exploration and mental maps

Part of the fun of living in a foreign city is learning to navigate it. Its unfamiliarity or illegibility forces one to approach it actively, to investigate it both critically and physically. Here in Paris, I spend a lot of time making plans, going out of my way to discover new things, often for very little reason besides the fact that they are unknown. Markets I hear about, or millefueilles I have to taste, suddenly become imperative.
I keep a running list of things to do, and make every effort to carry each one out. This is not to say that my exploration of Paris is highly structured: I like to have a range of possibilities, arrayed on a sort of mental map, so that wherever I happen to be, I can count on finding one thing or another within easy distance. The element of serendipity is important here, and often I discover still more things to try or eat or see along the way to my initial destination.
Some of these visits are informative without being transporting: I discover that Versailles is too crowded for me, or that pistachio macarons just aren’t my thing. Others, though, are of critical importance, and get absorbed immediately into my catalogue of routines and desires. Markets I discovered or bookstores I visited within the first few days of my arrival have become places that I return to again and again.
Of course, it is not possible to maintain the explorer’s approach all the time. Reality and routine intercede, and days may pass in which all of my exploratory efforts are restricted to the grocery aisles. These periods, though, have something to offer as well. They illustrate another city, a familiar one, whose texture is composed of quotidian necessities and desires. In his book “Invisible Cities,” Calvino talks about the power of perspective, and how the city, as a text, may be read in countless ways. Slipping from one mode to another here in Paris reminds me of that, and also forces another comparison; in New York, my life is composed purely along lines of habit and familiarity. Having grown up in New York, I rarely address the city with the same sense of possibilities and excitement that I feel here in Paris. And yet, I am sure that such a New York exists. One of my projects, when returning to New York, will be to be more active in my approach to the city, and to take it on with eye for adventure.