Paris seems like a dream. Part I
I think back on my summer and I realize the further I am removed from it physically by time, the more romanticised it will become. The more it will take on an amber aura of Ubi Sunt, regardless of the snows of yesteryear falling in the middle of the hottest summer the city saw for 50 years. It's one of the memories that will increase in richness and depth as time goes by rather than withering and yellowing around the edges. I look forward to drawing from that well as the future years go by, drinking from an experience that fills me with wonder and excitement.
The memories will undoubtedly become more romanticized, but the truth is they are pretty romantic to begin with. I arrived in Paris without a job, without knowing anyone that I had ever met face to face, without any real prospects of work, with only a memory of a city I had visited years ago and the numbers of a few contacts scattered throughout the city of 10 million people. I moved into an apartment in a suburb, a charming town 20 minutes by metro from St. Michel, a town of Arabs and Maghrebs and the occasional Frenchperson, a town of parks, pedestrian roads, other roads that we so small that cars and pedestrians weaved in and out of each other like a living fabric. The smell of dog urine, kebabs, dirty people, car exhaust, fresh cooked bread, pastries, perfumes and colognes. I knew I was home.
I arrived in a city where I knew no one. I moved into this apartment where over 40 other people already lived, many together as young couples, others there by themselves. Most were under 25, most were there studying. Most smiled or said hello the first time they saw me and some took the time to get to know me. By the second night was I was playing chess, hanging out in the courtyard, surrounded by dozens of them, talking, telling stories, listening to a little CD player blaring out Oasis or Credence Clearwater Revival. I stayed up that second night, all night until the birds were literally singing outside the windows and I passed out on the couch in the common room to "Fellowship of the Ring."
La Residence. These were my kind of people. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people I had learned to love throughout my life everywhere I had lived. International people. People who liked you for you, who wanted to hear about your life and would tell you some about theirs. People who travelled from London to Manchester to Amsterdam to Rome for every possible reason and by every possible transport. People who sucked the marrow out of life and didn't even know they were doing it. If you used something that poetic (or cheesy) they would laugh at you for taking yourself and life too seriously, and then pass you a drink to make you relax. I found myself in a world apart from all others. And I was at home.
(more to come)
The memories will undoubtedly become more romanticized, but the truth is they are pretty romantic to begin with. I arrived in Paris without a job, without knowing anyone that I had ever met face to face, without any real prospects of work, with only a memory of a city I had visited years ago and the numbers of a few contacts scattered throughout the city of 10 million people. I moved into an apartment in a suburb, a charming town 20 minutes by metro from St. Michel, a town of Arabs and Maghrebs and the occasional Frenchperson, a town of parks, pedestrian roads, other roads that we so small that cars and pedestrians weaved in and out of each other like a living fabric. The smell of dog urine, kebabs, dirty people, car exhaust, fresh cooked bread, pastries, perfumes and colognes. I knew I was home.
I arrived in a city where I knew no one. I moved into this apartment where over 40 other people already lived, many together as young couples, others there by themselves. Most were under 25, most were there studying. Most smiled or said hello the first time they saw me and some took the time to get to know me. By the second night was I was playing chess, hanging out in the courtyard, surrounded by dozens of them, talking, telling stories, listening to a little CD player blaring out Oasis or Credence Clearwater Revival. I stayed up that second night, all night until the birds were literally singing outside the windows and I passed out on the couch in the common room to "Fellowship of the Ring."
La Residence. These were my kind of people. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people I had learned to love throughout my life everywhere I had lived. International people. People who liked you for you, who wanted to hear about your life and would tell you some about theirs. People who travelled from London to Manchester to Amsterdam to Rome for every possible reason and by every possible transport. People who sucked the marrow out of life and didn't even know they were doing it. If you used something that poetic (or cheesy) they would laugh at you for taking yourself and life too seriously, and then pass you a drink to make you relax. I found myself in a world apart from all others. And I was at home.
(more to come)
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