“…and
everyone was drunk off Paris, high off ignorance, and hoping, praying, for
indulgence to lead down a path of gold to the city of life.”
–anonymous
Sharpie message on a bathroom tile in The Fifth Bar, rue Mouffetard
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My desk is covered in half-open, overturned books
and baguette crumbs. My kitchen is coffee-stained from my erupting espresso
maker. My refrigerator is bare, except for jars of salsa with no tortilla chip
partners and milk that is almost certainly expired. It's so late that the Eiffel Tower is
invisible in the night except for two red lights glowing faintly like eyes
suspended a thousand feet in the air. I’m in the throes of a new semester. My
last semester.
I’ve been in school something like twenty straight
years at this point and boy, can I feel the weight of each and every one of
them. In my fourth week of the semester, I’m decidedly lost, confused,
challenged and feeling like I did back in swimming lessons when they tried
teaching me how to tread water and all I ended up being capable of was not
drowning. So maybe that’s all that matters at this point in my master’s degree.
I may not be doing extraordinarily well or understanding much at all (What is translation theory?), but hey, I’m
not drowning. I’m getting just enough
oxygen to not need CPR!
The weather is being a tease here. One minute, it’s
sunny and I can hear kids playing in the park, and by the time I get outside,
it’s overcast, I can feel freckles of raindrops on my face and the wind shoves
my hair onto my lipstick. Today I found myself agreeing with someone that it’s
cold outside. It was 54 degrees. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I must be
becoming Parisian.
Instead of my usual weekend routine of waking up
after lunch and getting dressed around sunset, I decided to get some cultural
things done this weekend and put my titre
de séjour to work. Being under 26 and a resident of the European Union, I
can, in short, get into any museum for free. To be honest, I feel exceptionally
cool whenever I skip the ticket counter and just flash my passport at the
ticket-taker like I’m kind of a big deal.
I spent Sunday at the Louvre. I was determined to
ignore the signs that direct everyone to the Mona Lisa as if to say, Okay,
this way to your f-ing painting that you just paid twelve euros to get a selfie
in front of before you high-tail to the Orsay. I wanted to wander through
the more than 35,000 pieces of art and do some marveling. Or pretend-marveling.
Because let’s be honest, it sometimes just feels good to look at art and pretend to be ultra-cultured. There's an art exhibition featuring Lady Gaga right now that I avoided because I can't handle the pretentiousness after I read that she cried over it. I
followed up my meandering with some Tuileries-meandering where I called my dad
for a long chat in those wonderful green metal recliner chairs (They’re so
comfortable, I swear!).
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| The Mona Lisa's paparazzi |
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| Oh, hey! It's like a horrible bathroom pic.. in the Louvre. |
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| 'MERICA |
Monday, my unofficial third weekend day this semester, was spent staring
at completely different art at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Let it be known
that I have never, ever been inside
the Pompidou. Ever. It’s essentially the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis’
bigger French cousin. As one of Paris’s most-visited and well-known museums—and
certainly its ugliest on the outside—it’s really strange that I’d never set foot
inside before. Maybe it’s because I’m a huge complainer when it comes to modern
art. It really gets under my skin and makes me say things I don’t mean, like "It’s not even art!" It makes me feel
something—annoyance, frustration and an overwhelming urge to slap someone who
paints a canvas all one color—so that is probably proof in itself that it’s
art.
I don’t really want to get into it, but I can say that after plucking up
the energy and thankfully going solo to spare others of my ranting, I...I liked it.
I liked the view it has from
the top floor. I liked the escalator ride on the outside of the building. I
even liked some of the art. Some of it. Baby steps here, people.
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I walked all the way home that night. I watched
ice-skaters zip around on the temporary rink in front of the sparkling Hôtel de
Ville backdrop. I crossed the Seine to the Île de la Cité at dusk to the tune
of a man playing the saxophone on a bench. I smirked at the tourists sitting on
the benches next to the hedges on the Parvis du Notre-Dame that I know for a
fact are riddled with hidden rats. I bought a ham-and-egg crêpe on
the rue de la Harpe and veered behind the Musée de Cluny to stuff my face
because I guess it’s not really the thing to do, eating while walking.
I read a quote by Hemingway recently that goes: “Paris
is so very beautiful that it satisfies something in you that is always hungry
in America.” I don’t know what I’m hungry for in America—Art? Crêpes?—but I know
that when I’m here, in Paris, it is so very beautiful and that I am satisfied.
Love,
Rachel
P.S. Here's part 2 of my January video.
