Selective Seeing

The Pompidou Center: inside-out design, like in MacCannell's example :o)

I am currently breathing a large sigh of relief, having put my mom in a cab this morning and wished her a smooth trip home. Don’t get me wrong: we had our fun times, and it was important to me that she got to see where I’m living and what my life is like in Paris. But her approach to the time together as a visitor here, and mine as a current inhabitant, were frequently at odds. Beneath her behavior, I saw some of the tendencies pointed out by MacCannell: namely, the intention to seek out authenticity, but to be happier with a “staged” authenticity than the true one.

On my mom’s list (and man, did she have a list!) were museums, restaurants, bakeries, theaters, monuments, walks, and stores. Having been to Paris a few years before, some of these places held personal nostalgia for her. Most, though, were part of the idea she holds of the “quintessential Paris:” the must-see things that allow one to bask in the utter “Parisness” of it all. And it’s true: looking at Monet’s panoramic water lilies at the Orangerie, getting a perfect pastry at Ladorée, and staring up at Notre Dame does make you feel lucky to be in this beautiful city. I can understand why newcomers would think to themselves, “This must be what it feels like to live in Paris.”

For me, though, the activities that connect me most to Paris are much more mundane. I’m writing this from my laptop, amidst the run-down, painted metal chairs and tables of my favorite local café. This may be the place where I feel most a part of the city: I recognize the bartender (he’s the one who always drops things…), I know what I like to order (a café noisette), and I can anticipate the most crowded time of day (1-2:30) and avoid it. Other than this café, the most essential places are my yoga studio, the NYU center, and the esplanade of my local park. Not terribly exciting, but when I am in those surroundings, I feel rooted in my experience of Paris.

Therein lies the tension between my mother and I: these spots represent my Paris as opposed to the generalized Paris, or the Paris that my mom was seeking out. Though she wanted to see where I spent my time, those places didn’t draw her into the city or make her feel more Parisian. Maybe they weren’t so unpleasant as Arthur Young’s account of an 18th century French inn, but they represented the same sort of disenchantment: as a tourist, one often wants to be impressed and excited, rather than met by the banal. Yes, my mother wanted to see the “real” Paris, but she wanted to pick and choose which real things she saw. She wanted to penetrate certain regions of MacCannell’s authenticity continuum (say, up through Stage 4) but not go all the way. Seeing great works of art and eating a croissant supplied her with the Frenchy feeling she was looking for; it didn’t matter whether that was true to the quotidian Parisian experience.

These reflections have brought me back equally to De Botton’s writings as to MacCannell’s. What I observed in my mom suggests that we do, as De Botton suggested, each create our own destination. Mine is a product of my own disposition, my ability to speak French, and the fact that I’m living here for four months. My mom’s, on the other hand, is born of her personal traits and her position as a non-French speaking tourist. The result? Two rather different notions of Paris.

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