Paris - The Pretty and the Gritty

Typical Paris.

Also Paris.

This is my first time in Paris. In the weeks leading up to my arrival I entertained visions of beautiful architecture, clean streets, and slim, well-dressed people who smoked too many cigarettes, and who would judge me harshly if I didn’t hold my fork and knife “correctly” while eating my dinner.

I was partially right. The people do smoke a lot, sure, but they are far less intimidating than I’d feared. And while much of the architecture in the city is beautiful, I wouldn’t call the streets clean, even in the nicer neighborhoods.  

What I’ve come to realize over the past two weeks is that Paris is just another city. It has a rich history, is/was home to many brilliant artists and intellectuals, and boasts some incredibly delicious local cuisine. But when you get down to it, it's real and it's accessible and that makes it even better than the glamourized versions of Paris that reside in some people’s minds. The various neighborhoods are reminiscent of cities that I’ve lived in and loved, and I’m excited and fortunate to be able to add Paris to that list.

The following two poems, works-in-progress written for class this Maymester,  illustrate the evolution of my experiences in and feelings about Paris over the last two weeks:

A Conversation

On the metro, crushed up against strangers, French speaking strangers. Even the immigrants speak perfect French with perfect French accents. I feel inadequate and dull. Some days I can barely find my own voice in a language I speak fluently.  And right now I am sweating from every pore, my shirt awkwardly damp beneath my armpits and on my chest, but especially on my back, where it is trapped between my skin and the oversized forty pound pack that keeps threatening to pull my feet out from under me. A man’s dog lies on the floor by his feet. A baby squeals once, and then is silent. I think about the baby and the dog and how they bark and growl and squeal and cry and don’t need fancy words or proper pronunciations or specific verb tenses or conjugations to be understood and accepted and cared for. I haven’t had a coherent conversation with another human being in days, and it’s lonely living inside of my own head all of the time. I rest my body (and my pack) back against the doors of the metro, beside a tall, handsomely average man. His girlfriend, who has been leaning listlessly against him, tenses, as she weaves her territorial arms around his torso and glares at me. I stand my ground and glare back. And then I realize how much has just been said, and I turn away so that she won’t see me smile.

The Paris Metro - Accessible and adorable.

1 Rue D’Arras - Biere Academy

The place was dark and cool and nearly empty,

 a refreshing change from the sun-soaked fancy pants cafes that seem to line every main avenue.

I had been drawn to the bar by the long row of exotic (to me) tap beers, to so many words I could never pronounce,

and because I was done being just another tourist paying 8 euro (12 dollars!) for a few ounces of Stella Artois.

The bartender ignored me for a good five minutes.

He was on a seemingly important phone call, and on a land line no less,

so I waited, because I was in Paris, and what else did I have to do that afternoon?

I fell happily in love with my choice, a demi DeKonick blonde (3 euro 80).

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Tears of a Clown” began to play,

followed by “Rock the Casbah,” by whoever sings that,

Elvis and Ben Harper and Aretha hung out on the walls

I looked out the window to the tight, hilly little street,

the apartments and colorful storefronts stacked on top of one another

and just for a second I believed I was back in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, of all places.

Biere Academy - It's a real place.

Also, I went to Versailles and ran into this guy:

"Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling...mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it."

~Jessica