dispersed light

In Paris I am Miss and I am Missus, I am Little Girl and I am Young Woman, I am Hey Girl and I am Lady. To be twenty and female in Paris, sans fake mustache, is to be leered and harassed almost constantly on night streets, but is also to be cheered frequently by old people playing boules or smiling from park benches. Kids don't care about me much but babies like it when I wink at them on the crowded metro.

For my part, I try to remember to smile at almost everyone but not make eye contact for more than two and a half seconds with anyone. I hate passing nice-looking bums without a glance, but I give them the same treatment I do the charity workers in conspicuous red and blue jackets. "oh sorry, I'm running REALLY late..." I don't ever want to raise a child in a city, nor really do I want to live in one myself. That said, my love for Paris seeps deeper and deeper each day, down down till it itches my belly and my toes wiggle with worry. Another home? Really?

The miracle of the city is the light. The French word ('lumiere') is more phonetically descriptive of how light manifests itself in Paris: you use each nook of your mouth to say the word and the light envelops each corner on the building facades, leaving little shadowy Rs falling down and away to the sidewalk. More important is the quality of the light, more pale honeyed than the dearest desert wine twinkling in the windows of restaurants I'll never afford. The light is there for everyone, but I sometimes wonder when I meet Parisians--is the miracle visible to them? They who were born here, lived each afternoon here in these streets and there behind those shuttered windows? Impossible to say with any certainty, since the Parisian is as yet a chimera to me.

Right now I'm getting around to that feeling of emptiness that follows close after relief. My exams are nearly done (I have to talk for ten minutes in French tomorrow, but that's the last time I'll be walking up those six flights of stairs). A somewhat successful evening followed a rather unfortunate Saturday packed with grammar exam flavor and general trauma. Here is a photo series to demonstrate its steady decline:




My predominantly Asian classmates don't hold their liquor (ie cheap beer) very well, but that's okay 'cause neither do I. I don't know about Tristan, but the photographic evidence would suggest likewise. The Swedish girl maintained her composure very well but then she's Swedish. Being in France is all about making race and nationality-based generalizations, it's true, but at least we don't call everyone Chinese.

Also I need to point out before someone points it out for me that according to this blog I only ever wear the same black dress, but I swear it ain't so.

Anyway, soon I'll be off traveling this fair country for a score of days. The objective is to see what France is like as opposed to Paris (assuming that they're somewhere as disparate as America to New York), but I think my secret goal is really just to get some (nonskeez) French people to talk to me. Also to take brilliant pictures and write two dozen meaningful letters, but you know...

Really though, I'd be lying if I claimed I was dissatisfied with my halfa year abroad so far. I'm disappointed with how little I've written here, since I think of things to write each day, but all in all it's been sweet and often overpowering. A thousand smells of different origins greet my nose's travels through the city, and even when I'm rushing there is something funny to enjoy. I love those fast emotions that melt into concentration or stay suspended just from one metro stop to the next. My day is never the same here, ever, something to which I'm not very accustomed. There's also being alone, a friend-turned-enemy of mine with whom I've recently reconciled. It's beautiful, it's meaningful, I won't complain. And then of course there's art.

I hope life is resting light enough on all you, chers amis, scattered embers. Keep warm and send me an email.