Arriving in London’s St. Pancras station after a twenty-five year absence, the first of many changes that had overtaken the city since then began to wash over me like a wave. In 1989, work on the Channel Tunnel, following decades of planning, discussion, and ongoing set-backs, was in its very early stages. Back then it was still called the “Chunnel,” and its progress, or lack thereof, was daily tabloid fodder. The media eagerly fanned the flames of unease about the possibility of a land link to the Continent opening up a deadly rabies pipeline. Enormous, rambling St. Pancras had sat largely derelict. With its brooding red-brick towers and aura of neglect, it could have been mistaken for a Victorian mental asylum. It was gratifying to see how beautifully the station had been restored and updated to accommodate the Eurostar line. Had it been in a U.S. city, it more likely would have met the wrecking ball than renovation.
Emerging onto the streets of London, a less welcome transformation confronted me. The classic, classy black cabs–those timeless Hackney carriages–where were they? I knew they still existed, in a somewhat updated form, and in colors other than black. But the streets outside the station swarmed with garish purple and orange minivans. We could have been in Cleveland. We settled for one such vehicle to take us to our hotel on Grosvenor Square. Oh well.
One thing that had not changed, however, was the near-anarchic state of London’s traffic, which tends to be particularly alarming upon first arriving. Cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians are constantly darting aggressively from unexpected directions, especially at round-abouts. About half the vehicles appear to be confused by the concept of left-side driving. Our driver was frequently outraged at the ignorance and rudeness of others on the road. Some things, then, never change. In comparison, Paris’s streets were those of a sleepy backwater.
As we made our way through the chaotic congestion, in sudden fits and stops, I caught a glimpse of the new British Library next door to St. Pancras. When I left the U.K, it had been no more than a hazy, perhaps-some-day project. Most of my daily dissertation research had taken place in the manuscript room of the old library, then part of the British Museum on Great Russell Street. Less often, I worked under the vast grand dome of the historic main reading room. The new facility, perhaps a model of sleek twenty-first century efficiency, struck me as lacking in charm.
But it didn’t matter. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever turn the brightly painted and gilded pages of a fourteenth-century Apocalypse again, in the new library or elsewhere. I had abandoned my academic ties, let all those bridges quietly smolder away to ashes. I’d come to the conclusion, as I was finishing my dissertation, that a career in college teaching wasn’t for me. That was fortunate, since jobs in my field were extremely rare. I have no regrets about the course my life has taken. Do I? No, I don’t.
But I do miss the chance to page through those amazing medieval books, written and illustrated by hand. Their quirky images, typically more humorous than frightening, despite the accompanying text of Revelations: the dragons that resemble perky, pointy-eared dogs sitting for treats (in my mind, now, I see Kiko in every one), and the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, looking like a Gothic princess’s dream doll house. I can point out some of the books to my daughter, although they’ll have to remain safely inside their hermetically sealed glass display cases. See this one? I studied it. I had it in front of me for an entire week. It was removed from display so I could examine it! I think she’d be impressed. Someday, I’ll show her. But probably not on this trip.
It’s Labor Day, a time when my family confronts our many unfinished projects of the summer. No better time, then, than to resume new posts on Wild Trumpet Vine. Some, like this one, will look back to last spring, while others will be more timely. So now, back to our leaving Paris for London in April.
Getting to the train and on board was by far the most stressful segment of our trip. The night before, we’d asked the hotel concierge to arrange for a taxi to the Gare du Nord at 9 AM. Our train was to depart shortly after 10. When we trooped down with our bags in tow, the friendly concierge was surprised to see us. The taxi was to arrive at 10 AM, just as we’d asked. Uh oh.
The concierge called for expedited service. A tense twenty five minutes ticked slowly by before we were on our way.
The enormous Gare du Nord was more congested and confusing than I had ever seen it. Lines for the Eurostar were snake-like and slow-moving. When at last we made it to the area leading to customs, an attendant pointed us toward a counter to fill out a boarding card. Did we each need to fill on out? He wasn’t sure. Time was short, so we completed one for the family, as I remember doing on overseas flights. Although, oddly, come to think of it, we had received no boarding cards on our Air France flight. Arriving in Paris, we had breezed through customs with barely a pause. It was like sailing through the Easy Pass lane in a New Jersey toll plaza.
Further along, another attendant asked for our boarding cards. And no. We all needed one. Didn’t we see that it said “Name” and “Passport Number”? How can that apply to an entire family? The unexpressed question being: Are you idiots? Maybe. But H and I both remembered that rather archaic wording on the cards at the airlines: To be completed by Head of Household, or something to that effect. We rushed back to grapple with the boarding cards, again. Of course, there was the typical pen problem. Those anchored to the counter (on not-quite-long-enough chains) were running out of ink. In search of working pens, I rummaged awkwardly through my purse, which was stuffed beyond full. H stared at me in exasperation. Why is he not expected to have instantaneous, magical access to some writing instrument, I wondered. Perhaps because we were in such a rush, the requested information seemed ridiculously detailed. Address in London? Are you kidding? Anyone have the hotel address? We muddled through.
We were flustered and on edge as we approached the customs agent, who sat scowling fiercely in his little glass box. Why, exactly, were we going to London? What was the purpose of our trip, he asked ominously? He grilled H and me first, then turned a laser focus on our daughter. Apparently he expected her to cave and reveal that our trip had some vile, nefarious goal. Sight-seeing? Reeaally? And what sights do you wish to see? You want to compare London and Paris? Indeed? To what end? At last the agent tired of the interrogation, and waved us on, still hostile but bored and dismissive. With relief, we made our way down to the platform, where the train was, thankfully, still waiting. It was due to depart in seven minutes.
Once on board the uncrowded train, a welcoming, quiet calm enveloped us. Whew! Only after we were settled did I look at my ticket and see, written there in bold print: Arrive at least 30 minutes prior to departure for check-in. We had completely forgotten that helpful suggestion. Because we had printed our tickets at home, the need to allot time for check-in had escaped us. Had we known how extremely close we were cutting it, we really would have been worried.
The journey from Paris Nord to London’s Saint Pancras was smooth, quick, and uneventful. We were soon served a pleasant breakfast by polite, soft-spoken attendants. In less than a half hour, we were gliding silently through the tunnel. A half hour later, we emerged into sunshine and the same gently rolling fields of brilliant gold that we had seen in France. Rapeseed, I learned, grown for its oil. An unfortunate name for something so pretty. The entire trip took about two hours and fifteen minutes. It was vastly quicker and more efficient than in the old days of train, boat and train, each segment prefaced by a long wait in a smoky departure lounge.
My family and I wouldn’t have considered adding London to our itinerary on this trip if it hadn’t been such a convenient train ride from Paris. But I was glad I lived through those old days and had the memories to show for it. Glad I had the chance, with my fellow middle-school aged friends, in 1975, to cross the Channel by slow ferry. See European Vacation, ’75: Crossing the Channel. I had described that crossing in my travel journal as a highlight of the trip. Had we traveled then on a sleek, fast train, there would have been less opportunity for adolescent adventure. While the Eurostar served my family’s purpose perfectly on this recent trip, I’m happy it didn’t exist on my very first European vacation.
Before we left for Paris, we had reached a family decision to take the Eurostar train to London instead of traveling further in France. We’d compare two major European capitals. It would be a great experience for our daughter. My husband was interested, since he had spent little time in England. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to return to London. It had been twenty-five years. I had waited too long. So long that any return trip would always be too soon.
When I was last in England, I had felt very much at home. A year of living in London, traveling regularly to Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere throughout the UK had left me feeling like a local. The next year, a month-long follow-up visit seemed like a return to the old home place.
But England was no longer home. That priceless cache of experience I had accumulated piece by painstaking piece–all that familiarity, all that intimate knowledge of a place and its people–it had mostly vanished. Staying away for two and half decades will do that. Now, I’d be just another middle-aged tourist mother traipsing from site to site, attempting to decipher an unwieldy map.
The whirlwind of mixed-up memories that spun around me in the garden below my old Paris dorm room had been daunting enough. I was afraid London would stir up a contrast even more uncomfortably extreme. Could I face yet another collision of the current me with the student me from half a lifetime ago? Of course I could face it. But I doubted very seriously that I would enjoy it.
I understood with new clarity how my father must have felt when we stood on a certain medieval bridge in Germany. As an eighteen-year old fresh out of high school, he’d been stationed in Regensburg with the U.S. Occupational Forces after World War II. Before long he was seeing a beautiful German woman in her mid-twenties. She’d lived in an apartment building on the other side of the bridge. He’d become like one of the family, welcomed by her mother and her small daughter. When his overseas service had been cut short following the sudden death of his father, he’d never said a real goodbye to Anna-Marie. He thought he’d return shortly. He didn’t.
Sixty years later, he was in Regensburg again at last, accompanied by his wife, daughter and granddaughter. Did he want to cross the Stone Bridge and see if anything remained of the old buildings he remembered? No, he didn’t. It was all too much. Too much time past, too much change, internal and external, to wrap one’s head around.
A sixty-year wait for a return trip is certainly too long. A lapse of twenty-five years wouldn’t be nearly as overwhelming, would it?
A View from the Stone Bridge, Regensburg, April 2011
As we wandered the Latin Quarter behind the Pantheon along the narrow streets of the rue Mouffetard area this past April, we were stopped by several delicately painted street art murals. The three paintings include the same figure of a young boy wearing a pale blue and white striped hoodie, jeans and Converse sneakers. This is street art at its playful, charming, arresting best. Not only does it improve the blank walls it adorns, it prompts passers-by to pause, think, and look more closely.
An internet search after I returned home revealed these three murals to be the work of Julien Malland, who paints under the name “Seth.” Also known as the “Globe Painter,” he has created many other works throughout Paris and all over the world. The figure of the boy appears repeatedly, as does the pony-tail-wearing girl in the example below. The artist often uses the wall surface as a unique element in the design. In the painting above, the boy appears to be in the process of disappearing into the wall. In another Paris mural, entitled “Painting the Rainbow,” the boy seems to lift up the wall like a canvas curtain in order to paint a circular rainbow on the floor below. In other works, the wall surface plays the role of water, from which the boy and girl emerge as they prepare to launch a paper boat.
Above, secrets are shared under cover of the roomy striped hoodie.
In this work, the boy appears to float in the water of the wall, holding his paper boat aloft. Some of Seth’s Paris works occupy entire sides of multiple-story buildings.
This artist’s appealing, whimsical creations remind us that Paris is, indeed, one rambling, open-air gallery in which art of every genre is free for those willing to take the time to look.
Like so many tourists, our daughter finds she can walk on water
near I.M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid.
The Grand Palais, an enormous exhibition hall on the Champs-Élysées,
was built for the World’s Fair, held in Paris in 1900.
The interior of the glass-domed Grand Palais abounds with sinuous Art Nouveau ironwork.
More Grand Palais elegance in iron and glass.
The Grand Mosque of Paris, which dates from 1926.
The Odeon Theatre, near the Luxembourg Gardens.
The present building dates from 1819.
A typically grand Paris doorway.
Interior view of the Pantheon.
The Sorbonne.
Produce vendors along the rue Mouffetard. On weekday mornings, the long, narrow street is the ideal setting for a moveable feast.
A pedestrian-only street, the rue du Pot-de-Fer, or Street of the Iron Pot.
Like rue Mouffetard, which it intersects, and several in the area, it
escaped demolition during Haussmann’s revisioning of Paris.
Like most historic cities, Paris is full of beautiful, architecturally and culturally significant churches. Here are a few of my favorites.
The oldest church in the city is Saint-Germain-des-Prés, begun in the sixth century as part of a powerful abbey. Little of the original building survives, and the current church, in the sturdy Romanesque style, dates primarily from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
While the nave frescoes date from a nineteenth-century renovation, the paint colors of the walls, columns and ceiling give a good idea of the original Romanesque appearance. The church is a popular venue for concerts. A gospel choir from Alabama was performing when we visited in 2002.
The Cathedral of Notre-Dame, in the heart of Paris on the Île de la Cité, is one of the world’s great monuments of Gothic art and architecture. Construction began in 1163. The western façade, towers and rose window were completed by 1250.
The Cathedral was heavily damaged during the French Revolution. The row of biblical kings between the portal and rose window, for example, were beheaded because they were mistakenly identified as kings of France. The current heads are nineteenth century reproductions. Many of the originals, discovered in the late 1970s during an excavation, are now on display at the nearby Cluny Museum of Medieval Art.
Interior of the nave, showing the classic Gothic elevation of arcade, triforium and clerestory.
My favorite view of Notre-Dame, from the southeast, showing the eastern apse and its famous flying buttresses, the first of their kind.
The mid-thirteenth-century Sainte-Chapelle, an example of Rayonnant Gothic architecture, was the royal chapel of Louis IX , also known as Saint Louis. Built to house the king’s newly acquired collection of Passion relics, the church resembles an enlarged reliquary. Today it’s surrounded by the gated and heavily secured Palace of Justice.
The upper chapel is known for its extraordinary expanses of original stained glass. Due to advances in Gothic building techniques, the stone framework of the wall is minimal. Unlike many of the large Gothic cathedrals, which were constructed over centuries in fits and starts, the Sainte-Chapelle was completed in a quick five years. The style of its stained glass, sculpture and architecture is therefore remarkably coherent.
A smiling angel in the upper chapel.
The lower chapel, with its brilliantly painted and gilded tracery, is a lovely spot for small concerts. During my Paris summer, we attended an unforgettable chamber concert of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
Steps leading to the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur atop the hill of Montmartre, the highest point in Paris.
Sacré-Coeur, begun in 1875, was built in the Byzantine-Romanesque style reminiscent of domed churches in the Dordogne area. Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the church was funded by public subscription as an offering of penance after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
In the crypt, a statue of Saint Denis, the patron saint of Paris. Bishop of Paris in the third century, he died a martyr’s death by beheading atop Montmartre hill. According to legend, he picked up his head and walked six miles, preaching all the way. The early Gothic church of Saint-Denis marks the spot where he was said to have died.
A view from the dome, well worth the walk, unless one suffers from claustrophobia. The path up, not surprisingly, is along a very narrow, winding stone staircase.
All the transparent life layers have flipped by in a whirring flash. I’m back to the present, and it’s April 13, 2014. But the past is incredibly close. It circles around me like a bird immediately overhead; I hear the beating of its wings and feel the air they displace. In the garden of the Cité Universitaire on the southern edge of Paris, I feel as though I’ve just learned the resolution of a suspenseful film. I don’t know the end of the story (thank goodness), but I’ve discovered the end of the middle, and it’s an immense relief.
Throughout my teens and twenties, whether I’d ever marry was an open question. I knew I wanted marriage, but I wanted it with the right person. I’ve never held to the notion that there’s one perfect match out there for each of us. There are no perfect matches. Probably, for most of us, we might come across several people over the course of a lifetime with whom we could forge a more or less happy union, depending upon circumstance and our commitment to perseverance. But it’s a limited number, while the number of bad choices is huge. And making that choice is a tricky business, as the divorce rate attests.
I bided my time for so long because over and over, I’d seen that Right One morph into a Never Mind. Appearances are deceiving, as are first impressions. In a recurring dream, heavy with doom, I found myself married to one of my many Mr. Wrongs. They were all nice guys, but after a promising start, they turned out not to be right for me. I didn’t want that dream to become a reality. As I stand here with my husband, my husband of nearly nineteen years, it hits me like a revelation: I found a good one, and I think it’s gonna work out!Whew!
He’s my Mr. Right: with H in front of the Maison Internationale at the Cité Universitaire.
Like many women, I’d worried that in postponing marriage, I might miss out on being a mother. I knew I wanted a child some day. Certainly one child. Possibly two, if I got started early enough (although that seemed unlikely). But not three or more. I know my limits. I had grown up a contented only child. I saw no reason to crowd up the house with kids. But I really wanted my shot at motherhood. Would I get it? The answer seems to be revealed anew: Yes, yes, yes! I’m here with my daughter, my fifteen year old daughter. I got my girl! The girl I’d always wanted. While I had prayed for a healthy child, boy or girl, I’d secretly always wanted a daughter, with the hope that she and I would be close, just as my mother and I are.
Me and my girl, my buddy, in the garden of the Cité. My old balcony and its open door are visible above.
How glad I am that I went back with my family to my former Paris residence. Given the opportunity, I will continue to return to such places supercharged with memory. The swirl of emotions they stir up is not for the faint of heart, nor is the undeniable reality of time’s passage. There’s no doubt about it–I’m quite a bit older. Perhaps older than I’d ever imagined being at nineteen. But in returning to this spot where I was so memorably youthful, I can still sense the essence of that youth, which seems to hang in the air like the smoke from fireworks on a hot July night. I’ve changed, but I haven’t changed. I think I’ve gained some wisdom over the years. My ninety-four-year-old grandmother once remarked to me that she still didn’t feel truly old. I’m starting to understand how she feels.
In going back, I came to see more clearly who I am and how I became that way. And it has made me emphatically grateful for the loving family who went there with me, for the first time.
Standing in the garden of the Cité Universitaire this past April, below the room that served as home during my college summer in Paris, I felt like I was in a time warp with tunnel vision. I could reflect on successive Paris life layers at once, one atop another. Today’s post concerns a time thirteen years after my travels in France as a grad student. It’s 2002. For the first time, I’m in France and I’m not a student. It feels strange. The responsibilities of adulthood have caught up with me. I’m a wife and mother, here in the city with my husband and my parents. We’ve left our nearly three year old daughter at home with H’s parents.
It had long been a goal of mine to accompany my parents to France. During my year in England, we had traveled together for three weeks, but we hadn’t yet done France. In the spirit of parental sacrifice, Mama and Daddy had repeatedly stayed home and paid, or helped pay my way. We had always said Sometime, we’ll all go. That sometime seemed to have arrived in 2002. We were all healthy and ambulatory. H, like me, was eager to return to France. Fourteen years had passed since his semester in Rennes. The overlap in the timing of our European student adventures had provided us with a point of commonality that may have been crucial in drawing us together initially. (See That French Connection, April 2014.) Ever the dutiful son-in-law, H didn’t complain about traveling with his wife’s parents, or sharing the tour-guide obligations.
Our daughter was old enough to understand that we weren’t leaving her for good. H’s parents were willing and able to care for her. Very briefly, we considered taking D with us. But I could see how the trip would unfold. She’d be continually preoccupied with something that seemed totally inconsequential to adult eyes. Under the fascinating spell of fallen leaves in the dirt, she’d be oblivious to the historic splendor all around her. My entreaties would go unheard: Look up, sweetie! Look at the beautiful towers. See those funny creatures way up high? Those are gargoyles. My mother would miss most of the sights she’d anticipated for so long. In an effort to make the trip proceed more smoothly for the rest of us, she’d devote her attention to placating her granddaughter. I’d feel guilty. We’d all be testy. Best to leave our toddler with Grandma and Grandpa at home, where she could enjoy, unimpeded, the pleasures of domestic leaves and dirt.
On our first day in France, May 2002: H and my parents at a crêperie near Notre-Dame.
My objectives for travel abroad have varied according to the stages of my life. As a student wearing the rose-colored glasses of youth and freedom, the realm of possibility was vast. Who knew what adventures, what fulfillments of fantasy lay ahead? Caprice, romance, astounding coincidence–while I didn’t take such winged creatures as my due, I also didn’t rule them out entirely. Who’s to say absolutely that I would not meet a sensitive, handsome young man as we admired the same obscure, underappreciated painting in the Louvre? Was it utterly impossible that he’d be involved in the thoughtful restoration of his family’s ancient and immense château? That my fresh American sensibility would invigorate him like a breath of fresh air? That we’d fall in love and live happily ever after among the rose-blanketed walls of honey-colored stone? That the surrounding village would be peopled by delightfully eccentric and charming characters, who would hold us particularly dear as Lord and Lady of the Manor? Such a scenario was clichéd, antiquated and extremely unlikely. But it wasn’t entirely impossible. After all, I was young. Anything was possible. And I’d experienced the unlikely before.
On this trip, it’s a different story. As a no longer young adult traveling with my husband and parents, my goals are considerably more modest and down-to-earth. I’m looking forward to seeing my parents appreciating my favorite French sights, and to comparing student experiences with my husband. I’m hoping for beautiful scenery, comfort, the avoidance of injury, illness and mishap. While my parents are hardly frail or weak, they are, obviously, even less young than I. A successful visit will be free of emergency room visits, crippling accidents, assaults and major transportation breakdowns. It will mean not losing Mama or Daddy temporarily or permanently on the Metro. Perhaps most importantly, it means an uneventful return that brings us back home safely to our little daughter.
Without incident, we check off the sights my mother the history buff had been waiting years to experience: Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Louvre, Versailles, the Arc de Triomphe. (Daddy is sunnily content to go wherever she, H or I suggest.) We avoid misadventure but find ourselves on its heels several times, as when we stumble upon the aftermath of a purse-snatching and the apprehension of the thief. My parents are hardy, adaptable, unfussy travelers. They don’t even grumble when, after wandering the Versailles gardens and Marie Antoinette’s Petit Hameau, we miss the last passenger trolley and have no option but to walk for what seems like many miles. We enjoy several pleasant days in Paris before we head to the Loire Valley. Mama wants to see some châteaux.
We take the TGV train to Tours, where we rent a car. Although in 1988, Daddy drove Mama and me swiftly and confidently along Britain’s winding roads, this time he’s happy to yield the wheel to H. Our home base in the Loire Valley will be the picturesque little town of Amboise. The royal Château d’Amboise, a multi-turreted castle worthy of Sleeping Beauty, is the centerpiece of the town. It’s a short, lovely walk to the Château du Clos Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci, as artist and inventor in residence and buddy to Francois I, spent his final years. The Châteaux of Chenonceau and Azay-le-Rideau are nearby.
The Château d’Amboise.On the grounds of the Château d’Amboise is the 15th-Century Chapel of Saint-Hubert, said to house the remains of Leonardo.The town of Amboise seen from the Château ramparts.The Amboise clock tower.The Château du Clos Lucé.Chenonceau.H and I at Chenonceau.
Also within an easy walk from the center of Amboise are several so-called troglodyte homes built into the cliffs of soft tufa, a kind of limestone. The stone, evidence of a prehistoric sea that once covered the area, was quarried for local building. The resulting caves offered unique housing opportunities. Much sought-after, they’re typically equipped with most modern conveniences and need no heat or air conditioning.
An Amboise cave home.
From Amboise, we drive west to Rennes. Although it’s familiar territory for my husband, I’ve never been here. As we walk through the old town and the University section, he recalls his student days. I’d heard the stories, now I can experience the setting first-hand. He points out the buildings where his classes met, the cafés, parks and shops he frequented. As he shows me the route he took to school, I can see him riding through town on his moped, blonde curls visible under the helmet. Thankfully, he was wearing that helmet when a truck hit him one morning. Were it not for that helmet, it’s doubtful we’d be standing here together.
In old town Rennes, a pizza delivery cyclist loads up.
Although H had been in sporadic contact with his French host family since he stayed with them in 1988, he hadn’t told them our travel plans. Our time would be short, and a visit could be awkward since my parents speak no French. But on the road to Mont Saint-Michel, H realizes that we’re tracing his old route to town. Their home is so close. Seems like we almost have to drive by. H has no trouble spotting the house. As though on cue, his French parents are walking out the front door. They recognize H immediately, after fourteen years and no prior notice of his arrival. Monsieur and Madame Treguier welcome us warmly. They are merrily insistent that we return for dinner that evening. We find ourselves saying yes. Who knows when we’ll be back? My parents urge us to go. They’re invited, as well, but they’ll stick with dinner at the hotel. That’s probably a good decision, since Daddy tends to find any long conversation tedious, even if it’s in his own language.
That night, after a beautiful day with my parents at Mont Saint-Michel, H and I are treated to what feels like a homecoming meal. The Treguiers’ younger daughter lives in town and is able to join us. Of course she’s a grown woman now, but H remembers her as a little girl. Madame Treguier brings forth dish after delectable dish, seemingly effortlessly from her tiny kitchen, beginning with a dramatically heaping platter of bright red langoustines. I really don’t know how she does it. For H and me, it takes all our collective brain power to speak sustained, passable French for several hours. The constantly flowing wine helps, until it hinders, and we have to resort to covering our glasses with our hands. The Treguiers are as generous with their wine as H had remembered. In fact, as soon as we arrived, Monsieur Treguier had proudly showed us his brand new wine storage area, his “cave,” built under the garage.
It’s a wonderful, celebratory evening. I get to peel back the layers of my husband’s life, just as I have my own. I see him as his host family remembers, as a very green, very American college boy. They recall fondly that when he first arrived, they secretly despaired. Would they ever be able to communicate with him? He had had only one year of college French, and his language skills were rudimentary. Fortunately, he showed remarkably swift improvement, and his charm was immune to the language barrier. Wow, I thought. With many more years of French study behind me, I’d lacked the courage to stay in a French household during my Paris summer.
Seeing H through the eyes of the Treguier family brings to light one of the traits I most admire about him: his quiet confidence. Whatever the challenge, if he considers it worthwhile, he’s up for it. Immerse himself in a totally French-speaking environment with minimal skills? He’ll manage it. Drive an enormous delivery truck through all the boroughs of New York City? Sure. Fix the car, any car? Easy. Repair the hole in the ceiling? Yes. Master windsurfing on his own? He’s done it. Teach his daughter to ski? Of course. Show her a better approach to that algebra problem? Certainly. Yet he’s never showy or arrogant. He has no ancestral château, but what a guy. Indeed, what a great guy. I can tell that the Treguiers agree.
That night in Rennes, the Treguiers’ deep affection for my husband is apparent. What’s more, they extend their high regard and good will graciously to me, and even to our daughter, back at home. They urge us to return in the near future, to bring her and spend more time with them. As we say our goodbyes, it’s like leaving a family reunion in some best of all possible worlds. It’s one of those times when the bonds of true friendship are revealed at their strong, resilient best, stretching across miles, years, languages and cultures.
Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, one of my favorite spots in France. (See European Vacation ’75: Part II: Mont Saint-Michel, April 2013.)
That day at the Fondation des Etats-Unis, looking up at the balcony of my former room, the life layers continued to flip by. I can see myself back in Paris as a grad student. I’m spending this year primarily in London, researching my dissertation in medieval art. It’s April of 1989, and my friend Laura had joined me in London. Together, we had made our way to the south coast and crossed the Channel.
It’s seven years since my summer in Paris. It surprises me, but I feel considerably more mature. Maybe it’s Laura’s companionship; perhaps her air of confident capability is wearing off on me. The stamp on my forehead that once read CLUELESS AMERICAN COLLEGE GIRL!! has evidently worn away. The throngs of loitering young men check us out but generally don’t pursue us. Shopkeepers treat us with respect. Some even call us Madame. Although this last point strikes me as overkill, otherwise I thank my lucky stars for the perks of aging. Paris is a familiar, gracious presence, and it’s good to be back.
Laura and I outside our very bare-bones hotel, April 1989.
We find a cheap hotel just off the Fontaine Saint-Michel, in the midst of what I think of as the old neighborhood, the Latin Quarter. The hotel is pretty awful, but it’s certainly affordable, the location is great, and its oddities are the source of many laughs. It’s not worth our time and trouble to trudge the streets in search of a new place, so we stay put for five days or so.
With Laura, against a backdrop of Notre-Dame.
When Laura flies back to the states, I’m joined by a friend from England. I have an Apocalypse manuscript to examine in the city library of Toulouse, so we head south. It bothers me that I have no recollection of how we got there. We must have flown. There seem to have been no high-speed trains back then. I have a vague, unpleasant recollection of trying to speak French on a pay phone with the airline. One way or another, we got to Toulouse, an ancient university town of rose-brick medieval buildings and tropical charm.
The Romanesque Basilica of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse.
It’s a bank holiday weekend, so the Bibliothèque Municipale in Toulouse is closed. Throughout this year abroad, bank holidays keep popping up. Many I anticipate and plan for, but others come at me, unexpected. I take them in stride; they offer a good excuse to postpone work and relax. On this occasion, we opt for additional sightseeing in the South of France. We take in the nearby historic cities of Albi and Carcasonne, then head to Provence, where we spend several gloriously unhurried days in Nimes, Avignon and Arles. The gray chill of April is yielding to the sunny splendor of May, and the countryside has an air of lush enchantment.
In Albi, the fortress-like early Gothic Cathedral of Saint-Cécile towers above the muddy River Tarn.Carcasonne.
Atop the hill is the fortified medieval Cité of Carcasonne. Its striking resemblance to a fairy tale village is likely due in part to its comprehensive nineteenth-century restoration by Viollet-le-Duc. The newer part of town surrounds the walled center section.
The old town of Carcasonne, seen from a perch along the wall.Another view of Carcasonne and its walls.
On our last night in Carcasonne, we seem to be floating in a slightly surreal multicultural soup. At a rustic traditional restaurant in the old town, we eat cassoulet, the area’s famous casserole of duck, goose, pork and white beans. During dessert, an Irish band plays Leonard Cohen songs, the lyrics translated into French.
The cloister of the Romanesque Cathedrale of Saint-Trophime in Arles.
Another cloister, at the Romanesque Abbey Church of Saint-Pierre at Moissac.
Once we return to Toulouse, my friend goes home to England, and I’m on my own. The library opens, and I spend a couple of days with my manuscript. One afternoon, I go to the nearby town of Moissac to see the medieval Abbey of Saint-Pierre. The church is adorned with a wealth of Romanesque sculpture, which I’ve studied since my very first art history course. The carving is dramatic, highly stylized and exuberant. What a thrill it is to be in its visionary presence.
On the trumeau of the south porch of Moissac Church, the prophet Jeremiah appears to be frozen in a contorted, contemplative dance.
I return to Paris by train, stopping for one night in the picturesque town of Souillac on the Dordogne River. The scenery between Toulouse and Souillac is amazing. I’m more and more smitten with each village we pass. Look: there’s the medieval bridge of Cahors, as neat and tiny as a child’s toy. In the distance I spot the perfect hilltop village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. My dog Popi, six years gone now, has his own French town, I think. It’s appropriate; he had such class and style. I’m envisioning future trips to the lovely Dordogne Valley.
I can’t remember why I stopped in Souillac, but I’m glad I did. I find the nicely situated and aptly named Hotel Belle Vue. The day is warm and bright, and I wander the old, narrow streets with no particular goal or destination in mind, one of the great luxuries of leisurely travel. Before long, the buildings give way to flower-filled meadows. I stop to watch some ducks paddling in the river near an old mill. After a while, I follow a grassy pathway winding uphill. At the top of the hill, the path emerges from trees and foliage to reveal the village below, clustered around the domes of the Abbey Church of Sainte-Marie. The scene is quaint, timeless and peaceful. It could be an image from one of the illuminated manuscripts I’ve been studying. I couldn’t have dreamed up a more poetically satisfying finale for my solitary exploration. All these years later, I carry it with me, like a treasure.
My hilltop view of Souillac, May 6, 1989.The eleventh-century Abbey Church of Sainte-Marie in Souillac, built in the Byzantine Romanesque style.
Returning after many years to a pivotal, memory-charged place verges on the overwhelming. That day at the Cité Universitaire, I could see the young college student version of myself overlaid with that of the middle-aged wife and mother I’ve become. Briefly, both versions coexisted, and it was unnerving.
I saw the stages of my life like a design done on multiple sheets of transparent plastic. An early layer shows me at nineteen, near the beginning of my stay in France. I’m at the desk in my room, writing a letter home. I’m aware of how fortunate I am to be in Paris. I had known it wouldn’t be the place of idyllic enchantment that the movies show. Still, I hadn’t expected to be quite so disenchanted. I’m surprised at what feels like borderline disappointment. My friend Jackie had participated in the same program the summer before, lived in the same building. She’d described the trip as a “blast.” I’m not having a blast, and it bothers me. I should have gone the year before, with Jackie. I feel petty and petulant. I almost wish I were back home.
I’m sheepish in my homesickness. I hate to admit it, but I miss my parents. I miss my dog. I miss my best friends. I guess I miss my boyfriend, although this recollection is less clear. I’m certainly disappointed that the local youths who trail us everywhere (and there are many, because we are obviously American, and they’ve apparently heard that American girls are supremely willing) are not exactly the cream of the crop. We’ve learned to pretend not to see them, to say nothing. If we look blankly through them, if we show no reaction, they usually go away. Some are more persistent than others. Some become belligerent. While we rarely feel truly afraid, it’s wearing to have to be constantly on guard. I know how the chickens in the henhouse must feel when a fox is on the prowl.
July 1982: Joanne, Nancy and I at the Cité RER stop, on our way to the Sorbonne.1982: Too much time on the Metro could be a drag.But after a while, things start to look up. On the main staircase of the Fondation, August, 1982.
Another layer, toward the end of the trip. I’ve come to terms with Paris. So I didn’t have a blast every day. But there were far more fun times than bad. We’ve learned to feel at ease in the city. We understand the Metro. We’ve checked off the major tourist sites. We’ve discovered favorite spots we’d never before heard mentioned. I’ve worked my way through the Louvre, room by room. It was free on Wednesday afternoons, and I took full advantage. Often, up in the remote nineteenth-century galleries of French painting, it was just me and the guard soaking up the atmosphere of quietly magnificent landscapes by Rousseau, Millet and Corot.
We’ve made new friends among those in our group, become closer to those we already knew. We’ve had many laughs and some adventures. We’ve ridden in a little French car through Paris traffic. We’ve bicycled through a forest near Compiègne. We got locked in the historic Père Lachaise cemetery but managed to find our way out. Fending off local young undesirables has become second nature. And we did meet some perfectly nice local boys, had a couple of chances to sit at cafés speaking French with them, just as our textbooks had suggested we might. We discovered that four-franc wine was quite drinkable. We learned that the best place for our big group to enjoy an affordable, easy-going meal was an Algerian restaurant in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
We were not wholeheartedly welcomed by every citoyen. But each time we experienced a stranger’s animosity, others followed with gestures of kindness. On Bastille Day, for example, waiting for the Metro at the Châtelet station, a drunken man took unexplained offense at my hair color. As I’d already noted, blond hair stood out in Paris, but it hadn’t yet provoked this sort of ire. Les cheveux blonds! Les cheveux blonds!, the man sputtered, pointing at my hair and approaching more threateningly with each exclamation. The French crowd muttered its disapproval, and a powerfully built, well-dressed man placed himself as a reassuring barrier between the man and me. Another night, when we found ourselves in an unfamiliar area after the last Metro had departed, a couple walked with us to the bus stop and waited until we were safely aboard.
August 1982: on my balcony at the Cité, shortly before we left Paris.
In the photo above, I’m holding my only major purchase, a bust of a porcelain-headed lady decked in fur and feathers. She struck me as perfectly Parisian. Her current home is atop my piano.
By the time we were to leave for our two-week tour of the countryside and other notable French cities, I was almost sad to say goodbye to Paris. My early feelings of disappointment had vanished. Sure, the area around the Cité was a little messy. But all in all, the city was more beautiful than I had remembered it seven years before. And as for the French people, well, they’re people. My friends and I had often been amused by the cultural differences we observed. Why would the French do this, or that? Why not the American way? Isn’t that funny? But fortunately, we had come to realize that these differences are, in truth, unimportant.
The variety of surface details from culture to culture gives life interest and humor. But at a deeper level, we’re more alike than different. Warmth and good will need no common spoken language. They transcend all barriers. Our summer in Paris had helped us learn perhaps the most important lesson of travel: the ties that bind us as humans are stronger than the forces that pull us apart. Of this truth, travel offers living proof.
A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.
