly 6 p.m., and so got to spend most of the day in cool air.

Here’s a recent article about the dire condition of French hospitals: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/sweltering-french-hospital-air-conditioned-waiting-room-offers-some-relief-2026-06-25/

We had to wait hours for the puncture but it was worth it to have two and a half liters drained from my abdomen.

The room in which they punctured me had no air conditioning or fan. The doctors kept complaining about the heat and fanning themselves. I hope this spurs them to petition for airconditioning.

When I was done, Tim and I went back to the lobby to cool down before enduring the suffocating walk home.

The Beaugrenelle shopping center, where many Parisiens parked themselves all day to escape the heat.

Shopping Mall

“I refuse to spend what is left of my life not loving my life.” —Andrea Gibson

I listen to Andrea Gibson say this on a podcast, and I understand it. At the same time, I am struggling to love my life right now. It is impossible to enjoy anything, or even spend a day without intense anxiety. Of course I want to make the most of my limited time on earth, but I can’t do that in the heat.

Tim and I escaped it for much of Thursday at the airconditioned Beaugrenelle shopping mall. However, to get there we had a grueling ride on the roasting RER C train. I struggled to stay calm. Temperatures on some metro and RER lines were reported to reach 56 degrees Celsius, 132 Farenheit. And while it was an enormous relief to arrive at the cool mall and return to sanity, it is very boring to walk around a shopping mall all day. Especially when you are not shopping.

We stayed as long as we could. We wandered furniture shops. We lingered in the bookstore. We looked at shoes we could never afford. We sat on the floor to drink iced things. Many people had the same idea we did; much of Paris seemed parked for the duration. Every seat in cafes and corridors was taken. People were working on laptops, sprawled on the floor, and no one had any inclination to move.

When it was time to head home, I became panicky. Why am I such a heat wimp? Why can’t I just stoically cope like so many seem to be doing? I don’t know how to survive summer. I poured an entire bottle of water over my dress, soaking it, which helped me make it home.

The mall had this buffet of chocolate mousses, crafted from different kinds of chocolate from different countries.

Local Library (Médiathèque)

Our village, like many, has created îles de fraicheur, islands of freshness/coolness. One of those islands is our local library, which is airconditioned. It has extended its hours this week to allow citizens to spend the day there. Many schoolchildren, Theo included, are still studying for exams. Theo has been working there all week. On Friday, I joined her.

The library was packed. And very cool. I was so relieved. I looked for a chair in which I could read, only to discover there were no reading chairs. All the chairs are straight, hardbacked chairs. No sofas, no armchairs, nothing even remotely comfortable for reading. This is my only complaint about the library but it’s a big one. Why would you create a space that is all about books and reading and not provide anywhere to actually read? I finally found a free hardbacked chair and sat uncomfortably on it for three hours while I finished reading Backtalker (which I loved!). At least I was cool. And surrounded by others in the community seeking refuge. It felt a calm oasis. There was even a photography exhibit on the ground floor. It all calmed my nervous system.

Lakes, almost

Saturday Cat came to pick us up to head to Île de Loisirs Jablines-Annet, a lake west of the city. We packed our bags with sunblock, swimsuits, and a giant watermelon. We had heard we had to arrive before 2 p.m. or the lake wouldn’t let us in, although once in you can stay until closing. We might have made it, had not everyone in Paris had the same idea. We arrived at 1:57 to end up in a line of stalled traffic at the gates. When we finally got through, the police were waving people away. No more room in the lake. I find it astonishing that a lake would hire actual police to keep people out of its waters.

Where I grew up in Massachusetts and Vermont, lakes were not walled off by fences. When we wanted to swim, we drove to Ticklenaked Pond or Willoughby Lake and just dove in. No crowds. No barriers. No cost. So this whole French system of walling off lakes and limiting who can come in is a foreign concept, and it seems exceptionally cruel in this heatwave.

Not ready to abandon our plan, Cat drove us to a nearby lake in Torcy. We were able to park there, but when we walked to the entrance we found a queue of maybe 300 people standing in the hundred-degree heat waiting to get in. Security had stopped letting anyone into the lake because it was “too crowded.” We could see the lake through the bars of the fence. We could hear the happy shouts of children. It was a huge lake, with plenty of room for all of us. But they would not let us in. I understand that maybe they don’t want to hire lifeguards for the whole lake, but why not do what plenty of lakes do and simply put up “swim at your own risk” signs? Not every mile of the ocean is policed after all and people still swim in it. Lakes should be open to as many people as can squeeze themselves into its waters.

If only I could carry a lake in my suitcase.

We could find no other open lake or campground, so we drove to the closest shopping mall. Everyone was hungry so we sat down at a table in the middle of the mall. Ever since we left home I had been feeling mounting anxiety. Physical panic, so it was becoming harder to breathe. This has been happening almost every day, but yesterday it was the most severe. I sat at the lunch table trying to talk myself down but the tightness in my chest would not ease. I cried in front of the children. Finally, I gave up and took half an anti-anxiety medication. I don’t like to take them as I don’t want to get addicted, but the situation had become insupportable. I wandered through a crafting shop with Cat and her younger daughter and found it grounding to think about clay and paints and papier-mâché flowers, even though I am the least crafty person on the planet.

Eventually Cat drove us back to Paris. I was grateful for the time spent in Cat’s air-conditioned electric car, in the best of company, though I was not the peppiest of companions. At home Theo and I spent the evening reading together on my bed in front of the cooling machines until I slept.

Life is a gift.