Tell me I’m contributing to the dilution of local culture. Tell me I’m part of the problem of rampant globalization. Then tell me, please, that everything’s going to be OK.

Yes, that’s a mermaid on my tall latte. With an avenue of Parisian cafes to choose from, today I opted for Starbucks. Not because the coffee is better (though it is), but because I needed comfort. I needed the memory that Starbucks evokes. Of hope and birth and new beginnings.

It’s been a hard week. My friend Stephanie wrote: “The tone [in your blog] is so open and positive, I can’t imagine that underneath it lurks melancholy and homesickness.  Though perhaps you are feeling those things now, hearing news of the bombing in Boston from so far away.” She’s right.

After the Newtown shooting, I felt those things, too. In the lockerroom before yoga class, several French women said, “I’m sorry for you. For you Americans.” The French feel our pain, but they seem to know that the pain is distinctly ours.

I’ve cried more than once this week, about other things, too. About not being able to help my son, who is in college in the U.S., move out of his dorm. By far the hardest thing about Parisian life is being far away from him.

Why Starbucks? When I was in the hospital for a week, to stop premature labor with Ella, I was strapped to the bed with my feet up in the air. A couple times a day, when I was allowed to leave my bed to use the bathroom, I could barely walk, my legs were so atrophied. But most of all, I was worried about my baby being born too soon.

Every day, my husband James brought me a pastry and drink from Starbucks. The taste of a blueberry scone and foamy milk was the taste of family. Of his generosity and moral support. Of all our aspirations for the future. Sometimes he would bring my son and we would watch Angels in the Outfield or Stuart Little. So Starbucks is also everything magical and childish and plucky. It’s the era when my son and I lived not only in the same country but the same house, when I could comfort him.

The foam sliding down my throat is the feeling that everything is going to be OK. Or, rather, that even when it isn’t, we’ll all stand by each other. We Americans. We, as a family.