My clementine is half-peeled on my dresser and I am cold, because I just stood on my tiptoes to lean out the tiny window at the end of the hall and listen to the bells ring. I don’t know what’s happening, or why, but the night is bruised and I can see–I can actually see, this is amazing–the bell ringing.
I’ve been lazy on the blog for several reasons–the first is that classes started this week, and I’ve been running around nonstop, and the second is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to describe living in Paris, other than that I’ve been slotted into the puzzle I should be in. The France I learned about, read about, saw in movies was the mystique of Paris, l’amour je t’aime je t’adore, but there is a very gritty and very different side to Paris as well — and I prefer this side to the vie en rose of vapid curlicued expressions of love. In my class, my professor told us that there are only two million people who live in Paris, but over 29 million tourists a year. Paris is essentially a very large, very ancient, very complicated tourist spot.
But how to describe my life in Paris now? Two floors down, there’s a dog that yaps every day at 7pm on the dot, but it remains the most vocal resident of this building. In the mornings, I have to situate myself carefully so I won’t be crushed by the deluge of people who get on the Metro at the St Lazare stop, and I listen to “Coups et blessures” by BB Brunes over and over again. I know now to bring a bag to the Monoprix. I’m also now very familiar with the delicate art of catching the last train home. This week I have gone to conversation hours and talked about Dominic Strauss-Kahn, I have had tiny cups of espresso on the toe of the Place du Bastille, I have danced and laughed and held hands with strangers and I have dreamed in French. Today I woke up late and made coffee, and then I put on my combat boots and my scarf and ignored a spray of roses brandished at me as I went down the stairs to Pereire, and listened to three French songs on my iPod before I got off at a random stop and went exploring. On Saturday the sidewalks are overflowing with children and vendors to dodge, but somehow I managed to find and explore the Parc Monceau and then walked on as it got darker, and took a random street which led me right to a bustling street market hidden by a Tabac shop and filled with well-dressed mothers and fathers telling their sons sternly that they were here for oranges, not fish. I wandered in and around and through, and eventually bought a half-kilo of clementines, which are scattered like flower petals on my bed now.
There was a pilgrimage the other day of the kids on my program to Angelina’s Cafe, purveyor of the best (and I mean honestly heavenly) chocolat l’Africain in the world. We got takeout cups because they were 3 euros cheaper, and stood in front of a gilded hotel next to the Tuileries and watched people walk by in ankle-length fur coats and purses that cost more than my tuition. But later that night, on my way home, I passed at least seven people sleeping on the grates or in corners or just in the middle of a roundabout, some in sleeping bags but most not — one man sleeping next to all his possessions, kept in a ratty shopping bag from Herve Leger. This isn’t a critique of Paris (or maybe it is) but there are people in this city of steaming bakeries who are hungry, and homeless, and forgotten, something I try to force myself to remember while watching the Eiffel Tower glitter at night.
Tout va bien ici. My French is getting better, and it’s more natural to hear it. In bars and at cafes, I can talk with people, and even though even I can hear my accent by now, we can understand each other. The people in my program are truly stellar–all of them talented and kind and passionate about French and working here. The other night some of us made fajitas, and yesterday we had a potluck at one of their foyers. They are a wonderful group.
I’m “sucking the marrow,” as my mother would say. There’s not going to ever be enough time here. Sometimes I feel guilty for sleeping when I could be exploring. But the fact that, even from my bed, I can hear bells of a hundred-year-old church, and text someone in French, and have baguettes and clementines and Camembert five feet from my pillow, is endlessly, constantly, overwhelmingly incredible for me.
Finally–my favorite memory of Paris so far. It’s hard to pick, really it is, but on Thursday night I hopped on the back of a silver motorcycle (technically a “scooter” but we’re gonna stick with motorcycle) and the wind made my teeth cold as we raced down the Champs Elysee, and I saw l’Arc du Triomphe and the Concorde and the Louvre, and we slid between cars and rounded the corner of l’Opera and everything was glittering and I felt like, if we went a little faster or if I smiled a little more, that I would just disappear into a shower of happy sparks that would wink once, twice, and hang in the air like all the marvelous lights of this marvelous city.
Emily Wolfteich 