A Moveable Feast

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

Yes I did it. I quoted Ernest Hemingway from one of his great oeuvres ‘A moveable feast’. Can you blame me? Well you shouldn’t. Ernie and I have oodles in common. Though my best friend isn’t Gertrude Stein, and I’m not pal-ing around with the sparkling writers of yesteryear, he and I have an eerily similar back-story.

Finally having read this tale of the brilliant, unknown ex-pat who was hungry for life-experience, beauty and above all a crisp white wine and a flakey croissant, I feel that I too may take my place as a brilliant, unknown ex-pat who is hungry for this seasons Louis Vuitton.…I’m drinking crisp white wine right now…and a seasoning of all Paris has to offer.

I suppose that I am technically not an ex-pat, but I think that is just a question of time. And while I am not subsisting only upon my music making, I am here to diversify my perspective and soak up the richness of culture that has been touched by thousands of artists, musicians, and poets unknown or famous. The thought that they rambled up and down the same boulevards that I ramble down reflecting upon their art as they watched the summer sun glint of the Seine is magical. Undoubtedly they were thinking of Cezanne and not of Vogue, The September issue 2010.

I used to want to be French. This was a wish that started blossoming in my heart after living in Paris in 2006. Really, the only reason to be French, other than not having to undergo all the hoop-jumping for Social Security, or being a natural size two, is to be fluent in their beautiful language. But allo…anyone can learn to speak a language, but to be a natural speaker of the sumptuous English language is a true gift.

In short, or rather, shorter than Hemingway’s 126 pages, the reason that American’s decide to pick-up-sticks and pack off to ‘gay Paree’ is to be an American in Paris. Comme ça you can get away with cultural murder. I can pick and choose, the things I love-not about the States are left behind, and the things I love, with an exception of all my chères amis, I use liberally all the time (American honesty anyone?!). The question “why have I moved to France” can really be summed up in two words; l’amour et la musique.

Or:

1. love
2. music
3. wine (red, white and rosé)
4. food
5. fashion

That’s five, but you get the drift.

Nanny Palooza

As I watched Rosalie sprawled face down on the shag rug pounding her feet on the floor screaming, “PAAAAPAAAA! PAPAAAAA!!!!!” whilst trying to put her pacifier (she’s three), her thumb and her favorite stuffed animal into her mouth I calmly turned the pages of the September issue of Elle and chanted under my breath “I have a college education, I have a college education…”

I am a musician. But right now you can call me “Mary (insert derogative and inappropriate word here) Poppins”. Nearly 5 years of college education, two diplomas (Cello and Vocal performance…ring-a-ding-ding) and an ungodly amount of student loans to pay back, my current profession is Nanny-Extraordinaire.

Let me explain. When I moved to Paris in pursuit of love and music I knew that I was going to have to get a job to support my hopefully budding career and my love of shoes...having just left my lovely sandwich-making job during my three month stint of living at home with my parents (anyone wondering as to my transcontinental move?) it was a given that I would find a part-time job once in Paris.

As afore-mentioned, I am a musician. My first contract in Paris was singing in the choir for the New European Philharmonic Orchestra for their tour of the Mozart Requiem. Pretty nifty. I was supposed to receive around 500EUR for five concerts. Of course when it came time to pay-up (after over 40 hours of rehearsal/concerts/travel) the group conveniently went bankrupt and I never saw one centime.

Long-story short, while I continued to look for other ways to get conned, I was hired to teach English to two very spoiled French girls. When I got hired along with several other young starving artists I told myself that I can do anything for a year, and ‘hey, at least it’s better than making sandwiches…’

But let’s just call this what it is. I am yet another parent substitute for two children whose parents work more than full-time and want to have a life of their own. Not only am I responsible for teaching them English through song, dance and puppetry, but I also have the happy task of teaching them manners, personal cleanliness and respect.

Amongst my many grievances (many of them poop-related) is the sentiment that I am ‘just-the-help’. No better than the Tunisian woman who comes and cleans for them. I have enormous responsibilities for these children, and yet when I encounter a parent of one of their little friends I must keep my distance, and at the park there is a complete division of the nannies. There is a bench for all the ethnic nannies, the mommies-wearing-Prada-and-reading-vogue, the young students, and of course the-I’m-a-someday-soon-gonna-make-it-musician-artist-actress-just-doing-this-to-make-my-rent-nannies.

Regardless of the division of the park benches…starving artists make the best babysitters. We are all the a-typical extroverted, can sing, can dance, can make-believe better than the nowadays over-technologized kids, and am able to cross the street and look both ways (most of the time ahem.). So right now, even if my hands are covered in snot and other little-girl excrements I can always work toward the day that my name will be up in lights.

Look Both Ways

My worst nightmare came true. No Jean-David did not leave me on the street awaiting December 15 for my flight home to a glorious American Christmas, nor was I summoned by Nicolas Sarkozy for a questioning of my purpose in France.

I was hit by a motorcycle.

I was hit by a motorcycle on my way to go start processing my health insurance papers. How’s that for irony?

For no reason, I wasn’t pressed for time-but of course when you are a faux-française you feel the need to rush anyway, just to fit in I suppose. Walking down Avenue de Versailles I saw the 22 stop at the red light. I decided to sprint so I didn’t have to wait another 10 minutes for the next bus. However, as I was gracefully nipping across rue Mirabeau a motorcycle turned the corner and came at me like a bat out of hell.

Everyone knows that feeling of watching yourself from the outside of your self. Yourself is about to creamed by a moving vehicle and your other self is the one that has her hands clapped over her eyes yelling, “Oh F**K!!! LOOK OUT!” Thankfully, my (outside) self orchestrated some sort of ballet-esque pirouette as the motorcycle swerved and flipped over, rudely expelling the driver from the saddle.

Amongst the “Nom de dieu! Fils de pute! Mon moto, putain!!!” The motorcycles tire was spinning madly on my right calf as I tumbled mid-air over the churning bike and flopped right onto my ample-backside. I sat there sprawled in the middle of the street with my skirt flipped over my thighs like a life-size doll, and started hysterically sobbing like an infant that falls down hard and scares themselves.

Through my tears and stumbling around grasping at my hard-won papers ready for the Social Security office, a nice lady came to my aid to help me stand up, examine my cuts and bruises, offer me a glass of water and try to comprehend whatever I was saying…which I believe was a mixture of blubbering, English and very-bastard-French. I rejected all offers of help and after making sure I didn’t have a concussion or any serious contusions I shakily walked across the street (yes I looked both ways!) to wait for the next bus, call Jean-David in tears, and go to my appointment at the Social Security bureau.

Walking back home from Social Security the colors looked brighter, the cars seemed faster and I seemed more alive. Or rather I seemed sore and bruised but thankfully had all of my limbs in working order. Each painful stride was exquisite. I was here, walking, breathing and taking in all of Paris’ wonderment.

That is Sooo French!

“Oh, bah, zis iz a typically French thing.” Prowling up and down the platform in the Pigalle metro station for 40 minutes trying to figure out the best way to hurtle myself into the next train is just not comparable to a flakey croissant or a café au lait.

Let me explain something. France is wonderful; the language beautiful, the food divine…the Hemingway-ian Paris- however, the one foul thing that I will never comprehend is the administration. Anything in regard to mass organization or paperwork is met with a Gallic shoulder shrug and a simultaneous puff of air through the lips…meaning… “Bah, zat iz ‘ow it iz… hein…”

Before I moved to Paris the first time I was besieged with warnings about the violence of French strikes. I lived nine months in the City of Lights without encountering any sort of inconvenience. Well-those nine months of bliss have caught up with me.

After finishing my nanny-ing for the day I was off to a soirée, I dawdled over choosing a bottle of wine because after all I had over an hour to get to the party. As I descended into the metro I missed a train. It was a literal sardine can of passengers, people throwing themselves on to the train forgetting the essential politesse that so defines the French.

It was no biggie…I had time, the next train was only in…WHAT?! 13 MINUTES? For the next thirteen minutes I walked up and down the platform knowing which passengers were going to get on, the pissed looking guy standing on the very edge of the platform ready to dive into the next passing train, the teeny-Asian girl, and big-boobs McGee with her shopping bags. I sidled up to the pissed-off looking guy, and when finally a train came up, I pushed with all my might, but in vain. Thirty seconds later I found myself on the platform muttering explosive profanities under my breath watching as Mr. Pissed-Off guy waved from the train window.

13 minutes turned into 18 minutes, into 45 minutes. As the fourth train approached the quai (after having weighed all other possibilities, bus, other metro route, walking, switching directions on the train…) I looked like an angry cat. There was no one in my vicinity due to the thunderous look on my face. And so, in my most robust American manner, the instant the train opened its doors, I shoved, pushed, pulled, growled and catapulted myself on the train.

SUCCESS! I was on that train! I felt very smug even though I was sandwiched between two gigantic men in a very intimate matter and had to endure the sweet-racist-ravings of an angry man slapping the door every 14 seconds.

8 metro stops, approximately 6 different racial slurs on repeat, inappropriate groping and a 10-minute walk through Belleville I had arrived without being crushed to death. Stepping inside the sanctuary of the party, I was welcomed with a glass of French wine, directed toward a cheese-plate, and enveloped in clouds of blue cigarette smoke and the throaty sound of the French language. Now, that is my type of French experience.

A Weekend in the Country

Waking up at 5:30am is not my ideal way to start a vacation. Especially when it includes scurrying to the train station in a Paris drizzle already in our vacation clothing. As we pulled away from Fall-like weather in Paris and chugged onward to the south of France I saw the light. Literally. The sunlight. And the promise of three blissful days in the hot summer sun in the South of France.

So as you can gather, Jean-David and I finally took a weekend and went to Marseille and Cassis. There we indulged in two of my favorite things:

We-swam in the salty sea of the South and ate fresh French fish.

One of the typical dishes in the South of France is Bouillabaisse so we went on a search for the tastiest in town. However when we realised that this fabulous dish went for 58€ per person, we decided on other delicacies of the South like mussels and fresh Tuna. Our three days were on repeat, walk around, sit and people-watch, imitate the Marseille accent-

Putaing je vais chercher du paing. Funny...eat fresh French Fish go swim in the salty sea and eat again.

Being surrounded by the bright colors of the still present sun-dresses, beach towels, and incredibly tanned, wrinkly topless grannies, I felt unprepared to face employment and Fall fashion in the impossibly chic Paris. At least I have a tan.

August in Paris

Ah, August in Paris. The smell of hot dog merde cooking in the sun, fanny-pack porting tourists clogging the public transport, and every good boulangerie, restaurant and café closed during ‘les vacances’.

Today is the 1^st of September. Yesterday was the 31^st of August. The difference between today and yesterday is alarming. Fall coats, boots, black, grey and camel colored garb surrounded me in a flurry of Parisians returning from their month of vacations. I noticed the 70% increase of people roaming in the deadest, oldest most bourgeois neighborhood, the ease of taking the bus (usually a sardine can of tourists gawking at the Eiffel Tower), and upon arriving in an area as dead as the 16^th arrondisment (Neuilly, where Jean-David works) we had to wait for a table.

I’ve been waiting with bated breath for September for a while now (since April). The start of my job, my entrance auditions for the Conservatory, moving into our apartment…

My, my, my how things change. In the typical French fashion my entire application process for the conservatoire has been bungled from start to finish. Pardon-moi to repeat moi, but as you may have read:

• I jumped through several hoops to have my residency card. Check!
• I pre-applied for an application for the Conservatoire. Check!
• I never got the application in the mail until the day it was due, then had to pull a thesis proposition out of you-know-where and submit it the following day…
• I received a letter saying my application was selected for an audition contingent on my passing a French comprehension exam, and sending the results before the 2^nd of September.
• The only TCF (test) was the 21^st of August with a three-week wait time before getting the results.
• I sent frantic emails starting the beginning of July.
• I never received emails or phone calls back.

Hilariously enough, we (the test takers) were guaranteed that we would under no circumstances receive our test results before September 15^th. I got them back on Monday (the 30^th). I passed. Whoopee.

I am finally receiving responses back from my many emails and phone calls…all of which say-“we are resending your check and application back, sorry about the test problem”. I am not going to correct this mistake, because I decided it is in my best interest to put off graduate school until next fall, when I can decide on a thesis, try out some different teachers, and most importantly rework my technique.

So this year, I will not be a student but rather-Baby sitter extraordinaire and hopefully waitress extraordinaire. I would explain about my job, but it is so boring and I gather that most of you have started reading something else by this point.

In other news, Jean-David and I are still waiting on our apartment (they are repairing the shower which means of course that they cannot answer our phone calls) so for the time being we are still chez his parents house.

If we are still not in our own place by October. I will use my entire first pay check on clothing. All in a black, grey and camel color palette.