le sept's blog

Down and Out in Paris

The first book I read for our class was Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Published in 1933, this vivid memoir, written in two parts, details Orwell's life as a penniless writer living among the poor and destitute of society, first in Paris then in London. The book documents in painstaking detail the squalor of the lives of those of the poor underworld--washing dishes in a grungy hotel kitchen, staying alive on scraps and stolen loaves of bread and starving in between, pawning every last coat and pair of trousers just to scrounge enough money to pay the next month's rent. Orwell's account of what it is really like to be down and out is desperately touching and sadly familiar looking at modern Paris; the number of homeless in Paris is staggeringly high, and it is all too obvious walking around the streets of the city. Every corner is home to a beggar man and his dog. Every street is another poor man's territory. Their signs all read the same sad lines: "S.V.P. J'ai faim." Please. I'm hungry. A few coins in a tattered old hat, a moth-eaten coat, faces buried in thin dusty blankets. As I go through my weekly routine, I pass the same homeless people, over and over again. The woman outside the Sorbonne, her face as brown and tired as beaten leather. The hunched old grey-haired man outside the Passy subway who's constantly clutching his arms around him to keep warm.

Each time I see them, walk by and look at them, a certain part of Orwell's memoir comes to mind. He is discussing a Russian friend of his he met in the public ward of a hospital who, once a waiter making a hundred francs a day, had since become bed-ridden and therefore as poor as Orwell himself. A war veteran, this friend Boris often entertained Orwell with stories of his glorious fighting days. He had since been forced to pawn almost everything in his possession just to buy food. The few things he had kept, refused to sell regardless of their potential value, were his old war medals and photographs, which he treasured with all his heart. Almost every day, he'd lie them across his bed and talk about them proudly with a glaze in his eye. They were the things he deemed too important to let go of, the few remnants of his past life, the few things he still had that belonged to his person. I think of this each day I walk by a certain homeless man on Rue St. Jacques. He is a dirty-faced man with a long grey beard and a sharp chin with black pirate eyes. He sits on a crude brown blanket with his spotted dog, and reads a tattered old book whose title I've never seen. Sprawled around him on the blanket is a collection of various trinkets, photographs, and books. There is a mint green oval tin, worn and rusted on the edges, inside which are a few coins and crumbs of dirt. There is a photograph of a grand two-masted ship, its edges curling and tea colored worn. There is a stack of flaking paperbacks at his feet, pieces of paper (letters? lists? wind carried flyers?) stuck throughout as bookmarks. He is there every Thursday and Friday afternoon, and every day I walk by, I look, and I wonder about this man and his collection. These things he's chosen to save are perhaps mementos of a past life, a past real life, full of things, family, purpose. This tin, did it once hold his mother's stamps, or his wife's jewelry, or his own life savings? The ship, did it belong to his father, did it take him across the world, is it merely a dream he refuses to let go of? These books, were they gifts from a best friend, did they comfort him in summer nights of his youth, or once accompany him across vast oceans of travel?

Each Thursday and Friday afternoon I walk past him, southbound to my job where I stay well into the evening. Walking back at the grey twilight of dusk, he is always gone, the rusty square outline of his blanket the only evidence of his presence. I wonder where he goes. Does he have a home, a friend, as Orwell did? Does he have a family, a circle of companions? I sigh and walk on, down the hill towards the Seine, and don't look back. I know I will see him tomorrow.

Self-Defense

The one thing I will not miss about Paris are the Parisian men. Granted, there are creepy and crazy men everywhere you go. But I have never felt so disgusted, violated, or enraged by men anywhere as much as I have in Paris. As a woman in New York, there are very simple and appropriate ways to deal with inappropriate men. If they whistle, you can smile and keep walking, and they will turn back around. If they follow you, you can turn and confront them, make a whopping scene in front of a crowd, and they will flee, embarrassed. If they touch you, you have the absolute right to touch them back, and no doubt whoever is with you will join in. New Yorkers simply do not, will not tolerate violation of any kind, and anyone who thinks they can get away with it will be crudely brought to justice. In Paris, there is no such easy code. Upon our arrival, we were told that, as women in this city, we will have to deal with ridiculous incessant verbal and physical abuse from Parisian men whose reputation notes them to be aggressive, unashamed, and very persistent. Furthermore, we were instructed that the best way to deal with this was to ignore them. It seems Parisian men take the slightest reaction to their abuse as encouragement (whether it be a glare, an elbow in the stomach, or an angry "go to hell!" as well as many worse insults). There is literally nothing to do if you, as a woman, find yourself under siege. In the subway, on the street, in a bar, men can touch you, yell at you, follow you, and the slightest reaction only fuels them on, and then you have an even bigger problem. The only thing to do is pretend it isn't happening, look straight ahead and say nothing. In essence, take it.

Coming from New York, where I've learned to be constantly on the offense--aggressive and angry--and where no one ever refrains from telling you exactly how they feel, this has been quite a challenge. The other night, my friend and I were catching the metro to go out. The platform was plenty crowded and when the subway rolled up, we saw that each car was extremely packed. Knowing it was one of the last subways of the night, we squeezed on anyway to the car that stopped in front of us. Now when the Paris metro is packed, it's packed, people pushing in on each other, slamming full against each other's bodies. No sooner had the door closed that we realized the four or five people standing behind us, around us, practically on top of us, were a group of typical Parisian men who were not going to let an opportunity slip away. One of them leaned his chin over my shoulder and began whispering in my ear. Another did the same to my friend. Using the packed car as an excuse, they leaned heavily against us, slid their hands down our bodies. My first instinct was to turn around and knee them as hard as I could but being taught to take it like a Parisian woman, I said nothing. They began inching closer, on all sides of us, talking, breathing on our necks, touching our hair, our hips, our hands. "Where are you going? What stop?" they asked, their words dripping hot on our shoulders. I began to get angry. I leaned forcefully back hoping to throw them off me, but it only made them smile and continue. The car was packed with other people, other women, who watched and listened in the silence of the train, but did nothing. One young blonde man near us asked quietly and kindly that these men leave us alone. They blew up at him angrily. "Who is this? Your mother? Your sister? Your girlfriend? Do you know her?" They began spitting curses at him. "Am I touching her? Am I raping her? I'm just talking to her." The blonde man looked down at his hands. "She doesn't seem to want to talk..." he said quietly. This only angered them more and after cursing him out for a few more minutes, they turned their attention back to us, and they were even more aggressive. At the next stop, I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled my friend out and we got off the car. I turned around, stared at them, yelled at them, wishing with all my might I could pummel them as hard as I wanted to. We jogged to the next car and got on before the train left the station, and we weren't bothered by them again.

It took me the rest of the night to calm down. This is something I will never understand or accept of Paris. Here, I don't have the right to stand up for myself. I don't have the right to defend myself. This is the 21st century. I am just as much a person as anyone else. Yet a man would never be asked to "take it" the way women in Paris are. A man would never, ever tolerate such disgusting animal abuse. A man would fight back. I wanted to fight back. Since when do I not have the right to fight back? I miss the crazies and creeps of New York. I miss the disgusting guys who catcall safe in their cars or construction sites, but are too afraid to get any closer. I miss the right to get angry, be aggressive, defend myself when someone tries to violate me in any way. If there's anything that would keep me from coming back to Paris, it would be that feeling, that powerlessness I'm forced to swallow, that tolerance I'm expected to exert in the face of vile behavior. I guess at least now I know I have the rage capacity to self-defend myself if I ever needed to. But god, I miss New York.

"...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.

Nothing But Sky

The night before I left from Logan airport, I could barely sleep a blink in my own bed. I tossed, I turned, I stared at the white of the ceiling as the dark frowned around me and wondered. What would it all be like? What will change before I'm back again? What have I gotten myself into? The next morning, I quietly assembled my bags at the door and drove in practical silence to the airport with my parents. I was so excited, yet so nervous. I had never flown before alone. This really was a whole new independent life I was starting. After getting my ticket and dropping off my baggage, I got in line for the security checkpoint. My parents followed me, stayed there standing near me, as I snaked my way through the line. When I reached the front, they hugged me quickly and I turned and watch them go. This was the beginning.

I was on my own, leaving the one place I knew to try something incredibly exciting but incredibly scary as well. Traveling abroad is something I have done before in high school, so it wasn't the fear of homesickness that worried me, or some fright that I might not be ready to live away from home. I knew I'd be okay. But it came to me suddenly in the airport that I had thought so much about all the things to do before I left (spend time with my family, watching movies warm under blankets while the New England snow piled high outside the window; order take out with my friends and laugh and stay out late, driving again and again through the same old tired town we'd known since we were kids; live New York as much as I could one last time before leaving it for so many months, take cabs with my friends, laugh in the rain, and get wet, watch the skyline darken and spring to yellow light in the morning) that I had left myself no time to think about what it would be like when I finally arrived, when it all began, and I was no longer waiting, but living it. All these thoughts bombarded me as I sat anxiously at the departure gate, half-reading American Pyscho, which my sister had recommended as a smart and fierce choice of book for a young girl sitting alone. Before I knew it, they were calling the flight and we were boarding. I looked around, at the people milling around in quiet businesslike fashion, out the windows a the landscape of the country, green and rustling in the wind, at the sky, white and flat, I was just about to penetrate, whose arc I would soon follow to another side of the world. I boarded the plane and breathed. As the engines started up, I took one last look out the window. The country began moving, then whirring in blurry lines beneath my gaze, and then we were off, and everything was falling away below me into the past, and there was nothing but sky in front. As the plane reached the top of the sky, the blue and green of the earth fell away and there was only white around. Clouds, pillows, endless wasps of blue. I smiled. It was beautiful. Closing the window, I leaned back and closed my eyes. This was going to be quite an adventure.

Bonjour! I am a sophomore in Gallatin studying abroad in Paris for the semester. My concentration, while not solidly formed yet, will be centered on writing and travel, which is why I chose this class as it fits perfectly with my plan of study. What I'm really interested in is art and media as expressions of cultural identity, and how that differs as you travel from place to place around the world. I hope to learn, through history classes, media classes, observation, and travel the nuances of different cultures around the world, what makes each people different than another, what makes up their daily life philosophy, what supports their art and media, and write it, hoping to someday be able to create an assemblage of all these cultural identities to form a global identity, a global artistic point of view, a global media, to show we are all a lot closer to each other than we think we are.

While here, I took three classes in addition to this blogging course. The first, Acting French, consisted of a small group of students rehearsing the entire semester to put on a play to celebrate the 40th anniversary of NYU in Paris. The play, mainly in French, also honored Eugene Ionesco, recently passed and a great contributor to the program in Paris. At the end of the semester we performed twice, once in the private quarters of the ambassador in front of an audience of administrative heads and, flown in from New York, John Sexton. The second time we performed in a bigger room in front of our peers, teachers, colleagues and friends. Both performances went far better than expected, and I was very proud to be in the course. Another course I took was Advanced Composition, also in French. As I am so interested in writing, I thought it might be wise to try and perfect my french writing skills (grammar, syntax, etc.) so if I ever travel write abroad, I can travel write in French. My third class, European Cinema and Society, entailed us watching a dozen or so European films (from Spain, Germany, Hungary, Italy, France, of course, and others) whose storyline or creation was directly influenced by the specific history of that country. This course also applied directly to my concentration as I came to learn of so many different countries' histories and how they were reflected through art and media to teach the public about their own cultural identity.

I'm from a tiny town in New England, where I lived all my life before moving to New York, so I've always felt I have the best of both worlds. I have a country home and a city home, two different cultural experiences. And now, I have a European home, in Paris. And I feel even luckier.

Paris, Je T'aime

Recently, while thinking over my time spent in Paris, I realized that, shamefully, I have taken no more than a dozen photos of the city I've been living in for the past five months. It's not that I don't have a camera (I bought myself an expensive Nikon a week before I came) and it's not that I haven't seen some amazing things (the sun setting pink and green over the gold top of Invalides, the river in the rain raging brown against blue against the sky, smiles and light, windows and night, just to name a few...) I just never seemed to have my camera on me at the right time. When I was traveling, I was ready every day. I have hundreds of pictures of Dublin, Berlin, and Spain. But Paris, this place I've lived, no more than a few early shots of my apartment? At first I was disgusted, then disappointed, then suddenly sad. But then I began to realize it didn't matter as much as I thought it did. Those moments, those picturesque shots, though not captured on film, will always be in my memory. Though I may not be able to look back on them physically, I will be able to transport myself back, mentally, and see them, be there, feel them all over again. It's maybe even better, to not have wasted my time clunking around with a camera, and instead to have lived it all, cemented it in life experience. Because that's what this semester was about. Not bringing home photos to show off to my friends. Not setting up shots while the world moves around me. But living a new life, being in another world, and breathing in with every breath every bit of it around me.

I'm happy to say that's what I think I've accomplished. I have made friends and memories, seen beauty and bad, and done it all with my eyes open and lighted to the glory of living in a new place. I have a life here, one that will always be with me, traveling in my memory, in my being, in myself. I will look back on this time, revisit Paris and remember, walk down my street looking up at my old apartment windows  remembering the laughing nights I'd once spent inside. I'll walk past the school and peer inside the blue doors wondering what may be happening behind them, tour the neighborhood again and visit those same old restaurants at which I'd once dined, and wined, and smiled. I'll remember the city when I revisit it when I'm old, as the place I came when I was young, the place I turned twenty, the place I grew up. To me, that's what this program has been about. Not taking pictures or seeing sights or perfecting the language (though that is a plus). But living, seeing the world, becoming more of a person. It is only through seeing the rest of the world and the rest of the people that live in it, that we can even begin to understand our own place in the world, and understand our own life's potential. That is what I've learned being here. And to me, that knowledge is priceless. There may be ways I could've done better, more things I could've done, more pictures I could've taken. But to me, it doesn't matter. Looking back on these past months of my life, there's not a thing I would change of my life in Paris.

I had a great time participating in this course. I thought the post topics were always interesting and thought provoking and I really enjoyed writing and reading everyone's ideas. One of the most important things about traveling is having the time to reflect on what you've seen. This course provided an outlet for reflection, forced me to assemble my ideas and ponder my travel, something I may not have done otherwise.I will really appreciate having this journal to look back on and remember my time in Paris. I also liked having the opportunity to write open topic posts as well as on directed subjects. Sometimes it's helpful to be to where to look for a great story, but it's also nice to figure out what's important on your own. I really enjoyed this class and blogging, and I would highly recommend it to anyone going abroad in the coming years. Thanks!

Paris City Skyline

I just returned from my second spring break trip in Amsterdam which is why I am only posting now. Amsterdam is a city I strongly advise going to. There are few cities that touch you the very first time you go there, great cities, both physically beautiful and spiritually alive, and Amsterdam is one. New York is another. And Paris is a third, a truly great city that, after all the traveling I've done in my time abroad, still remains one of the most wonderful cities in the world. There is a quality about a great city that grabs you, pulls you into its life, envelops you inside its spirit, moves you with its current. Walking the streets of Paris is being inside a thousand different lives at once, and feeling it in high living color moving all around you. The air is different, full and scented, and every person has a face you feel is impossible to forget, lined and rigid and beautiful. Living in a city like that, it is easy to lose sight, become dulled to the glory of its face and fall into routine, but traveling and returning has refined my appreciation for the beauty and art of the city; I no longer walk around blind. And now Paris is more wonderful than ever.

I would highly recommend coming to the city for a study abroad site. The place is full of life, color, neighborhood spirit, and light. The restaurants are classic, their terraces packed and smoky and covered by green awnings; the bars are black and beautiful, the bartenders are smiling, the pubs are packed and swinging; the parks are vast and spotted with couples on red blankets; the air is blue, the skyline cutting it softly across its knees, the familiar plie of the Eiffel Tower standing boldly upright at one end. It is beautiful. And not only does the city itself provide a lovely backdrop for a new life adventure, but the location facilitates travel across the continent. I have visited five different countries while studying here and it has been some of the most exciting travel of my life. Of course there are negatives, as there are wherever you go, and some of Paris has left me missing home. First of all, the cost of living here is far more expensive than in New York, and I thought New York was expensive. Second of all, the rumors about French arrogance are not entirely false--there have been moments I've felt shamed by the snootiness of certain Parisians, in conversation or streetwalking, and that makes me long for the detached modest demeanor of busy New York pedestrians, wrapped in their own lives, leaving me peaceful in my loneliness. I also wish that fewer people spoke English in Paris. It is hard to become fluent in the language when I am accosted with broken English every time I try to order off the  menu in French. It is one of those classic French underhanded insults.

Still, I would say that my time in Paris has been rather incredible. I have made friends, Americans, Parisians, other Europeans. I have seen places in the world I always dreamed of seeing but never had before. I have come to appreciate the slow pace of life here, a nice break from the over-enthusiastic fast paced self I had come to be in New York. I have created a life here. I have a neighborhood, a grocery store, a favorite bar, a favorite local restaurant, a weekly job, a tired routine, a home. I honestly cannot imagine having spent the past four  months anywhere but Paris. And I know that Paris will always be with me, wherever I go. I will never forget, never lose the city, because, as Hemingway says, Paris, this magical city and its incredible spirit, is "a moveable feast." And I will never let go.

Double Vision

When I first moved to Paris at the beginning of the year, my routine as a traveler was much different than it is now. Each morning I awoke, excited and wide-eyed, and set out in the city with little or no purpose but to see it. I walked the streets with an eager overattentiveness to detail. The faces of the tall women, sleek and straight-nosed, and their dangling cigarettes; the hunch-backed old men with porridge brown faces and crumbling hands clutching canes; the tall shuttered windows lining the street hovering eyes, openings into salons and dusty bedrooms and lives in the middle of morning... I saw the city, I lived it, as De Botton put it, "alive to the layers of history beneath the present" (247). My father calls it living with double vision. It is the traveler's approach to living. I saw everything as new, special, part of a great beautiful picture I was inside, and so found it exhilirating, as a place, as a home. Yet as time went on, as Paris became more of a home and less of a travel location, I became more and more accustomed to my surroundings and therefore more and more disinterested. I memorized the outline of my street as it bended towards my home, and rushed through the masses of beautiful strangers with nothing but the sight of my building door in mind. I huffed behind slow tall women and waddling old men, belittled them as objects in my path rather than participants in the moment of my life. I have become "habituated and therefore blind" (247).

Reading De Botton's On Habit brought my own life routine into mind. I thought of myself in Paris, and realized that, like in New York, with time I had become over habituated with the surroundings of my life. I walked fast, no matter where I was going or how much time I had to get there, because roads to me were nothing but routes, railways to my destination. I read in subways because shuttles were no more than zooming vessels more efficient transport that would arrive me at my ending point sooner than I could imagine. I rarely took different routes to class and work; I knew the best way to get there, what would be the point of changing now? The wide-eyedness I'd acquired on moving to New York for the first time had faded and I had slipped from the position of traveler, visitor, to inhabitant. Being a lover of travel, I have always prided myself on the thought that I am very visually attentive, not only when new worlds are opened in front of me, but when I wander in my own old worlds, living my own bored daily existence. I never thought I woud lose that sight, that double vision, that allows me to take the time to "notice what [I] have already seen" (254). But reading De Botton's final chapter of The Art of Travel has proved that not only am I guilty of living blindly in my own home, but this second home in Paris, my traveler's home away from home, has fallen into the same habituated state and therefore faded into the unchangeable ordinary in my eyes. De Botton has so convinced me to change, to open my eyes, widen my sight to see everything. I may lose track of my destination. I may take the inefficient route. I may even take forever to get there. But perhaps it's worth it... to walk slower, listen harder, and see wider the world around... perhaps it's worth a little tardiness in the end.

Dinner in Paris

I have been traveling on spring break for the past week which is why I have been unable to post on this last topic, but while traveling I did get the chance to encounter people of a different culture and compare them with the locals in Paris, and I must say, returning to the people of this city has been quite nice. For the last seven days, I have been traveling throughout the eastern coast of Spain, from Costa Brava and Lloret de Mar to Barcelona, and the one thing each region, city, town, beach or bar had in common was its Spanish men. They caution you against the aggressive nature of Parisian men, but in Spain, it was much worse. I felt so violated I almost started a few fist fights. I was very close. So one can imagine it was quite a delight returning to Paris, my comfortable neighborhood with its sweet blond boulanger and packs of roaming squealing kids and kind smiling messieurs, polite enough to step aside as you walk down the sidewalk... the warm comfort of my neighborhood and its inhabitants. Which brings me to the people I'd like to discuss in this topic. My building sits on a narrow road just across from a large white stone apartment complex, each room equipped with a black iron balcony and double wooden shutters. My two living room windows look directly into the home of a middle-aged couple who, though I have never been acquainted with them, I feel I know very well.

The man is tall, broad chested, wears sweaters, and often reads books by the open window. The woman is beautiful, with dark hair and a tan face, and hangs towels over the balcony railing when the sun is out. They have a small child, a son I believe, with wispy curls and chubby hands, who spends hours walking  back and forth across the wood floor, smiling with the oohs and aahs of his parents. Their apartment is classic, set just like mine, with a licing room against the street and a narrow attached kitchen. In the middle sits a wide wooden table where, every week, one night a week, they entertain three or four other couples for a sweet Parisian dinner party. Sitting at the open window, my feet propped up against the rail, I watch as they dine in classic French fashion. There is wine, several bottles, and baskets of fresh-looking white bread. They sit and talk, then the first course is brought out and they drink and dine in merriment over it, taking their time as the night fades into dark. They eat a second course, a meat, from a great platter, and then sit for hours as if they've nowhere better to go, as if they can think of no place they'd rather be in the world than here, across from me, a window away, in the dusk of a warm Paris evening. By the time the dinner's over and they waved their friends away, down the bustling street into the night, I've usually gone, to my own dinner, my own meeting with friends. I've left them there to go live my night, only to return to them the next day as we exist in these parallel strips of life, so close yet so far in dimension. I may not know this family, yet the familiar glow of their living room light, the smoke drifting from the cigarette near their front open window, the cackling laugh of their child dancing across the streetway to meet me, these are things I know. These are the things I will remember. These are the things that will make up my memory of Paris when I'm long long gone away and I'm telling the story of my time here, and I pause to think back on the warmth of my home and the wonderful little French family that lived merely a small white window away.