Red White Blue

In the city that always sleeps a few youngsters, including myself are catching the last metro ingurgitating their fifth bottle of cheap cote du Rhone. Obliged to stay up until the first metro usually populated with early morning commuters, taking a taxi is OUT OF THE QUESTION “because we simply don’t do that here” mais non mais non absolument pas! and I wonder why why why am I here when I live in the coolest city in the world.

In the Marais an old gypsy is begging for a gold euro coin while her husband, the accordionist is singing Paris Ciel Bleu Paris Ciel Gris to the fat tear-eyed tourist. A little girl brings him a Jambon Beurre sandwich with plenty of cornichons s’il vous plait and the accordion stops and I think to myself je suis a Paris! Then, my stomach gets in a knot and I feel nauseous like I want to throw up and all these old memories come back and these ghosts from the past haunt me but then I take another sip of my bottle of rouge  because a meal without wine is like a handsome boy without a face and everything is suddenly better.

The ice-cold beauty of this city can be unsettling, intimidating and violent. As a child, my stepfather would always tell me to “touch with my eyes” when at a museum. As I walk through the golden streets of Paris, idealized and immortalized in many films, including some of my favorites I can still hear my stepfather’s “touch with your eyes! Not with your dirty little hands”.

The provincial aspect of Paris for some is an advantage. TIME. Time to LIVE. Time to BREATHE. Unlike you know here, where you don’t even have time to pee certain days. Time to eat, drink, talk, take a coffee, smoke a cigarette and NOT while you’re power walking on Broadway, I mean, sitting down at a table with a good book or a good friend, with one, two, three glasses of Ricard for one, two, three hours. Priceless, like Amex would say. But seriously, doing absolutely nothing, not knowing what time it is, not holding your Blackberry in your hand like it’s grown-up version of a teddy bear is quite amazing sometimes, sometimes. Enjoying the present is what the French do the best. Doing nothing is what the French do the best. And I can say that because I’m half There half Here and fifty percent of me loves doing absolument rien.