Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

I will be 17 in 2 days. I'm underwhelmed by the thought. A good friend sat in my room with me for a few hours yesterday and I told him that I've stopped thinking of the passage of time in years but more in moments, or periods. So I don't know which period I'm in or entering or finishing or a bit of each but I know that at least one is happening and will continue to.
Yesterday was difficult. I took my last exam and left that beautiful, dreadful school to explore the world and return nearly three months from now with more knowledge and wider eyes. Next year will be challenging and I need it. 12 months from now, if all goes well, I will graduate from high school. Has it all been leading to this, these years of unfulfilling courses full of information I cannot bring myself to remember? Much of it has been fulfilling. That same good friend, who just finished his first year of college, told me it's strange, that I'm growing up. Nonetheless, I'm doing it. That is the overall period- "youth".
I am no longer seeing the boy I've been writing about. It was raining when he picked me up from my exam. I asked him to hold a book while I unlocked the door. I opened both windows in my bedroom. He is leaving for college at the end of the summer. Last year he was in my place, and another boy he loved was telling him at the end of the summer that he didn't want to go to college with someone at home waiting for him. Last year I was in that place, and another boy I loved was telling me that all we could do was try, and we did. This year I am in this place, and this boy I have fallen in love with told me he didn't want to put himself there again, nor me, to arrive at the next four years of his life knowing he had left someone behind. So he left now. So we'll be friends. So I understand. I walked him to his car, as I always do.
More happened. I made phone calls. He spun out on the highway. I waited for him to come back. I waited to be shaken awake. Instead, I woke this morning to the sound of a bathroom cabinet opening and closing. I made coffee. My father asked how I'm doing. I smiled. I smiled at him yesterday, too, that boy. He didn't dance with me when this song was playing. I didn't need him to.

I have in common with most people a love of Paris. I've taken French in school since seventh grade, and though I am far from fluent, I can tell elaborate stories about cows and pregnant women. I can also sing many French songs, thanks to my teacher. I dream of Edith Piaf and Emile Zola and the AP exam I'll be taking. I will finally see Paris next year, on the exchange trip I've been looking forward to for as long as I can readily remember. I'm prepared to be disappointed. My expectations are impossibly high. But maybe that's the purpose of it, the image of Paris. Even if the escape never truly comes, the thought of it is enough, the promise, though one that cannot be kept. Regardless of its history, it is just a place. I have in common with most people an inability to accept this.
Last year, I read Baldwin's first book, You Lost Me There, and interviewedhim here. It's always strange to read reviews I wrote months or years ago. There is still a lot of progress to be made. I was looking forward to Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down even before I'd seen a cover, or read an excerpt, which when I did only increased my excitement. I read the title and that was enough. As it tends to do, Paris spoke for itself.
This is a memoir. Baldwin moves to Paris with his wife to work in advertising. He has in common with both myself and obviously you that same love for Paris, and longing for it, or his idea of it. He stumbles through the city, its culture, its customs, and its people. He learns the language slowly but surely. He falls in love with the reality of Paris, the real, tangible Paris, its flaws and dysfunction. It takes time, but he finds a home.
This book had me laughing constantly, and held my attention. Baldwin is a funny writer, talented enough to take challenging, frustrating situations and make light of them, forcing the reader to smile slightly even as their brow is furrowing. He writes that "Paris=My Little Pony" (119). Rosecrans' coworkers and friends are eclectic, quirky, and trigger changes in him that he cannot see until they are already carried out. By taking himself away from what he has always known and grounding himself in a place he has romanticized, he is forced to come to terms with the inevitability of disappointment. Also he is revising a novel, which is exhausting.
The memoir is separated into five sections, Baldwin and his wife remaining in Paris for two summers and the seasons surrounding them. They observe the people who come and go, though never far. Nearly all Parisians want to leave Paris yet are attached to it, yet are unable to escape for longer than mere weeks at a time. The city is constant. People are unwilling to change, though growth is inescapable, as is development. Children born in Paris become adults in Paris and love is quick and finite and more lust than anything. Alongside the world's image of Paris is the world's image of a Parisian man and woman, those generalizations being molds that seemingly must be filled, and are. But the people Baldwin and his wife meet desire more, which is why the two of them decided to uproot their lives and move there originally. Even Parisians are searching for something bigger. Even the city of love cannot avoid pain.
Paris is a city of tradition. The apartment Baldwin and his wife eventually decide on is for the entirety of their stay surrounded by construction, and more of it as the seasons pass. When Rosecrans and his wife buy cream for the coils of their stove and it finally begins to conduct electricity, and a spoonful of honey cures the flu that had plagued both of them and, at some point, all visitors to Paris, he writes, "We lived in Paris, Paris being not only the city of milk and honey, but also the city where milk and honey were solutions. No one wonders, because who needs to ask?" (30) It is accepted, that these things work, and they are not challenged. That is where the reluctance to evolve comes from. What if things stop working?
Working in advertising, though, there is always experimentation. New things are tried by people who do not like new things to cater to people who already have a vision but will not tell the designers what they are looking for, as they are paid to know. "The style of the thing is the challenge, one manager said; less what is said than how" (68). It is all about presentation. It is all about the image, not only of Paris, but the people of Paris, and every aspect of their lives. If the presentation does not meet the expectation, the contract is not offered. If, when visiting Paris, the presentation does not meet the tourist's expectation, the sadness is crippling. To romanticize is to exaggerate. Working in advertising, this is where the money is made.
Toward the end of the memoir, after Baldwin and his wife have decided to leave Paris, he is sitting on a bench and reading Jean Echenoz's I'm Gone. The quote included in the book reads, "'An airport does not really exist in and of itself. It's only a place of passage'...Paris, I thought, was like a library book, something loaned" (266). Paris serves its purpose for Rosecrans and his wife. They arrive and experience and leave. They are closer to one another, as anchors, lifelines, and as partners. They are impacted by the people they encounter and make their own impacts.
"'It's a crime...if you think France is just Paris'" (251). I still dream.

"I was happy young, when all I didn't know needed doing had been done."

We are sitting in that diner and I am offering you a bite of my sandwich. We are laying stomachs down on her couch and you are watching my lips and inching closer. I am turning my head in the morning and reaching for your sleeping body from across the room. By the drain and the peeling fence and the streetlight, we are hugging and kissing goodbye so many times, and not enough. I am leaning across the console. We are shaking hands.
I am 17 and I am tired. I took a train into Boston yesterday morning and got lunch with an old friend. We sat in a garden and I took my sunglasses off for long enough to make sure my skin wasn't burning but that was all. It was too bright. My ears are too big. I have saved every train ticket from the past 12 months. I spent much of the day pulling up the straps of my tank top and trying to hold them in place. They continued to fall.
Friday night, my friend Sophie and I went into the city to see Laura Marling. We sat on the train platform, waiting for the commuter rail, and talked about the far future. I told her that I never want to have the choice to live without her, even cities apart, or states, or countries. This summer isn't the last summer before we leave for college, but it is the last summer before we graduate. I have a feeling I've written that sentence before, and probably here, too. We watched orange girls in neon outfits take pictures of themselves in the sunlight. I didn't have to look at her to know she was smiling.

The show was brilliant. It was the third time I've seen her perform. Far and away, she is one of my favorite artists currently making music. No one else is doing what she is doing, not that I know of. She commanded the stage and attention of every listener, as she has the other times I've seen her. I could only shift my legs between songs. When her voice was filling that room, my body was still. I knew every word but could not open my mouth. She played two new songs, videos of which are here and here. I was mesmerized. I could not look away.
Each time I've seen her, she has played this song. The first show of hers that I went to was the fall of my freshman year. I had been planning on taking my mother with me, but a procedure she was having done was booked for that morning, so I took my sister. She was a few months pregnant by that time, her stomach large enough that she had to push her chair back from the table we were sitting at. A woman sat across from me and told me about her daughter and her husband and her life and Laura came and left and those first few months of high school were challenging for many reasons, many of which I'd expected, and a few I hadn't, and that night lifted those woes and carried them somewhere else, even temporarily, even just to the door. I was able to look at my sister and her swelling stomach, and this new woman with her aged hands, and smile. That is what Laura Marling does for me.
I have grown up and that song has followed me. It still makes me cry. I hear it when I need to, either from a crowd or the safety of my bedroom. It has remained the same, though I haven't, though she hasn't, though she has grown, too, and her hands are more confident, and the echo of her voice, throughout that hall and the pit of my stomach.
I still haven't been able to thank her. Chances are I never will. Chances are I've accepted it. I don't have much else to write. I start working tomorrow. I'm working on a review of The Hartford Book by Samuel Amadon and reading Tasteful Nudes by Dave Hill. I'm working on living.

Then again

I went to the ICA yesterday, with a friend of mine. We met on a train into the city and caught the subway. I took the Silver Line for the first time, spoke without thinking. I attempted to experience the art I saw instead of simply looking. I asked if we could see Nantucket from where we were. I didn't finish my ice cream. I wrote a poem.
Tomorrow, I will catch another train into Boston for the first day of my fellowship. I don't know what I'll wear. There was a meeting on Friday for the program, to go over the next few weeks and what will happen and how. I sat my mother and I in the sunlight. I introduced myself when it was my turn. We got smoothies and went out to dinner.
The more I learn about the fellowship, the more overwhelmed I am. The building is beautiful and Boston is beautiful and the people are beautiful and we're going to be doing things and writing things and it's happening to me. I'm part of it. I earned my place in it. That is the most difficult thing for me to come to terms with. It is difficult because I make it, similar to most other things. I don't like the way I'm writing this. I never let myself go back and change anything, not these parts.
I went running with my sister a few mornings ago. I'd like to start doing it every other day, early enough that people won't see me, late enough for the sun to have risen. I've been reading more. Along with this review, I'm also beginning to put together a review for Chuck Carlise's Casual Insomniac, and I'm nearly finished with Siobhan Vivian's The List. I don't when I'll actually get around to writing about these books. I may go on a boat tomorrow. I get seasick. I love the ocean.
I've started writing in a journal. I never finish notebooks. It's a habit. I stole this one from a basket in school. It has no lines. My handwriting is sloppy and, because I'm left-handed, I smudge each line as I make my way across it. But I'm doing it, and I'm liking it, and that's why.

How to distract yourself

 First, grow out your hair. Be Zac Efron. Be Justin Bieber. Be every member of One Direction. You will always look like someone else, so you may as well get used to it.

  Start counting calories. You have been a compulsive eater your entire life, sneaking oatmeal cream pies into your bedroom under your shirt. You are fourteen and in orbit. 
        Declare your own Ash Wednesday. Decide today that it is time to get physical. Do not doubt this logic. Always rely on your mother to compliment your outfits.

  Accept every friend request you receive on Facebook. A boy will add you as you are just about to “graduate” from middle school. Quickly approve him. Ask yourself why his profile picture was taken from such an absurd angle. “Like” it regardless.

  Reacquaint yourself with the art of crawling and, when you meet him by the Build-A-Bear and Sunglass Hut of your local shopping mall, drop to your knees a bit too soon. Realize that when he asks what hand you use, he is not talking about writing. He is 17, after all. This is the day Michael Jackson dies.

  After 8 days, briefly break up with him and approve more friend requests. Get yourself up to date on swag. Stop eating entirely for days at a time. Tell yourself you have more people to impress now than your oblivious mother.

  Start high school. Meet a senior boy and ask him to open your locker. Do not pack a lunch. Say his number out loud in a booth at McDonald’s a few weeks later and do not be surprised when one of your friends calls him. Consider making new friends.

  Meet said boy in a parking lot. Smile at the right times. Allow him to play as many show-tunes as he wants. Do not complain about missing 90210 either, because you will stop watching anyways.

  Go back and forth a bit. You are graceful as a beached whale. Never date the second boy, but play hard to get with the first. Subconsciously take advantage of his daddy issues. You will understand later. Your weight drops dramatically.

  Swear it’s over every time it’s over. The second boy will buy a new car. You will never sit in it. The first boy will text the second boy for a booty call. Laugh at this and open the fridge. Intend to delete his number.

Begin writing poetry. Double up on Math classes so you won’t have to senior year. Nearly delete the folders of novels you wrote in middle school but decide not to, one about a boy with exercise bulimia and another about two pregnant girls who develop an inappropriate friendship. Assure yourself that none of your friendships quite function this way, and not just because, though you may look it, you are not pregnant.

  Meet a third boy at a party the beginning of your sophomore year. See him dancing across a room and say something to one of your friends about him being a big queer, but still smile when a girl comes over and tells you he wants your shit. Slowly weave toward him. Dance like an anachronism. Sweat everywhere. Give him your number. Be grateful you haven’t eaten all day. Approve his friend request.

  Be surprised when he tells you a few days before the New Year that he cheated on you with two freshman from his school. Have an anxiety attack in your friend’s kitchen and spend an unnecessary amount of time looking at your reflection in the stove door. Do not break up with him. Call your mother and drive through McDonald’s.

  Write angry songs on the ukulele and fail Geometry. Sit with your dog every day after school and cry about your incredible misfortune and the size of your thighs. Join an Internet army of malnourished girls and pretend this is making new friends. Break up with him.

Months pass. Sleep for no less than 10 hours every night. Go bowling with the first boy during a school vacation and finally question your motives, but not before watching every episode of Ellen in his bedroom and saying nothing when his body above yours is like a monster truck running over a toddler. Stop answering his text messages. Start seeing a therapist.

  Visit Canada. Wander Niagara Falls with a boy it would be easier if you liked and ponder suicide, or buying a bong. Find a movie about dominatrices on television costarring Rosie O’Donnell and laugh so loud you pull a muscle in your neck. Sleep as far away from him as possible.

  Reach your breaking point. When you get home, approve a friend request. Remember “meeting” this boy two years ago, not long after the first. Remember their connection. Realize every boy you ever meet will be connected to the first. Think that you may as well save yourself the trouble and willingly make your way to the kitchen. Tell yourself, 2 years later, to shut the fuck up.

  Start dating this new boy in early July. Meet his mom. Take more trains than you can count. Stay in the bathroom for hours the night of his birthday party with one of his best friends, holding them upright as they vomit everything in their system. Finally begin to hold yourself upright, too. Tell your therapist about this. Kiss your mother goodnight for the first time in months.

  Grow up. Write better poems. Start with breakfast and work your way to dinner. Pay attention. Scroll through the Internet blog “Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber” every time you’re upset and be certain you do not belong there. Be happy about this.

Everything counts.

After the reading at the end of my fellowship this past summer he said "I hope all of your pieces aren't like that" and I said "You haven't seen anything yet". I wasn't kidding. It made him uncomfortable and I felt that as his pride. I felt his pride after the Huffington Post interview. I felt his pride when I brought home a scholarship from school and left it on the table, but now it seems to be gone, the pride, the paper, the tie. This is who he is and who I am and I have so much to tell him but he's never listening. There are too many doors between us. He is so sad that it bleeds into everything. I hide in my room and write these things because then I don't have to see him crumble into himself. He's my dad. It's too much that he's a man, too.

But I have to keep reaching. Fighting yesterday won't make it so we never fight again. We may fight tomorrow and for years because when he wakes up in the morning he's a Marine but I'm always reminding myself that I'm not a Spice Girl. We're different but we have so much, maybe too much, in common. There are so many walls and I refuse to let them stay.  I'll still be looking for him to show up at a show or my door and say, "Hey, you're ready to go." Last night I wore a scarf as a blindfold and got a friend lost on the way home. He wants to talk.