Travelogue 4: Paris

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

My Father
[sung by Judy Collins]

My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

We lived in Ohio then
He worked in the mines
On his dreams like boats
We knew we'd sail in time

All my sisters soon were gone
To Denver and Cheyenne
Marrying their grownup dreams
The lilacs and the man

I stayed behind, the youngest still
Only danced alone
The colors of my father's dreams
Faded without a sound

And I live in Paris now
My children dance and dream
Hearing the words of a miner's life
In words they've never seen

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
Set in my father's eyes again

My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance

I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
Set in my father's eyes again

words and music by Judy Collins (b 1939)

Storybook Edition, illustrated by Jane Dyer

I can never hear Judy Collins sing this song without also recalling the poem "As Children Together" by Carolyn Forché (b 1950). As I wrote last year, the closing lines tell you all you need to know. They tell you that going to Paris can change your life:
If you read this poem, write to me.
I have been to Paris since we parted.
[To hear a recitation, to order The Country Between Us, to learn more.]
When I visited Paris in 2002, my friend Vickie -- the best personal
travelling consultant that a girl could ever hope for! -- sent me a suggestion list that I carried with me every where I went!

Victoria Amador in 2001, at the grave of Colette, in Pere Lachaise

Gerry had been making occasional trips to Fontainebleau but had not been inside the city for twenty years; and I had never been before, so it was an exciting time for us. We couldn't do everything but did as much as we could. I accompanied Gerry to a couple of the conference events, particularly the opening night dinner at Versailles -- so opulent, with a harpist, and a fingernail moon hanging in the sky above the formal gardens. Now why didn't I remember to take my camera? Gerry spoke at the 7am Technology Breakfast, which was well attended, considering the early hour (and the lateness of the previous evening at Versailles). Each night, we stayed awake until 1am, when, from our hotel window, we could see the spot light go out on the Eiffel Tour. Now why isn't it lit up all night; wouldn't that be the American way?

In between official commitments, we walked along des Champs Elysees -- no shopping but did have french onion soup, salad Nicoise, and some sidewalk cafe novelty drinks: The Diablo for Gerry and the Kir Royale pour moi; also drank a lot of Perrier ($4 per bottle) and splashed out for some ice cream at Berthillion ($4 per scoop). Inflated prices? No! Non - tax - deductible contributions to the preservation of Paris? Yes! Living in downtown Philly taught me to be tolerant of the tourist trade as a steady source of revenue for keeping cities vibrant. I appreciated all the happy visitors riding in the horse - drawn carriages along Pine Street, right past my front door, keeping Philadelphia alive and well; after all, because of them the surrounding streets were always clean!

We went to see le tour Eiffel but declined to stand in the very long line for a ride upward. Same with Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, and the Musee D'Orsay -- next time! It seemed that since we were there for such a short time, it was not worth waiting hours for any one attraction. Instead, we just took in whatever we could by strolling the lovely grounds, a great tourist activity in which to indulge without young children who may not yet consider aimlessly walking around any city to be a pleasurable vacation activity. However, it's what Gerry and I enjoy most, in London as well as Paris. Also on our strolling - but - not - stopping list were areas like the Place Vendome, Palais Royal, l'arc de Triomphe, Tuileries, and Centre Pompidou.

We got to Louvre at 9am before the crowds and spent hours in there on Saturday, admiring Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa, and so on and so forth. To read on the plane, I took along Girl With a Pearl Earring and Girl in Hyacinth Blue, in light of which, I had hoped to see Vermeer's Lace Maker while in the Louvre, but that wing was closed. Worse luck. I thought of Ben and Sam in the basement of the Louvre which was excavated in 1985 to reveal the foundations and the moat of the old (12th C) Louvre Fortress. There is also an incredibly detailed scale model of the Louvre Castle (as seen in the Duc de Berry's "Tres Riches Heures," October):

In search of lunch, we passed a couple of interesting looking Irish Pubs: The James Joyce (near out hotel) and Kitty O'Shea's (near Place Vendome). We considered Harry's Bar but in the end decided on Cafe Le Sarah Bernhardt before taking the Metro out to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. On the way out we used the Pere Lachaise Metro stop, which was fine; but on the way back we used the Gambetta stop and found that to be a really charming area. At the cemetery, we paid our respects to Colette, Heloise & Abelard, Proust, and, of course, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde:

It was all very romantic and restful. We wandered along the Seine, and Gerry bought a Van Gogh knock-off from a street vendor, his birthday present to himself. Pretty cool to have your birthday in Paris; for proof, see date on above photo! My birthday present, a week early, was a bottle of L'Air du Temps that I have used sparingly over the years. Although Paris is often listed with all the world destination cities -- London, New York, Rome, Tokyo, etc. -- I certainly did not find it to be an in - your - face bustling metropolis. Not that I've ever been to Rome or Tokyo, but I do know what it's like trying to make your way down the sidewalks in London or New York, and even Philadelphia on a busy day. Paris was nothing like that. A few crowded Metro rides, but otherwise, incredibly calm and mellow. We had a wonderful time. The flights were tiresome, but we suffered only minimal jet lag on the way over and none at all coming home. Now why haven't we been back? My L'Air du Temps is nearly finished . . . then we absolutely must return for more!

For daily updates on contemporary Paris,
check out these fun pages
where my friend Rozena C writes & translates:
Messy Nessy Chic & My Little Paris

~~ HAPPY BASTILLE DAY! ~~

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, July 28th

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my shorter, almost daily blog posts
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my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Saying The Old Town's Name

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

RAIN
from One Morning by Yohji Izawa and Canna Funakoshi
January: rainy one day, snowy the next; sometimes both on the same day. For a delightful depiction of the changeable wintry weather, take a look at this trio of simply beautiful picture books, filled with succinct, sensory, haiku - like text by Canna Funakoshi, and vivid, magical collage - like illustrations by Yohji Izawa:

One Morning (1985)
Winner: First Prize for Graphics
at the Bologna International Children's Book Fair
Selected by New York Times:
Ten Best Children's Books of 1987

One Evening (1988)

One Christmas (1989).

[All three titles from Picture Book Studios]

"Homeward" from One Evening
The books feature a nameless, faceless man and his saucy, loyal little cat. One Day moves gently through an early morning routine, concluding with a charming sequence of the man leaving for work, then returning a few seconds later to pick up his umbrella. In One Evening (later that same day? maybe another day) it has just begun to snow as the man is catching the 5 p.m. trolley home from the office, knowing that his little friend is waiting there to welcome him and help at the typewriter: "Play? Letter."

One Christmas includes among its illustrations two collages in black, white, and gray, representing old memories of Christmas stockings and plum puddings. Later in the book, similar scenes are portrayed, but now in color, in the present day: the same bed post where the stocking was hung, the same table by the dining room window, the same candle stick. My favorite line occurs, when the man is at the railway station purchasing his train ticket and "Saying the old town's name."

Saying the old town's name. The old town. Is there really a hometown for everybody? Somewhere like "that place Just over the Brooklyn Bridge" that Art Garfunkel sings about:

A world of its own,
The streets where we played,
The friends on every corner were the best we ever made.
The backyards, and the school yards
And the trees that watched us grow,
The days of love when dinner time was all you had to know.
Whenever I think of yesterday,
I close my eyes and see,
That place Just Over The Brooklyn Bridge
That will always be home to me.
It'll always be home to me.

--music by Marvin Hamlisch
--lyrics by Marilyn & Alan Bergman

I guess when I close my eyes and think of yesterday, I see the small Missouri town where I lived between the ages of 5 and 10. As a matter of fact, my parents helped us kids plant a tiny little evergreen in the yard there, back in 1965; and when I drove past the house 25 years later, I missed it, crying out in dismay, "Where is the little tree?" Towering high above the house, that's where it was! But I hadn't even thought to glance up; I was searching at eye-level. I suppose if we had continued on in that house, that would have been the tree "that watched us grow."

A few summers ago, my dear obliging family indulged me with a visit to this old town, Neosho, Missouri. I wanted them to see my house and school, the town square and the park, all the places I had been allowed to walk and roam and wander. I loved showing them the house, which, gratefully, was not run down but still in good shape. It looked newly painted and very quaint; and I lingered longingly at the edge of the yard for several minutes, trying to envision every room.

Sadly, the town was more rundown than I had remembered it, the center square, alas, sacrificed to the Walmart Strip on the edge of town. Inevitably, as soon as Walmart appears on the horizon, the entire landscape of the town begins to change. The bulk of my happy memories of growing up in Neosho have to do with being able to walk around all day, wherever I wanted to go.

In her memoir, An American Childhood, Annie Dillard describes the joyful independence of such an upbringing, the sense of pride in navigating successfully and making one's own way:

I walked. My mother had given me the freedom of the streets as soon as I could say our telephone number. I walked and memorized the neighborhood. I made a mental map and located myself upon it. At night in bed I rehearsed the small world's scheme and set challenges: Find the store using backyards only. Imagine a route to my friend's house. I mastered chunks of town . . . Walking was my project before reading. The text I read was the town; the book I made up was a map. . . . What is a house but a bigger skin, and a neighborhood map but the world's skin ever expanding" (42, 44).

A walking childhood hardly seems possible now, not in Neosho. We kids used to walk to the Ben Franklin 5 & 10 Cent Store , but you can never walk to a Walmart! If you've read much Bill Bryson, you'll recall that he writes a lot about this kind of unsatisfying, pedestrian - unfriendly commercial development. It didn't take me long after moving to downtown Philadelphia to realize that, ironically, the best place to find the small town life in America just so happens to be in the middle of a big city. When living there, I could walk and walk to my heart's content. But that's another story, another town.

Coincidentally, not long before our trip to Southwest Missouri, I had encountered a new poem that kept swirling around in my head every time I heard myself "saying the old town's name." Although it is a poem about interiors, it captures precisely how I felt touring around Neosho, looking at the stony exterior of all those old remembered buildings and boarded up, empty storefronts:

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

by Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

Five years after the bittersweet visit to Neosho, I tried taking the family to another small town, this time in Southeast Kansas, where I had spent many days as a girl, visiting my grandparents.

Running through my mind during this visit were the opening stanzas of a lovely Judy Collins song, introduced to me only shortly before by my friend Eve. Amazing how just the right poem or song can suddenly appear in one's life in so timely a fashion:

Secret Gardens
Words and Music by Judy Collins

My grandmother's house is still there
But it isn't the same
A plain wooden cottage
A patch of brown lawn
And a fence that hangs standing
And sighing in the Seattle rain

I drive by with strangers
And wish they could see what I see
A tangle of summer birds
Flying in sunlight
A forest of lilies
An orchard of apricot trees . . .

Great grandfather's farm is still there
But it isn't the same
The barn is torn down
And the fences are gone
The Idaho wind blows
The topsoil away every Spring

I still see the ghosts
Of the people I knew long ago
Inside the old kitchen
They bend and sigh . . .

Secret Gardens of the heart
Where the old stay young forever
I see you shining through the night
In the ice and snow of winter . . .

"Just As I Remember" from One Christmas
These nostalgic lyrics from Judy Collins describe exactly how I felt that Thanksgiving, driving down the old brick streets to see the former houses of my mom's parents & my dad's parents. If only my children could have seen what I saw: the old porch swing, the rocking chairs, the flower beds, the lilac bush, the rhubarb cobbler cooling on the window sill, my grandma on the front step waving hello / goodbye . . . but they could see only a couple of incredibly humble, patched - up, tumble - down, little old houses. Even when I tried to describe what was in my mind's eye, all they could say was, "Oh." Nor could I blame them. I would not have seen it either, had it not been for that Secret Garden in my heart!

So sad, so sweet . . . saying the old town's name.


Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, February 14th

Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com