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Why do you spend so much time in Paris?
I was driving my eldest grand-daughter home from her drawing class In Baltimore the other day and she asked in that adolescent way:
“When are you leaving again?”
I said “Tomorrow.”
“Oh,” she responded with a mixture of exasperation and tolerance. (This is better than a few years ago when she and her younger sister would cling to me, trying to prevent me from leaving their house, after I’d come to say goodbye as I was leaving for Paris.)
Now she regards me as a somewhat dotty, slightly deranged but exotic enough grand-father to tell stories about at Bat and Bar Mitzvahs and I get funny but curious looks at the soccer games, grand-parents days, etc., that I do make.
But a variant on her question is why I like Paris so much and seem to prefer it to US cities. Over the years, through interrogation and speculation, I’ve figured out that the reasons why questioners suppose I like France so much is because:
1. Of my French food obsession.
2. There’s something weird about Colette’s and my marriage.
3. I’m fleeing (like Rick Blaine) some un-named criminal act.
4. I speak the language fluently.
5. I really know my art, music, culture, etc.
6. I love the French.
7. I hate Bush.
8. Because I’d rather watch effete European sports (read soccer, cycling and tennis) than manly American ones (football and baseball).
9. I’m romantic and Paris is the city of lovers; or I’ve got SAD and Paris is the city of light.
10. I’m just plain nuts; after all hundreds of thousands of folks want to immigrate to the US and how many Americans are reciprocating the favor?
However, none of this is true except for the certainty that Bush screwed up every single Department (Ministry here) in his cabinet: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. Oh, maybe not Agriculture.
No the truth is much more banal.
Except for New York, where I lived 1/3rd my life (the other thirds were in Boston and Baltimore), there’s no place I feel more at home in than Paris. Oh sure, I really don’t speak the language, I really don’t get the in-references and slang and I totally don’t understand French humor, especially the farting/defecating sounds on AM radio.
But the moment I step off the plane, there’s a tectonic shift; I no longer am immersed in American culture (read airplane films), I no longer hear cheery pilots and I no longer have obese seatmates, flowing over the arm-rest onto my body.
It’s easy to pick up the five food groups here: Cabernet, Comté, bread, butter and eggs, and I’m settled.
Where’s lunch? I can find it.
Where’s art? Ditto.
Where’s home? Ahhhh.
These thoughts were prompted by an OK, not spectacular entrecote, at:
Le Bistrot de l’Entrecote
11, Pl Marechal Juin, 17th (Metro: Pereire)
T: 01.46.22.01.22
Open 7/7
Menu = 25, a la carte 30-35 €
Blog: John Talbott’s Paris
