Marchand de Couleurs

Earlier this month I went to Paris for a week, staying at my childhood and best friend Véronique’s apartment in the up and coming ultra cool 9th arrondissement, just a few minutes south of Montmartre and its old neighborhoods.

I know. How lucky!

Well, believe it or not, I look forward to these trips overseas the same way a Once-In-a-Lifetime visitor does, bursting with excitement and anticipation even though I used to live there.

When I am in Paris, I walk for hours, day and night, with or without a friend, revisiting neighborhoods where I used to live and discovering with curiosity how they have evolved and changed. I take it all in, look at everything, try, taste, listen to  as much as I can.

I walk into courtyards, ateliers, old apartment buildings, churches and anything that has an open door. I talk to people on the street, at the markets, in shops, galleries and cafes.

This is something I have always done ever since I was about 18 years old, out of school and living in Paris. It feels completely natural to me, I have never felt lost, unsafe or out of place, even in the various ethnic neighborhoods of the city.

Increasingly during my last few visits, I noticed that my attitude, my questions and my demeanor provoked a reaction I had never experienced before , and I should say to my dismay, it  suddenly dawned on me that I had turned into a “foreigner”. Man! Was I mortified!

My expressions where dated, my innate knowledge of how things worked and people interacted had been frozen at a time long gone, some 30 years ago and as a result I was OUT.

Little everyday things… For example, buying metro tickets did not invlove a teller anymore, I had to read the instructions on the darn machine! Or, when in a grocery store, I would spend hours studying the “new products”.

Even the language subtleties had evolved and escaped me. (What Is Verlan???)  It was as if I had stepped out of a time travel machine into a future version of my old city.

Of course, I was the only one noticing this… Until my friends started to tease me about my syntax and intonations. Oh My Shame!

Now I would argue that technically, my French is correct. But, as any Parisian would point out, it IS slightly off and dated. In other words, I can’t pass as a native speaker anymore…

I confess I am rather piqued by this.

Speaking with an affectation or pretending to be a local… Please! I can’t stand those people.

“Well, face it!” I told myself. ” You can’t fix it. So accept that you are an outsider and fine! Be ready to discover, learn, observe  and listen.”

And this feels just right! Now I am truly a wide eyed out-of-towner and enjoying it! (Okay, as long as I am not  too often confronted or reminded of it…I have my pride still)

In the next few posts, I plan to report on my last month’s trip and where my absolutely, genuinely and perfectly up-to-the latest Parisian Girl and Best Friend Véronique took to me to discover.

It has been so warm outside that I had to fish out my shorts and summer skirts from the storage bins in my barn. I normally do this after Mother’s Day when I finally pack away the winter boots, parkas and mittens.

So warm that I have been drying my bed sheets outside in the sun. So warm that yesterday I played catch just before sunset on wet and muddy grounds with my son. So warm that I have been driving with all the windows down and have been tempted to set up the deck furniture to eat outside.

But wait, I normally do this when it’s close to summer! Something doesn’t feel right.

Yes something doesn’t feel right when all this is happening and there are no colors in the landscape.

The trees are still bare, shrubs look burned, no tender greens there, no dafodills, forsythias, blue jays or cardinals yet and the grass is like straw.

It has been so warm that I wish for true signs of spring now.

And colors…

I found this at DesignSquish a blog that I look at frequently and love.

I drooled over these in Paris recently…

And I knew when I took this picture of the field behind our house last May, that it would remind me of spring one day…

MESSAGE TO MY PEOPLE

I saw this little figurine waving at me in an empty storefront window in Paris earlier this month..

I have been back for a week already but have had no time yet to sort out my pictures and stories from that trip. So this is just a preview and I hope a teaser too.

More on my trip to Paris soon