Baby Steps

Think Powell-sized bookstore with Barnes and Noble organization and then double it. That is FNAC une grande librairie. I was picking up yet another French tutorial and a few books on Kashmir-Shiavism (something to read in French) and while checking out, the cashier asked me something, I looked blankly at him, he answered his own question, mais non. I whipped out my credit card (always an equalizer) and as he was processing my card it dawned on me what he said. The cylinders were firing a little slowly but at least they were firing. Asked him if he said blah, blah, he responded mais oui, gave me a big smile and wished me a bonne journee (good day not to be confused with a good journey). Next at the natural food store (yes they have those here) the cashier at the end of our transaction asked me if i wanted some bio bread and i totally understood him in French. No translation. I don't even know all of the exact words he used, but i clearly understood. Y viola! And to top it off on my home two different strangers stopped and asked me for directions in french. I whipped out my plan de Paris and showed them where they were and where they wanted to go. So normal! So French! Baby steps.

Monsieur Mercedes

Strutting along in my most American outfit to date, t-shirt, tennis shoes and jeans and wearing really great Roberto Cavelli sunglasses (accoutrements are de riguer here) I was on my way to my friend's house for a mobile phone battery. Crossing the wide open Place des Invalides, a ginormous black Mercedes did a 180 and pulled up to me and rolled down the window. A good looking french man began to speak to me asking if i was from here, could i tell him where a certain cafe was. I was completely caught off guard by his charming smile and let's face it the brand new Mercedes. After talking for 5 minutes he asked if i was free in the evening. Bien sur. Would i want to get together later on for a drink? Maybe--i mean yes. Luckily i had some brain cells firing as i refused to get into the car with him but agreed to take his telephone number. A few hours later i decided to call. What the heck? Meet someplace public. Another opportunity to practice french.

No answer. I left a message. He called back about a half hour later and after a series of phone calls we agreed to meet nearby where i lived. He was going to a party at a club near the Louvre and wanted us to go together. How sweet. Could this man really be this charming, this interesting? He lived in Nice and visions of summers on the Riveria began dancing through my head. Wear something cute and sexy was his text. Huh?

Finally we met at a cafe prior to our party rendezvous. We were going to a "couples" club. There to meet his buddy and his buddy's new Ukranian "girlfriend" for some foursome fun. "You like girls?" What? Fortunately we were at a very public cafe, having a very public drink. It took two seconds to understand what he wanted and two more seconds for me to know what i didn't want. He was very casual. "Oh you are charge. We can just look. We don't have to go. Blah, blah, blah." We met at eleven and i was home and safely tucked in bed before the carriage had time to turn into a pumpkin. Just a another petite adventure in Paris.

Surely some talent rubbed off

I stood in line at the Musee Louvre for the evening opening. For a reduced price, 6 euros, and with fewer people, you can have access to the museum for nearly four hours on Wednesday and Friday from 6-9:45 PM (more than enough time to saturate on objets d'art). My intent was to draw. I found a Greek statute and spent nearly two hours, sketching until my tummy was growling, my legs aching from standing (it was the best angle) and light-headedness was beginning to set in. Whew, i thought i would quickly make my way out the opposite way i came in. Ha! By the time i simply walked through the corridors and noted all of the other statues or paintings i wanted to sketch almost two more hours had gone by. (And what happened to the aching legs, growling tummy and spinning head? Disappeared. I am amazed at what happens when i am fully engaged. Some might call it being present, but in that state the only thing that matters is what i am engaged in. I love it when that happens. And it seems to happen most often when i am creating. Creating anything...art, food, love, exercise.)

As an aside i read that if you stood in front of every item in the Louvre for just ten seconds it would take you two full weeks to get through it. I am all about art but overload is overload.

Two nights later i found myself at the Pompidou museum which exhibits modern art. An exhibition of Lucien Freud was showing, I bought myself a ticket 12 euros and seriously considered the annual membership 48 euros which seemed like a steal to me. Another two hours sketching this outrageously fat woman that Freud painted. The proportions were so outrageous that they were a blast to draw--legs the size of tree trunks, breasts the size of watermelons--really--belly the size of the Icelandic volcanic cloud floating over all other organs. Fantastic. After which i treated myself to a book which had a comprehensive collection of Frank Auerbach's work which i adore and then plopped myself on the roof top bar for a glass of wine, olives, almonds and one of the most decadent views of Paris. Ahh...the life.

And finally the next day i went to L'Atelier de Grande Chaumieur to draw the nude figure. This was an amazing find. Four hours of a live model, posing, sketching, sharpening pencils, capturing an essence, missing it, finding that thing every artist hopes to express and then sheer exhaustion. Only then did i realize that my butt was killing me--sitting for hours on end with 100% focus even when i was muddling through my broken french trying to understand the rules and etiquette of the studio. The next day i could hardly walk. But I was gleeful. I had been drawing in the same room as Gaugin, Modigliani, Morher, Delacroix, Manet, Picasso and Cezanne to name a few. Surely some of the talent rubbed off?

Velib

It seemed so easy. Swipe the American Express and go. There was nothing about daily subscriptions, secret codes and pin numbers. After several minutes of looking befuddled and standing in front of the dispenser with my decoder in hand i asked a handsome french man for some help. Bien sur. He explained that having secured the decoder, i then needed to enter the subscription number, followed by the pin number, followed by the object number. In french the directions sounded like Mary Poppins' tune--a spoonful of sugar to help the numbers get punched in. Y viola i was off--on my Velib that is.

Paris has one of the most progressive public bike systems in the world with thousands of bikes available to anyone who has a credit card or registers with the transportation department. For 1 euro a day or 29 euros for the year you are allowed to rent the bicycles for an unlimited number of trips for the day (or year). The first half hour is free and the next half hour is 1 euro and the next half hour is another euro. The idea is to share the bikes, not hog them. For example you can ride a bike for four hours and it wouldn't cost you a thing as long as every half hour you pop into one of the bike stations, park your bike, do the decoding dance and retrieve another bike. But hog the bike and gets expensive fast. Bicycle stations are at a maximum of 300 meters from each other throughout the city. In theory this should make it very easy to return and retrieve. What i discovered was that there are definitely popular destinations. Near the Jardin des Plantes, i cycled past three stations all full. Finely i stopped and asked a man working on the bicycle ticket dispensers, "Where can i return the bike?" in french and he actually understood me--yippee! He suggested a few possibilities and then i noticed a big map on the dispenser that showed all of the nearby stations. It sort of turned into a treasure hunt--where to find a bike parking? Eventually i found one and gratefully dismounted my wheels. Legs shaking.

Did i mention that the Paris bikes are built like tanks which means you need legs like cannons to propel them forward. My popsicle stick legs were no match for the stop and go, avoid the bus, avoid the pedestrian, circle the cars, trip. And for the number of bicycles in the city there is a paucity of designated bike lanes. I'm sure i broke every rule because i rode in the bus lanes, on the sidewalks, against traffic on a one way street, through red lights (what? that little signal on the side of the road means me?) but no one seemed to mind. I am sure there is a sensibility to the lay out of the traffic in Paris but i am afraid you might need a french gene to understand. For now I'm holding off on that annual pass.

Deliciously at Peace

Sitting in a neighborhood park far from my home, i watched the children playing the usual games, parents and nannies keeping an eye on them, a group of old men playing petanque and a rousing ping pong match. The sun was out. The temperature perfect. A breeze whispered. I had walked about 3 miles before i came upon this picture perfect park, and sitting down felt unusually good. My limbs became heavier and heavier. My seat sunk into the wooden bench. My back relaxed against the wooden slats. I could hardly move. It felt sooo good. I kept sinking deeper and deeper, simultaneously, into heaviness and lightness. And I began to reflect on why i felt so deliciously at peace.

Many times in the past, traveling solo was a way of getting out of my comfort zone, confronting my personal demons of "I am not ..... (you can fill in a host of answers most of which will probably be dead on)". I would feel uncomfortable, lonely, out of place, not belonging. When i was out of my normal routine, my usual habits where no longer there to keep me distracted from that sense of unease (or worse) that comes when a false belief is operating. So obviously the false belief would surface and y viola i would feel like shit.

None of those things are happening now. Sure i can barely speak a word of French or rather i can speak enough to totally slaughter the language. (You should've seen me trying to buy a drawing board and tape at an art supply store. After explaining to the salesgirl that i wanted tape, not scotch tape, this is what i think i said "there is a sort of tape that painters of houses for example use when they are painting the wall and want to protect the wood next to the window." It probably came out more like "there is a sort of tape that pains the houses to use the wood next to the window." After a couple of tries the patient salesgirl said very politely, "Please could you try in English." I did. Found the tape. And left the store muttering to myself the phrase trying to correct the pronunciation and grammar.) I understand almost nothing here and yet i am totally happy.

One of the burdens that i had carried around for years was a deep belief that someone else out there "got IT" and i mean the big IT--an all encompassing everything-i-didn't-know-but-needed-to-in-order-to-be-safe-and-at-peace including what-i-didn't-know-i-needed-to-know. If only i could find that person then i could get "IT" from him (yes there was a predisposition that it was a he who had IT.) So for many years i have been looking for the him who has the IT. Suddenly the spell was broken this winter. (In reality probably not all that suddenly after years of sitting on my can, dreaming, meditating, self-reflecting and thousands of dollars (gratefully spent) to my teachers.) Part of my reason coming to Paris was to put myself in the same kind of situation that i have been in before and see if there was a new reaction or was there the same old fear. So far no old fear. I look around and see beautiful people, people i can talk with, interact with, connect with but i haven't yet seen one person who has something that i don't have. There hasn't been one time when i have wished that i was that person with .....

No, i have been quite happy being myself, just little ole me who loves sliding her feet into her furry slippers, drinking coffee with creme legere in my bed, watching with amusement what motivates the human in this moment (food--big motivator, rest, the outdoors, drawing, writing, hot baths). No judgment. Mostly it is pretty simple and pretty delightful.

Calories for Comprehension

How far will I go to practice French? Apparently pretty far. Yesterday a canvasser stopped me in the street to tell me that he liked the red streak in my hair. In the states i would smile and nod and slip away with nary a word spoke. Here we talked about hair for a while and then he launched into his spiel. At least I think it was his spiel. I nodded a lot, threw in an occasional "oui" and then politely explained that i gave money to Mercy Corps in les etats-unis at which point he smiled and wished me a "bon journee." At the Italian restaurant next to my apartment I ordered a dessert that i didn't even want just so i could talk with the owner/waiter/chef about how he prepared it. Calories for comprehension. At least it was biologique and delicious. Today i spent about twenty minutes talking to the olive vendor about his products from green olives, black olives, french olives, italian olives, tapenade, tapenade with capers, peppers, garlic to olive oil, black truffle oil, white truffle oil, balsamic vinegar, balsamic with raspberries, blueberries, figs. You get the idea.

It costs money to learn another language not just the classroom costs. The key is to maximize every purchase. Ask every question possible, where, when, how and then just pray you have some basic understanding of where the conversation is going. Half the time i don't consciously understand what is being said but i have assigned my subconscious with the task of taking in all of these strange sounds and beginning to create a workable file.

As an after note i was buying wine for dinner with a friend tonight and the proprietor told me i spoke pretty good french. (I think he was just buttering me up so that i would become a frequent customer. It worked i am already trying to think of the wine i want for tomorrow!)

An Angel Arrived

An angel arrived today in form of an old friend, long time Paris resident, ex-pat extraordinaire. My friend Suzan came bearing gifts--a sharp knife, a plan de Paris and a telephone. She spent four hours with me beginning with organizing the apartment and then setting off on the street to show me the ropes--the quincaillerie (hardware store) for hooks, the telephone store for a sim card, the photo store for ID photos for a still-to-be-bought metro pass, the Metro for a temporary 10 ride carnet, ED the super discount post soviet style store that has all the cleaning basics and some food to boot. Along the way we popped into a librarie for Paris weekly and as we sauntered we loaded our bags with fruits and vegetables and pain (bread). Finally she picked out a quaint little bistro to sit down and have some lunch. (How do you tell which ones are good when there are at least 5 or 6 cafes/ bars/ bistros on every block? She told me her cute little terrier, Sindbad made the choice. Yes she is so parisienne that she has her darling little purse dog that jumped inside when ever we went into a food store as dogs are not allowed.)

We sat down to eat and it was a truly authentic bistro. In the neighborhood for decades, with wonderful fresh food in a dark wooded room with a zinc topped bar (even the toilet was the original hole in the ground though with the updated feature of real toilet paper instead of newsprint--ouch.) Suzan started talking to the two women next to us and before we knew it we had recommendations to several other neighborhood restaurants, the name of one of the women and we promised to use her name as an introduction to be served properly. Turns out she was the proprietress of our bistro. Somewhat of a local who's who. Now i know where i will be eating my lunch time meal.

Un peu y un peu things are falling into place.

Arriving

What struck me as we were taxing to the arrival gate in Paris was the impact of all my past memories of landing in Paris with someone there to meet me. Today no one was there to meet me (not even my luggage--oh well a minor inconvenience...thus far.) I could feel sensation and stories building. And I breathed. Breathed into every cell the sensations that i was experiencing. Not resisting one ounce of emotion. And all sensation passed through me. It was rather like someone had tickled me with a giant ostrich feather from the inside out. Sort of delightful. After making my luggage claim it seemed quite symbolic to walk out of the airport and into my new life with only my purse and a few carry-on comforts.

I arrived at the apartment (small), furnished (what no coffee pot), and blessed connected internet. The landlady, her husband and her son (internet liaison) were there go over everything. The husband in a stroke of caring genius made me lock and unlock the front door several times (finicky nineteenth century locks in an eighteenth century building.) Then off to satisfy the growling emptiness in my stomach and begin to stock the non-existent pantry.

After eating and buying a few groceries I was walking around my neighborhood thinking about where to eat dinner later on. It seemed so onerous to have to decide where to eat by myself. I really didn't feel like eating out and just wanted to cook some comfort food at home. And in that moment I saw how I had these very subtle expectations of what my Paris experience should look like. With that realization came all of these other expectations about how quickly i should acclimate, how many friends i should make, how comfortable i should be. What if, just what if I am not supposed to be comfortable or know all the right people and places? What if I was supposed to be all alone with only me for company? An incredible relief poured over me. Where i was, was okay. Simple i know but a profound.