The first thing I thought as soon as I stepped out of the metro station was "Really, Paris? You're actually as beautiful as every cliché I've ever heard? Are you seriously going to make me reevaluate what's 'cliché' and what's just truth?" The first sound out of my mouth was a big laugh, which I think my cousin Alice found amusing or probably just odd, perhaps both, and my first words were "No, no, no. This is ridiculous." Also, I looked like a big old American tourist with my backpack, water bottle, and camera all ready for use.
My maiden voyage into what many people would consider "Classic Paris" was a visit to Notre Dame on Friday. I had barely acquainted myself with my own neighborhood at this point since I had arrived just the day before, unpacked and settled in with the help of Alice and Jeffrey—to clarify, Jeffrey is my mom's cousin. He moved to France in the 70's because he's the smartest person in the family, and then he had Alice in 1990. This is a very reduced history of Jeffrey's life, which is more interesting than moving to another country and having a daughter, but for now, it will do.
So Jeffrey and Alice helped me move in and did a ton of translating for me since my French was miserable that day, partly because of exhaustion and partly because I hadn't spoken regularly for a few months. French, that is. I spoke English a lot this summer, so don't worry about that.
It wasn't until Friday night that I went out on my own to explore my neighborhood, so Friday morning, I was still a bit confused—why can't I see the Eiffel Tower from here? Where's the Arc de Triomphe? The Louvre? The Champs Élysées? I see tons of places to get baguettes and fruit and vegetables and cheese right down my street, but I don't get it...
And I wouldn't until later—although I can't say now that "I get it." I don't think you can say that about any particular culture or neighborhood after living there for only five days, but I think I'm closer than I was.
Anyhow, when Alice and I walked up the Metro station stairs and onto the street, I was floored. We were surrounded by beautiful old, often soaring architecture, consumed by stone and flowers, the Seine, and for me, a feeling I can only describe as "I'm in Europe. Wow." We just don't have beauty of this kind in America, really, at least not in the concentration you find in Paris.
Why is that? I've been asking myself that question over the last few days again and again, and after seeing the Eiffel Tower at day and at night, the Palais-Royal, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Champs-Élysées, and just tons of beautiful, intimate, vibrant neighborhoods with bustling, stone streets, the curiosity this question breeds has only intensified. And it's not just the physical place, but this lifestyle--although I have to concede, not everyone living in Paris has the luxury to be as indulgent as I've been these last few days because most people work or study or do something, whereas I don't start my full studies until October really. But people here, regardless of work or study hours, appreciate things and take the necessary time to appreciate things. They stop by the Boulanger on the way home to pick up a fresh baguette and munch on it as they walk down the street. They take time to eat their food and really savor it--they don't eat to get it done or eat to fill themselves, they eat because taste is a beautiful thing, and here, beauty has a value at least as powerful as time or productivity, which don't have to take precedence over everything.
Why is it so beautiful here? I keep walking around wondering how any one place could contain so many incredible things. One short answer is unfathomable greed. France was ruled by monarchs for centuries, and although hundreds of years later we can appreciate the care they put into making the pride of their country a center of shocking splendor, at the time, resources and capital were spent with little regard for their subjects and with great attention to making my city prettier than yours so that when you visit it, you can think about how great I am and how massive my wealth is and know that if you mess with me, I have absolutely no qualms about sending all of my subjects to destroy you, and I don't give a shit if they die—take a look around you! I've spent unconscionable amounts of money to make my city this beautiful; it must be clear that I don't care about my people, I mean they're completely indispensable, wallowing in poverty, so if you mess with me, just know that I have no value for any life outside of Royalty and will do anything to maintain my power. Although it's not like we never had absolute disdain for human life in the United States, but I guess we sort of convinced ourselves that the use of slaves was to maintain our economy rather than beautify our cities? I don't know. But beauty just has a higher cultural value here and that's probably at least in part because of the tradition of monarchy.
And although Royalty has long since lost out to democracy—well, for white people, at least—the culture of taking time to appreciate beauty and pathos in various forms persists, as evidenced by French subsidies for the arts and the maintenance and preservation of this exquisite city.
I’ve started to ramble and completely lost track of any point, so I’m going to just go get things started and come back when I can write in specifics, which I could do now but this post is a bit long already without much substance, so I’ll save it for later. But for the moment I’ll say that my neighborhood is very very cool, food is delicious, I’ve met some hilarious and great people, and I’ve had a great time with fun folks from home.
