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.
No comments:
Post a Comment