salut, paris.

When you leave a friend or a family member, when my HM and HF leave, and now when I do too, you say, "Salut"...and though I always thought before I got here, that Salut was just used for hi or hello, it seems it's more for going than for coming, and for me that means there's the chance of returning once more.

On the Metro two nights ago, coming home way late from a party to celebrate the end of the semester, a musician with an acoustic guitar sang in an australian accent, "feels like I'm knocking on heaven's door." And even though I never give money to musicians on the Metro, I was moved enough by the song and by the vision of Paris I was getting through the windows that as he passed, I gave him 60 centimes and said, "That was lovely." He smiled and said, "Thank you! Lovely even!" and kept walking through the car. He exited the car when the doors opened and as he walked by where I sat, with the doors just about to close, he said, "I wish there were more out there like you." and kept walking.


Today I got lost one last time - I left my house, went somewhere where I knew - the market - to see it one last time - and then took a street that I had never been on before and wandered for an hour until eventually, without checking maps, without asking, without even caring much at all, I found my way home.

living vs. posting.

I will not apologize for not blogging, although my conscience tells me that I should apologize for not writing. The weeks that have gone by are certainly worth accounting for, they were beautiful and filled with life and excitement and visits and moments and visits to bars and visits to museums and conversations with taxi drivers entirely in French and moments of absolute laughter and delight. But I won't apologize not sharing them here because I made the choice to be out living instead of writing and I am very, very pleased with every moment that has passed here.
I have ten days left in Paris. I would love to know where my semester went, I would love to stop time and let these last ten days really live out to their full potential endlessly because there is a very big part of me that wants to stay in Paris forever. But I also know that I'm coming home to a family that I love very much, to friends that I miss so much, and to a holiday season that will give me, as my father puts it, "11 hours of sleep a day, going out with friends, meeting mr. v. for coffee, driving the corolla."
It is finals time now and I am faced with writing 5 papers all in French over the next week. But I determined to budget my time so that I don't have to spend my entire last week in my chambre.
The great thing is that I don't feel like there are things left that I haven't seen that I'm desperate to see - I really accomplished everything I wanted to and I made a difference in my French, formed a wonderful relationship with my French family, and really learned to live an entirely new life. I hope I can take this energy back with me.
Dad came to visit me for a French thanksgiving and it was wonderful to wander the streets of Paris with him, showing him that I mostly know my way around as it is, and showing him my favorite spots, my favorite museums, my favorite views of the city. Listening to his stories about his life and showing him my life in this city, I wondered about my future journeys to Paris, who I will bring, who I will show the city to next, and when I'll be able to come back.
After visiting with Dad, he put me in a cab and the driver drove me back to my place and I felt sad to see my dad go but the taxi driver immediately cheered me up when he said, "You've got a bit of an accent, where are you from?" "The states," I said. "You don't sound like it," he laughed. "People in America don't speak French like that." "Oh, well I live here, or I've been living here for the past three months." "Just three? It doesn't sound like it." "I live with a family. It helps." "It must...you do not sound American, that's for sure."
That was good enough for a smile.
And at night, I dream French dreams and hope that they'll stay that way for a little while when I go back to the states, and I decide to nap with Butterscotch in the family room, with "A Christmas Story" playing endlessly on TV and Ian watching running videos on youtube.
When I think of my home in France, I will always think of the Rue de Boulainvilliers and the family that taught me to converse, to cook, to make everything beautiful as it should be, and the streets with cobblestones and the moments alone where it felt good to be alone. I am so happy to have had these weeks here, these months where being alone finally became a good thing for me, a positive thing.
Also, I will think of beating my french family in Scrabble (in french!) and just how surprised everyone was when I finally got my sense of humor to emerge en francais.

what i learn when i'm not studying.

In comparison to other days I've had in Paris, yesterday was not the best. It was sort of cold and sort of gross outside, I was supposed to be writing papers but instead I was daydreaming and avoiding work by spending an absurd amount of time on facebook and nytimes.com and skype. Faced with actually having to work this weekend, I did everything I could to avoid it. I saw a movie on Friday night, but only after spending three straight hours writing outline after outline after outline for a ridiculous paper due Monday that, as of 1pm on Sunday afternoon, is still not anywhere close to looking like a decent paper. Unable to concentrate, I took the metro and read Beckett's End Game in French, another homework assignment due Monday, and helped two young women speaking broken English and even more broken French find their way to the Louvre. It wasn't a particularly good day at all. I couldn't seem to accomplish much of anything, besides reading Beckett, and my papers just sat there staring at me saying, "What about us?"
And now that they're staring at me again, raising their eyebrows at me and tapping their feet, I'm here writing in English about something other than "Love and Monsters." Whatever that means.
Part of me knows that I'm creating my own monster by not working on my papers. Another part knows that I shouldn't stress because I always get my work done. And part of me just really wanted to share these few moments with you.
I come home yesterday from my aimless walking and find my HM, still in her pjs, at 2pm. She wants to know if I want to learn how to make a soup with her. I decide I won't get any work done anyways, and head to the kitchen with her. She shows me everything, teaches me kindly, and corrects my pronounciation of the word "rent" which is difficult for me to say. Thierry comes in and smells the soup - it's a soup of red lentils and curry and coconut milk - and smiles and says, "Ah, mignon! Qu'est-ce que tu as fait?" I'm mignon now. Toujours mignon.
At 3:30pm, after we've eaten our soup and talked for awhile and had our cafe and it's time to get to work, my HM looks at me and says, "I suppose I should get dressed. I mean, even you're out of bed and dressed..." She laughs.
I smile and say, "You know, you are very nice people but you pick on me so!"
My HF interjects and says, "You see? You have a choice here. You can be a tenant and we won't pick on you and you can pay your rent and come and go as you please. Or you can be apart of our family. That comes with the jokes, you see? We pick on you because it comes with the territory."
I laugh. "So it's a choice?"
He smiles and says gently, "Yes, but you see, I think it's much more interesting to be apart of the family."
I nod and agree.

I come home later that night late and there's a box on my desk that wasn't there when I left. It says, "Pour Katharine de la part de HF et HM." It's my HM's handwriting and I immediately know what it is.
One night at dinner my HM brought out her newest toy. It's a wooden block set of little monuments and landmarks of Paris. Together with the block set and a shoelace (to represent the Seine), as a family we pieced together a map of the city on the dining room table in the middle of dinner. It was wonderful and touching and such a great moment for me. A few weeks later, my HM asked me what gifts I'd be bringing home for my family, and for me. I said I didn't know yet, but I knew I wanted one of those block sets for myself so I could piece together Paris for my family at home, and have a piece of Paris always with me.
Last night I came home and there was a newly purchased block set on my desk, in its tiny Paris canvas bag, just waiting to be opened. It was lovely and it made the rest of the day so much better.


(I'm being challenged now by my HF and HM to cook dinner for them. They think it'll be great fun. I find it totally nerve-wracking. I live with a chef. I've opened up my blog such that anyone who reads can post comments and you don't need to be a member of blogspot or anything. Any ideas for recipes? My french family is all about balance and beauty in every meal, so ideas such as "Sloppy Joes" or "Sloppy anythings" will not be considered. Thanks for your ideas!)

eyes.

As well as being the halfway point of my stay here in Paris, October was a month for visitors. With each week, I saw little slices of home come and go, with normal routine moments in between when I would go to class and misplace my cellphone and avoid my homework by going to museums just because they are there. The moments of home, the visitors from the states, bringing me news and peanut butter and the occasional good American novel, made me remember what I don’t have here from home but also made me see the city all over again.
In the first week I saw Mom and Nora, who flew in for a few days and let me drag them around to my parts of Paris so they could see that I’m doing just fine and finding the best deals in the cutest areas and enjoying the Parisian lifestyle just fine. Because it was not Mom and Nora’s first trip to Paris, we really got to relax. We could sit and enjoy ourselves over lunch, we could have dinner with my host family without worry of missing something else outside, we could relax together and I could finally have what I’d be wanting most: a bit of my real American family in Paris. Nora and I went out to a bar together for the first time and drank overpriced drinks from Harry’s Bar, just so that when we’re old and famous – you know, should either of those things ever happen (which, by the way, is unlikely) – we can say we were there. Mom and Nora’s visit was more about the family than the city, at least to me.
But with Alana here, the city was bright and new and different and exciting. And she wanted to see all the museums and all the paintings and she could give me all the history and point out exactly why that painting mattered when. And through her eyes, I saw the city as its own sort of masterpiece – with a Metro map and a weekly pass in hand, I would send her out with strict instructions on how to say the Metro stop she wanted to go to and would find her coming home later, many hours later, to tell me what she had seen.
“I just feel…it’s like…it’s like meeting celebrities, you know?” She tells me, after a day spent at the Louvre. And I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. In Alana’s eyes, these paintings pretty much are the greatest celebrities out there.
And with Jeff and his father here this week, every moment counted for them. This city was even brighter and even more new for Jeff, even though I don’t think he’d ever use the word bright considering the weather was mostly gray and rainy and dark. Jeff and his dad had so much energy for this city, tackling every museum and every monument in their four days here such that I began to see the city a bit like them, too. Through their eyes, the city was something to take on, something to learn as fast as possible, something that had hidden possibilities down small side streets but great possibilities in the bigger spots, too.
Sitting in the courtyard of my school, staring at the beautiful white building with its still sprawling rose garden despite the fact that it’s now the end of October and the cat that wanders through looking irritated with our presence, Jeff turns to me.
“You…you should probably never leave.”
I’m pretty sure he’s telling me this because we tend to openly display affections of hating each other at any given moment, and by me staying in Paris, it’s clear that he’ll never have to see me again in the States.
But what he’s actually saying is that this place is amazing. That each day that I decide to look at this city in my routine-eyes, I miss the ways in which new eyes are Wowed by this city. Capital W. Wowed.
It’s true. While I’m here, I tend to get lost a little less, stay focused on my course work a little more, begin to see the Eiffel Tower as, oh yeah, you know, just the Eiffel Tower, because I see it every day to school and it’s just a part of the scenery now.
But it shouldn’t be that way. Paris should still wow me. Paris should still open my eyes every so often. And this week it did.
Two moments:
A man on the Metro takes out his teeth, holding them in his hand, and smiling, listening to the accordion duet on the other side of the train.
A man walking down the street, in the 16th arrondissment, walking six donkeys tied together, helping them cross the street at a green light and continuing on their merry way.
These moments didn’t wow me as much as make me feel weird about the city that I’m living in, make me wonder why it is I have fallen in love with this place. But this moment really did wow me.
My first time in the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, I actually stopped in my tracks and Wowed aloud. Listening to the woman behind the counter speak perfect British English, describing the plans to make reservations to have Jeannette Winterson speak at the store, with thousands and thousands of books – American! English! – stacked behind, just begging to be read, just begging to be opened, Wowed me. It reminded me of why I write, why I read, and why new places still need to be discovered while I’m here. I had needed a good Wow, and this was it, making my eyes see the city new again, thanks to some visitors from the States and piles and piles of books just waiting to be read, to be written all over again.

pieces.

Sunday, October 14, on the way to the market.
A tour bus drives by our apartment as we head out the door. I live on an awkward forked corner, and the bus struggles to make the turn, and the bus filled with Asian tourists looks confused and somewhat concerned but mostly just happy to be in Paris. My HM waves to them and a bunch of them wave back.
“Remember?” She says. “Remember the first day you lived here, we walked along the Seine and crossed the bridge and we counted how many tourists we could get to wave back from the boats?”
“Oui, je souviens bien.”

Sunday, October 14, later that night.
A dinner party hosted by French family and me, their idea, their tradition, to host a dinner party (completely themed) for their student and their students’ friends. The Museums of Paris, a meal of a Rothko-esque appetizer, a plat principal in honor of the Musee d’Orsay, cheese in the shape of pyramids for the Louvre, and a dessert for the lovers of Monet – a wooden palette with balls of sorbet scooped out like paint, melting slowly onto the palette, resting perfectly, as if ready to be used to create. Everyone came dressed up – Ben came as the Musee de Cluny, a terribly boring museum, but he spiced it up by wearing a picture of George Clooney around his neck covering a portrait of the Mona Lisa (get it? Cluny sounds like Clooney?). He looked stellar, dressed in a suit the way Clooney dresses in all of his advertisements for whatever his latest movie is. Lisa came as a ballerina from any and every Degas painting, Iwan came as a tourist, Nana came as the Pompidou center (clad in bright colors and stripes), Dave was Picasso’s blue period, Elizabeth was the pyramids of the Louvre, my HF was the Louvre and my HM was the Musee Quai de Branly, and I, I came as the Picasso Museum, clad in a jolie robe I found in a vintage store for just 10 Euros, a dress that is somewhat cubist and somewhat ridiculous. We drank wine and laughed about our costumes, and my HM asked way too many questions and my friends all decided they wanted to move in.
“The Youth Hostel is full,” my HM says with a smile.
After the dinner, my HF turns to me and says quite honestly,
“You picked great friends. They’re so animated, they’re so smart and intelligent and vibrant. Really, it’s tough choosing friends, especially for dinner parties. You want a party to be vibrant, to be lively. You really chose well.”
I just chose the friends I like being with, not because I thought they’d make a great dinner party but because I knew they would have fun. It seems like a funny comment, but I think I know what he means.

Tuesday, October 16, dinner. Alana was here visiting for the week and we’re sitting at dinner and my family says that the cheese that I bought smells awful. I agree with them, but I tell them that I’m confused.
“It’s the exact same type of cheese from the exact same store, but this week the cheese is entirely different and it smells funny and it just doesn’t seem the same.”
My HM tells me it smells awful and thinks I should toss it. My HF thinks it’s delicious and helps himself to another portion.
“I just don’t get it. If it’s the same exact thing, how is it so different?”
My HF puts it quite simply, as if this comparison is obvious.
“Cheese is a living product, Katharine. It’s like with children. You can do the same act twice and come out with very, very different results.”
I’m a little shocked by this comparison. He just compared cheese to raising children. In English I think it sounds even more ridiculous but in French, it actually kind of makes sense.

Wednesday, October 17, on the metro.
“Have you been on the Metro yet with the guys who play accordion?”
“You’re kidding me,” Alana says. We’ve already seen people with portable karaoke machines singing songs like “Let It Be” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and sometimes songs that don’t seem to be in English or in French and the meaning is lost amongst the noise of the trains.
“No really, there are a lot of them. They carry their accordions onto the train and play them for money. They’re great. They feel so much more French than the karaoke machines, you know?”
“Uh…”
At the next stop, an accordion player gets onto the train, in our car, and begins to play.

Thursday, October 18, morning.
I had my first dream that took place in this apartment in Paris with my French family. Everyone is sitting around in the living room talking and my HM’s son is over and he begins to smoke. Everything is in French, fluent French, and I understand all the words and the French flows out of my mouth without thinking. My HF is laughing and explaining something to me delicately, precisely. He chooses his words perfectly. My HM is scolding her son for smoking inside. It’s all a dream, but when I wake up I tell my host family and even though they don’t seem to get how much it means to me, I think it’s great that they’re in my dreams now sometimes.

This week marked the exact halfway point of my stay in France. Not a bad first half, if you ask me. And every day now feels more like a routine, but not in a dull way, not in a way that makes me wish for something else. Just in a way that makes me feel like I have a place here.

Sunday, October 21
My HM knocks on my door and finds that I’ve gone back to sleep, even though I woke up to go with them to the market. She laughs and says, “Oh Kat-a-reen-a, you sleep still?” I say, “No, no, I’m getting up,” and she comes in and playfully pats my feet, a simple gesture but she’s playing with me like I live here and says, “Come on. We need you at the market!” And the second half of my stay here begins.

a little behind

I'm a little behind on my blogging but more will be coming this week I promise. Until then, there's this.

Mais tout ce qui, un jour, deviendra peut-être possible pour beaucoup, le solitaire peut déjà le préparer et l'élaborer de ses propres mains qui se trompent moins. C'est pourquoi, cher Monsieur, il vous faut aimer votre solitude, et supporter, à travers des plaintes aux beaux accents, la souffrance qu'elle vous cause. Car ceux qui vous sont proches se trouvent au loin, dites-vous, ce qui révèle qu'une certaine ampleur est en train de s'installer autour de vous. Et si ce qui vous est proche est déjà lointain, votre ampleur confine alors aux étoiles, et elle est fort vaste; réjouissez-vous de votre croissance où vous ne pouvez bien sûr vous faire accompagner par personne; soyez gentil à l'égard de ceux qui restent en arrière, soyez calme et sûr de vous face à eux, ne les tourmentez pas de vos doutes ni ne les effrayez de votre assurance ou de votre joie qu'ils ne pourraient saisir. Cherchez à nouer avec eux quelques liens simples et fidèles qui n'auront pas à se modifier nécessairement lorsque vous-même vous transformerez toujours davantage; aimez en eux la vie sous une forme étrangère, et faites montre d'indulgence à l'endroit des personnes qui vieillissent et qui redoutent cette solitude qui vous est familière. Évitez de nourrir ce drame toujours ouvert entre parents et enfants: il gaspille tant de force chez les enfants et consume l'amour des parents qui agit et réchauffe même lorsqu'il ne comprend pas. N'exigez aucun conseil d'eux et ne comptez pas sur la moindre compréhension, mais croyez à leur amour qui vous sera conservé comme un héritage; et soyez persuadé qu'il y a, dans cet amour, une force et une bénédiction que vous n'aurez pas à abandonner pour aller fort loin!


But everything that may someday be possible for many people, the solitary man can now, already, prepare and build with his own hands, which make fewer mistakes. Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. for those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; it uses up much of the children's strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn't comprehend. Don't ask for any advice from them and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like and inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, le 16 juillet 1903

all in the family.

My family asks me here, tonight at the dinner table, after six weeks of living in France and almost four weeks of living in Paris, "Are you still homesick?"
The first time they asked me if I was homesick, it was the beginning of my second day living with them. They were basically strangers, basically strange, but they had to decided to take me and the other student who was living here at the time (a woman about my age from Japan) on a picnic and a promenade by the Seine. It was a gorgeous fall day, just the endings of summer and just the beginnings of fall, cool enough to wear a cardigan but not cold enough for a sweater, cool enough for a scarf but no hat or gloves in sight, and they unpacked sandwiches which they sent me and the other girl to purchase (asking for a certain type of ham, a certain type of bread) and they unpacked whole tomatoes, one for each of us, and whole apples too. They spread everything out on a blanket they bought on their trip to Morocco (they are always traveling), they sat us down after a long walk on this spot by the Seine, and they asked us quite simply,
"Are you homesick?"
The other girl said no quickly. She didn't need much time to think about it. She had already spent a year in the US learning English, and seemed quite pleased to be far away from her job at Starbucks in Tokoyo and her family of many, many brothers.
I, being the homebody I am, said yes quickly. I am homesick every day.
"When are homesick?"
"...."
"When during the day are you most homesick? Is it a moment? Is it all the time?"
These questions were quite forward for a second day meeting. This wasn't my family after all. These were just strangers, foreign French strangers who were nice enough to take me in but I am still a tenant and I didn't even know what that would mean in this case.
And so I thought about it and I said,
"At Jean-Paul Sartre's grave, I missed my father. Also sometimes before bed, when he is supposed to tell me 'Sleep good' and I always correct him that it's 'Sleep well.' When I walk to school, I miss my mother. She likes the walking, she likes the life that cities have to offer. When I take the Metro, I miss my sister, who mastered navigating NYC the way I never will. Also, when I read stupid news headlines. I miss my stepmother outside of schools, I miss my stepbrother and stepsister when I hear Stevie Wonder playing in stores. And I miss my dog pretty much all the time." I smile. "She's a good dog."
I think this is more than they are looking for, but I tell them anyways. It's not an all the time thing, I explain. But there are little things, little trucs that remind me of my family, and my friends.
"And I always, always miss camp at sunset. Although there's nothing like seeing the sunset with the Eiffel Tower, there's nothing like seeing it in silence over China Lake, knowing that about four dozen hugs are coming and four dozen ticks are probably crawling all over me."
They don't really get this part, so I don't bother explaining it. I keep that one to myself.
So when they ask me this time at dinner,
"Are you still homesick?"
I give them the simple answer.
"No."
But inside I think,
"Each morning, when I get up and spend those moments between my bed and school, I think of nothing else. For my father, I wear comfortable shoes because I know he will be annoyed if he sees that my feet have blisters. For my mother, I make sure that I wear enough layers. 'Are you warm enough?' 'Are you dressing warm enough?' For my sister, I make sure I am carrying the right purse for the day, the one that looks best and holds the right stuff and has just enough room for my notebook, too. For my stepmom, I forget something."

But I am forging a family here, too. It's different. I'm paying them to be my family, and there are times when I feel more like a guest than a family member, but those times are few and far between and we make quite a family here ourselves. My HF with his daily tea which, when I come home to find, I am always invited to. 6pm tea and a discussion about the new bikes parked outside and whatever theater piece I might see this week. My HM, always more serious but also fun to make laugh. I like to see her face light up when she realizes what it is I've just said (you should have seen her face when I told her that I had blue hair this summer. She thanked me for changing it before I arrived.). The new guy in the apartment, our Canadian friend, with his French (which is coming along) and his suits (which make him look very serious but he can't seem to hold a much of a serious look at all). Some nights my HM's children come to dinner, who are in their twenties and speak so quickly that I am proud I can now understand them because three weeks ago I was certain they weren't even speaking in French. When we're all around the table I am learning a way to understand what it is I am hearing, and I am learning to participate, to animate, to take it all in and give something back too.

And so even though it's different, even though it's just a room in just another apartment in Paris, that doesn't mean it doesn't feel like a family dinner when we sit down together each night and discuss our days, discuss Paris, discuss whatever it is might come to the table. And though it isn't home (there's no Butterscotch begging under the table, there's no Dar Williams with Mom in the car), it's more than enough and it's so much more than I expected.