I know this sounds terrible, but it’s true. I didn’t realize until now that I had not seen fat people in three months.
I’m sure I passed some overweight folks now and then during my travels, but it wasn’t nearly as pronounced as it was when I stepped into American Airlines flight 0041. Even more so after I landed in Chicago for my layover.
Fat people. Everywhere.
And that’s just one of the countless things that I find upsetting about being home. The number one thing? That being back in San Diego means I’m no longer in Paris.
No more public transportation — well, I mean, we have it here, but it’s terrible and unreliable.
No more walking — well, I mean, I could, but it would take me days to get anywhere. And I have a cute car, so, really, who are we kidding?
No more “Bonjour!” every time I walk into a shop, a boulangerie, a bar.
No more Roomie. No more strolls in jardins. No more gorgeous people to gawk at. No more Carrefour. No more open air markets. No more seeing something new everyday. No more cathedrals. No more museums. No more alleyways. No more standing out for being so blatantly American. No more French boys.
Let me give myself one more moment to mourn.
Okay, enough of that. I took more from Paris than I left behind. I don’t know how to get through this next part without sounding cliche, corny, or just all around nauseating, so I’m not even going to try to avoid it. In Paris, I learned how to be. I learned that I’m not grounded to one place. I am capable of traveling to foreign places, both physically and emotionally, and feel completely at home. I am capable of making friends everywhere I go and I am capable of embracing things with an open heart and an open mind. I feel more whole as a person, but not nearly complete. The only way to get there, wherever “there” may be, is to continue traveling, continue making connections, and continue falling in love. Which I intend to do.
Oh, and, I’ve learned to completely disregard walk signals and pedestrian laws. Last night, as I was leaving a bar in Pacific Beach, I walked towards a crowd of people waiting at the corner for the street light to change. In the middle of the night. On an empty street. As I approached the crowd, I powered through and traversered, disregarding the red light. Nearly halfway across the street, a guy from the group behind me screams out: “YOLO.”
I’ve got to say, I disagree with Drake. In the last three months alone, I’ve lived a thousand times over. I’ve lived and I’ve died and I’ve grown and I’ve changed. And while I’m sad to be home, I’m looking forward to what comes next.
After my trip to Rome, I returned home and I realized how little I knew about Paris. I had the entire layout of Rome in my brain, but still wasn’t positive where how the arrondissements were laid out in Paris. I had spent the first month acclimating myself to my new life, the second month exploring everything in Europe except the city I live in, and this last month stressing out about how little time I have left.
And thus, the goal was set — I would do something new everyday.
After classes, Roomie and I headed over to jardin du Tuileries for a stroll and a macaroon from nearby Pierre Hermé. We hashed out the dirty details of our past love affairs, so, naturally, much time hadn’t passed before the conservation fizzled out and we were ready to head home. On the métro ride back, we got some seats facing the doors of the train. A man stumbled in a couple stops after us. He pulled his red backpack to the front of his body and leaned against the doors on my right side. As the train came to a harsh halt at the next stop, the man stumbled forward, nearly falling on me. “Ça va?” I asked him. He smiled, nodding. Roomie, the man and I shared a small chuckle. The train went into motion again.
As we passed the next few stops, Roomie and I were engaged in a conversation that occupied our general awareness. It was probably about food. I don’t really remember.
As we neared our stop, I looked forward again, facing the man still leaning against the door.
It’s curious that he isn’t holding on the railing, I thought to myself. I wonder if he knows that would prevent him from falling all over the place. Maybe he’s a germaphobe. Maybe he doesn’t want to touch the bar because of all the filthy hands that have caressed it before. Actually now that I think about it, I wonder what’s been on this seat I’m sitting on. I wonder how many people have passed gas on the seat my butt is resting on right now. Wait, where did he get that cane? He wasn’t holding a cane before. Where’s the end of it OH MY GOD THAT’S HIS PENIS.
THAT IS HIS PENIS.
THIS MAN IS MASTURBATING A FOOT AWAY FROM MY FACE.
HE WASN’T HOLDING ON THE RAILING BECAUSE HE WAS HOLDING ON TO HIS PENIS.
“Bas-teeeeee,” said the recorded announcement on the métro.
“Get off the train,” I said to my Roomie.
“This isn’t our stop–”
“–get off, get off, get off.”
I shoved Roomie through the doors and I ran down the steps towards the exit.
“What’s wrong?” asked Roomie, confused, with a giant smile plastered to her face. (Roomie doesn’t do well with awkward or serious circumstances and her response to nearly every situation is plant her huge and gorgeous smile on her face.)
I calmly began to explain to her what her pure soul had been sitting two feet from. Immediately after, we both jumped around, squealing and gagging in the middle of the Bastille métro station. It wasn’t very French — how we behaved, but I doubt the French would be able to keep their reserved and stoic demeanor if a man shoved his penis in their collective visage.
I thought my ‘new thing of the day’ was be the macaroon and Tuileries, but it turned out to be a stranger pleasuring himself to my face. Paris — you’re just always full of surprises.
I take back anything nice I’ve ever said about the métro.
When my professor announced to the class that there was a dance exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, I hightailed it over there immediately. Not because I was super anxious to see it or anything — she told us about it a couple days before the exhibition was closing. But, as I do pride myself in being ‘that girl’ at the bar, you know, the one who dances regardless of a present dance floor, or even music, I thought it would be interesting to check it out.
And it was.
The exhibition was a presentation of links between the visual arts and dance, displaying works of arts by Matisse and Pollock, to videos of naked women slathered in oil, photographs and sculptures.
At one point, I was standing in the middle a large dark room completely alone, watching a wall-sized projection of a looped scene from Saturday Night Fever. That may have been one of the strangest experiences of my life thus far.
One work of art was just a man, writhing on the floor. Reminded me of a silk worm.
It was a broad exhibition, covering what seemed like the last hundred years — but don’t quote me on that — and because it covered so much, by the end, I felt overwhelmed. The looped videos and all the color and the almost chaotic layout of the exhibition — I left with the same feeling I get when I’ve been dancing for hours. Tired, out of breath, and nearly sore, but ultimately satisfied.
“Meet us at the west of the island!” he said, in French.
Wait, what? You want me to meet you where?
Can you specify some type of landmark for the foreigner, y’know, just to ensure that she doesn’t accidentally walk off the west side of the island into the Seine?
“The west side of the Île de la Cité! Picnic-style!” he responded, in French.
Merci, mon ami. Much better.
Pierre, my bona fide French friend with only one speaking speed — too fast — invited Aretha* and I to meet him by the Seine to drink, picnic-style, in the company of him, his friends, and many Parisians. Once everyone met up, we relocated from the bank nearest to the Notre-Dame to the far west edge of the island. I thought his vague description was due to his lack of empathy to my general cluelessness, but no, Pierre really did mean “the west of the island.” Had we walked any further west, we would have gone for a dip in the river, contracted some type of disease and then captured by the rat/fish mutants that I’m convinced live under the depths of those murky waters.
That little park was crowded. Young Parisians having small picnics of mostly alcohol, sitting on the ground, talking and laughing. It was like one big party of strangers, not two feet from the river.
We hadn’t spent much time there when Roomie texted me to meet up with her over in St. Michel. (I had double-booked myself, you see.) Since most of time was spent deciphering every other sentence while the group gabbed away with gaiety in French, I wasn’t too upset that I was being pulled away from this gathering. We said our goodbyes, made promises to see one another again, and skipped off into the night.
Aretha and I didn’t get very far before a man advanced us with his, “Ay, mademoiselle!” Aretha slid off to the left, while I ducked his approach to the right. As I stepped past him, the man grabbed a chunk of my ass.
A big, juicy handful of my goods.
No, it wasn’t a tap. It wasn’t a cup. He full-on grabbed what my Mama gave me.
So I did what anyone would do — I spun around (my gold, pleated skirt swaying in the wind) and I punched him in the face. It was my natural reaction.
His natural reaction? To punch me right back. And I hit the ground hard. Aretha screams out, “No! No! No!” sternly, almost as if she was lecturing a toddler who had drawn on the walls with crayons. His reaction? To hit her with his water bottle.
I jumped back on my feet, my left elbow bleeding from catching most of my fall, and start screaming at him. He’s yelling back. His friends are yelling at both of us. People have stood up in the park to watch this event unfold. I’m debating whether or not to knee him in the groin. Aretha is yelling something. I’m about to kick his crotch and then… it all stops. I decide that it wasn’t worth it, that he may kill me, stab me, shoot me, follow me and rape me, so I turn around and walk away. Aretha follows. As we walk up the steps, he screams something after us. I turned around and yelled a phrase that should never leave a lady’s lips, strutted up the stairs and out of sight.
To some, the Île de la Cité may be that island where the Notre-Dame stands. Or the Sainte-Chapelle. It may be that island where the Parisii, a small Gallic tribe once lived in 52 BC. It may be that island rich with history and meaning. It may be the heart of Paris. And since Paris is such a meaningful place for so many people, it may be the heart of the heart of their hearts.
To me, it will always be the place where some guy sexually harassed me and then punched me in the face.
*Name changed to protect the identity of my friend. Just kidding. It’s not that serious. I just changed it since I forgot to ask her permission whether or not I could blog about what happened to us.
Was I supposed to feel something? There was just a big block sitting in the middle of the beach. From a distance, it could have been confused for a really big dead animal. At a closer range, it’s clear that war took a crap on the beach and for years, no one wiped up after it. There was a pool of water around it — a moat left over once the tide receded.
Death. That’s all that trip echoed. We visited the landing beaches, the American cemetery, took walks through rows of graves, took walks beside large chunks of metal that still sit there, symbolic of death, of destruction, of war.
I’m not sure what I was supposed to get from this. Was I supposed to feel honored to be in the presence of the people who fought so bravely? Because, in all honesty, I was annoyed. I was annoyed to be in the presence of so many people who failed to recognize that despite that we were in a site frequently visited by tourists, it is still a cemetery. There were kids screaming and running around. People posing and smiling as they stood above hundreds and hundreds of rotting bodies.
It was odd and unsettling. I didn’t enjoy the trip. Sure, the scenery was nice, but the ominous aura that hung over the area did nothing for the mood I was already in.
In the same way that these remnants rest on beach to remind France of its involvement with WWII, this trip will haunt me as a reminder that in my lifetime, I will probably never see the world at peace.
Just a little over a week after returning from London, I packed some toothpaste and a passport and headed off to Roma, Italia. (That’s Rome, Italy for those who don’t read Italian.) Two friends from San Diego are traipsing across Europe at the moment and our time in Rome happened to overlap for a day and a half, so we met up.
During their last few hours in town, we stopped in a kebab shop to snatch some sustenance for their train ride to Florence. I was lollygagging in the little shop, waiting for the man behind the counter to piece together Europe’s version of a burrito — the coveted kebab. I watched his tired hands work quickly, effortlessly and more importantly, angrily. He seemed angry. He didn’t seem like a happy man. He was tired of these stupid tourists and their inane assumption that everyone speaks English. He was angry that he stubbed his toe this morning. He was angry that his t-shirt tag was itchy and that he didn’t know where his cat ran off to. He was unhappy that his tiresome life had brought him to this point, that every choice he has made has led him to this particular Saturday afternoon, making kebabs for three Asian tourists.
He looked up to confirm that we had ordered two kebabs.
“Two?” he questioned, throwing up a peace sign.
“Your eyes are beautiful,” I replied. And they were. A deep gray, with an almost blue-ish tinge to them. Glossy, from the heat of the doner kebab machine.
“Two drinks?” he asks.
“No. Your eyes,” I start pointing to my own, “They’re pretty.”
“Ojos bonitos?” my friend attempts, figuring Spanish may be closer to Italian.
“Vos yeux…” I said, trying out my terrible French.
“No,” he says. He doesn’t understand. “Does anyone speak English?” he asks the room, in Italian.
“No,” I wave my hands. “It’s fine! It’s not important.”
“I do,” says the physical embodiment of every guido stereotype ever manifested in the whole of the universe.
“Tell him his eyes are pretty!” my friend says to the guido.
The guido chuckles for a moment, then says to man: “I tuoi occhi sono belli.” (Or something along those lines. I just Google-translated that for the sake of this post.)
“Oh,” says the man, blushing like a school girl. “Grazie.”
For the rest of our time in his shop, the man had a small smile on his face. He smiled down to his ingredients. He smiled as he rolled the kebabs. He smiled as he handed them to us and he smiled as he waved goodbye.
I think his smile may have been my favorite thing about Rome.
I’ve spent this last week recuperating. Still haven’t completely done so. Highlights of the trip?
I saw Boyfriend Ben. I didn’t think he was that big.
I put my hand under this guy. There’s a pole in his pants. (Dirty.)
I went to Brick Lane Market. I bought a dress for £10. I got stared down by a lot of trendy people.
I watched Wicked. My neighbors have had to endure my singing since I returned to Paris.
And while I don’t have a photograph of it, a man professed his love to my left shoulder. I was wearing a shirt with too big a neck hole (Neck hole? Is there an official term for that?) so it starts to slip off when I’m having too much fun. (Or when I’m just breathing. It’s really quite annoying, actually.) So I’m walking by this man who must have been in his fifties or sixties. He stops me, stares into my soul, and says to me with the utmost serious expression, “You have a gorgeous shoulder.”
Thank you, I reply politely.
“No. This is the most beautiful shoulder ever,” he says. He grabs Schlomo, who is standing beside me. “Look at it,” he says to her. “LOOK AT IT,” he demands.
He gets down on one knee and recites a monologue dedicated to my shoulder and collar bone. At the end of his speech, he stands up and says to me –
“You can do whatever you want to this [motions to my face] or that [motions to my body], but don’t ever, ever do anything to this beautiful shoulder.”
And walks away.
And in that moment, after laughing of course, I decided I loved London just as much as that man loved my clavicle.
In class a few days ago, my professor showed us a scene from Paris Je t’aime, a segment entitled “Quais de Seine,” or the banks of the Seine. (The Seine is a river, btw. I’m not being condescending by telling you that — I really didn’t know it was a river until I got to Paris. American education system — why have you failed me time and time again?) In the video, which you can watch above if you can read Italian or understand French (sorry, couldn’t find a good quality one with English subs), a boy meets an Islamic girl by the river, who he then stalks to La Grande Mosquée de Paris through le jardin des plantes. Professor thought it would be beneficial for us to take the same route on the way to our visit at the mosque, so we did.
It was awesome and cool and a bunch of other positive adjectives that I can’t muster up because I’m now reliving what it felt like to be outside on that butt cold day.
That terribly, terribly cold day.
It was beautiful! But it was freezing.
We visited the mosque, had some tea, was assigned some homework and then we went home. The information we gathered on the tour wasn’t exactly new to me, since Roomie is Muslim and I have a handful of Islamic friends who have educated me on some of their traditions, but I can’t say that’s exactly true for the other people in the program. I don’t want to point fingers, but we can all agree that a lot of Americans have some prejudices against Islamic culture, right? That, and I’ve noticed some Americans are quite self-centered. It’s not second nature for American youth to be socially conscious.
Exhibit A: the first few weeks in Paris, Roomie was like an animal at the zoo. Some of the people in the program wanted to stare, poke their fingers through the cage and ask her endless questions about her Muslim origins.
“You NEVER drink?”
“Why don’t you cover your hair?”
“Where are you from? Aladdin?”
At a French house party a while back, Roomie sat around while we all had some wine. The host offered her a drink, which she politely declined, again and again. Finally, he just asked her if she was Muslim. She said yes, and then he asked her, “Why didn’t you just say so?”
When she told this story to me, Roomie said that she simply didn’t know that he would know what being Muslim entailed.
And that’s the case for a lot of the French friends I made. It’s common knowledge for them to know detailed aspects about the Islamic culture, while Americans rarely know that Islam and Muslim refer to the same religion.
It was nearly one in the morning. Roomie was finishing up some homework and I was finishing up some Facebook. I decided it was time to go to bed, so on my way to the bathroom, I blew out our candles and continued on to perform my nightly ritual. As I started to wash my hands, the fire alarm made a terrible, horrible, high-pitched ring. I poked my head out of the bathroom –
“Really? … Right now? It’s one in the morning.”
Roomie started searching the room for her coat, prepared to evacuate the building. Just a week or so ago, someone on the second floor set off the alarm while burning their dinner. We both assumed something in the same vein had occurred.
I was annoyed.
“It’s so late. What kind of idiot…”
Wait. Why was our smoke detector blinking?
“Holy shit, it’s ours,” I realized.
The itty, bitty amount of smoke from the candles had floated up, right into the smoke detector the candles were sitting directly underneath.
Roomie, who later admitted to being useless during episodes of chaos, opened her eyes wide and stared at me blankly, innocently. I let out a chorus of, “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit,” as I grabbed onto her blanket and started waving it frantically at the detector, high above the wall next to our dining table. Amid the bedlam, I knocked my green candle and spilled the hot wax all over the table and its partner, Roomie’s purple candle.
(Yes. We have our own candles. We bought them together and had a ceremonious lighting when we first moved in. It was our way of turning the studio apartment into our “home.” Don’t make fun.)
Finally, the detector stopped its sharp and piercing screech… but the fun didn’t end there. As I turned over to Roomie to show her the pile of candle vomit on our dining table, I accidentally knocked her candle over too. All over my hand. And the floor. And it splattered. Everywhere.
So I picked up the lighter next to the candle and set myself in flames then I gauged my eyes out with said lighter and I died a horrible, blazing, bleeding death that set off the building fire alarm and (hopefully) ruined everyone’s Valentine’s day. Okay, not really. However, I did feel like doing that for a second.
I ignored the mess and went to sleep.
The next day, Roomie swept the floor as I scraped our room with the blunt end of a butter knife.
Roomie and I both learned something from this ordeal: we have a smoke detector.
Convinced that at the root of every new epoch in French art history was the French's desire to torture me with this essay in the year 2012.Mar 26ReplyRetweetFavorite
