Ten Days in Paris

"...the difference between what we imagine of a place and what can occur when we reach it..."

Old Paree

I first came to Paris the year I turned 18. I was here for a mere ten days before I left, yet I vowed to come back. Those ten days were some of the most beautiful days of my life. I came to Paris with dreams and imagination of what the city may hold. The beautiful women with scarves and thin lips, the smoky cafes and wooden bars stacked with ashtrays and tumblers of whiskey, the sky, a yellow wash over the blue of the city, huddling warm atop snake curving streets and paths. The city of Paris, the city of love, the city of endless light and possibility. It was the Paris I'd read, seen in pictures and movies, the Paris manufactured out of optimistic imagination to create the longing, the anticipation, De Botton spoke of in his first chapter. This was the Paris I expected. And this was the Paris I lived for those ten days. Those days went by like a dream, one of sepia tones and muffled jazz sounds, one of grey horizons and blossoming sunrises, set against the drooping skyline of the perfect Paris. I watched this world, amazed at its beauty, more real than any picture, true to its hype in every sense. The women, tall and laughing, gaps between their teeth, hair uncombed and tumbling, were so beautiful. The cafes, squeezed between corners and cobblestone walks, filled with men in suede jackets gesticulating grandly over cigarettes and wine, and old women watching the world walk slowly by, were as Hemingway may have described them, as I imagined they may have been fifty years ago in the age of romance. The sky, falling white to blue to glowing purple sat over the city like a bonnet, snug and cotton soft, its soft wisps of air tucked within. This Paris... it was unreal, like everything I'd heard and seen, but alive. They were ten days I'd never forget. They were ten days that made me vow I'd come back one day.

When I came back, the Paris I'd imagined and known was still there, but buried under a heavy yellow din, of voices and lights. The women were beautiful, but flawed and real, their elegance gone, replaced by an uneager simplicity and khaki dullness. The cafes, no longer smoky and mahogany, were packed with children and unhappy couples, families in glasses poring over maps, too well-lit rooms of cold carafes and day old rolls of bread. The sky was thick, a faded stonewashed denim blue, that blinked incessantly with the circling beam of the Eiffel Tower every night after dark. It was Paris, it was still Paris, but the veneer had faded, replaced by a bright shade of reality, and at first, I was as disheartened as Des Esseintes, wondering if my imagined version of the city was superior to its reality, wondering if it may have been better to stay at home with Hemingway than to try to relive the dream. But eventually, I began to love this new city. It wasn't the same one I'd come to or dreamed of, it wasn't perfect and it wasn't like the picture, but it was real, it was the city underneath its face, the Paris one lives rather than visits. It was different, but just as beautiful, perhaps better, truer than any dream. Des Esseintes feared the difference between what he imagined of London and what may occur when he finally lived it. And he may have been right. There is a shocking difference between what one thinks or dreams and what the real living experience of it is. But his decision to let his fear win over himself, his decision to stay within his imagination in lieu of jumping into the real living experience of the city, kept him from seeing perhaps the most important part of London. The image of a place is made up not only of what we think but what we live and experience. One cannot know a place without the two. So maybe there is a difference between the dreamy Paris of my youth and the real Paris of my life. But it is only through both that I can say with confidence that I finally know, see, and love the city, both the beautiful parts and the knobs. It may not be as pretty as the picture, but its wonderful all the same.