Sometimes I Do Things.

My Parisian cooking is not French cuisine. French cuisine is what is found at French cafés, bistros, and restaurants. French cuisine is prepared in a kitchen by expert chefs, geniuses at their field. Parisian cooking is what is found in my apartment. Parisian cooking is prepared in a closet equipped with a stovetop by hungry college students, amateurs at everything, including cooking. 

After a long day of studying the length of time a 19 year old girl can stay in her bed all day, I worked up quite an appetite. (My research shows one can stay bedridden until 17h00.) So, I walked the long four steps to my kitchen to attempt to cook up some nourishment. I decided on making an organic vegetable stir-fry. My apartment seemed to disagree. 

With my ingredients ready on the cutting board, I turned on the heat and placed my pan on the stove-top. Before I even had the chance to pour a little olive oil, out goes the power. I drudge over to the fuse box and hit a little switch turning the power back on. I must’ve overloaded its capacity, so I turn off the light in the other room to compensate. Back in my 1 1/2 square meter kitchen, I turn the stove back on and CLACK. Power’s out. This time I also unplug my phone charger before turning on the stove again. CLACK. Still too much. Unplug my computer. CLACK. Turn off the heaters. CLACK. Turn off the kitchen light. CLACK. I wonder, as I walk to and from the fuse box, if my neighbors can hear all the cursing or if the walls are thick enough to muffle each “fuck,” “shit,” and “goddamn-it!” 

Finally, it’s just me in the cold and the dark. Me and the stove.  It must be safe now. I switch the stove to the lowest heat and…CLACK. 

I ended up just eating salad. 

As the second half of my Fall semester rushes past with classes, parties, arrival of friends, Halloween, museums, shopping, reading, writing, no arithmetic (thank Jesus), stress, happiness, sushi, more sushi, movie dates, science projects, sleeping, Berlin, sleeping, drinking, sleeping more, Thanksgiving, the departure of a friend, and the stress of impending projects and exams, I was thinking that I hadn’t had time to write about all that’s been going on in my life lately because there’s just been too much to digest.

And then I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a practicing cello coming from high up in my apartment building. I stopped. 

Leaning against the gate that stood ajar to my studio, I realized that it wasn’t all the things that kept me busy that needed to be written about, but what made me stop being busy and made time endless. I had to stop and hear the music. 

The important things to relate aren’t the ones I can list, like I list the growing number of assignments on my calendar. What I want to remember about this half of my semester is the stuff I made time for; when I pretended I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted. 

It’s a beautiful day. My iPod is charged. Time for some extreme Parisian strolling. Let’s do this. 

“A pique-nique sans chips is not a pique-nique at all!” -Yann, our farm leader. Those were simpler times. 

Today I wrote this blog entry one the bus back to school. I was taking the bus back from buying some piano books in the 8th arrondissement for my lessons. I had never been in the area and my jaw dropped at almost every shop window—Music shops. Each more impressive than the next. I had to peel my face from a particularly intriguing window: men making violins amidst instruments that hung like Christmas light…Anyway, here’s what I wrote on the ride: 

I keep forgetting where I live. I know my address. I know how to walk home from almost any direction. I’m fully able to give instructions for the delivery of food. But even with all this extensive geographical knowledge, I keep forgetting that I live in Paris. It’s like amnesia of amazement. I keep forgetting to be amazed. 

But sometimes I remember. 

Sometimes I remember to look up when I walk. I see delicately intricate moldings which dance across balconies underneath a (hopefully) bright blue sky. 

Sometimes I remember to leave my apartment. I run away from my persuasively lazy mattress and spend the day at a museum, park, cemetery, fair, or (wallet-allowing) at shops in the Marais. 

Sometimes I remember to eat well. I can sit in a cafe and sit for as long as I want. With a book. Or journal. With coffee. Or wine…

All I have to do is remember and I’m in one of the most amazing cities in the world. A city that people wish their whole lives to visit maybe one day. I stroll past the Eiffel Tower. I go to the Marche Aux Fleurs. I walk on top of centuries of history. (But seriously, I do. My class went on a walking tour of Roman Paris. We’re all standing on the toilets of old Roman men.) There’s just so many opportunities that I need to remember  to take hold of. As Oscar Wilde said, “The world was my oyster, but I used the wrong fork.”

So, now I’ll pick up the right one. 

Today I didn’t eat a salad.

             I had some lettuce. Then, some time later, I ate a whole tomato. 

Sometimes I go to ballet class. Last time, however, I couldn’t really dance. See, two weeks ago I fell off a roof. Don’t laugh. It hurt. But, okay it was kinda funny—especially since I had just finished calling out “Je suis un expert!” right before I fell. 

Anyways, this class I had to sit out when the routines were unfavorable to my slightly still sore leg. What I did get to do was observe.

The scene is set: a spacious old studio with forgotten designs peeling from the rafters above. And then, at the stroke of 19h00, it’s filled with ballet students. And this Tuesday it was really filled. Dancers in their teens to men and women in their 50’s search for a place at the barre. First-timers stretch in their socks-as-ballet-shoes at the same time that a pointe shoe is dipped into the box of rosin by the window. The class was so popular this night that it overflowed into the hallway with some girls using the stairway banister as a ballet barre. It was one of those classes where you definitely had to look behind you before kicking your leg backwards in a grand battement.  

Yet, I’m never surprised by the popularity of this particular ballet class because of this particular ballet teacher. Monsieur Lazzarelli is short, well-dressed Italian whose good humor challenges every pre-conceived notion of ballet as a strict art taught to skinny little girls by stuffy teachers. Aside from the plethora of jokes he makes—none I can repeat because they’re in French and hard to catch, although I laugh anyway—M. Lazzarelli speaks to each student in his or her native tongue. Sometimes a routine is counted out in Japanese. A student is told to come to the front of the group in Italian. A woman is told to jump in German. And “Mistake!” is shouted in my direction when I lose focus and mess up my footing. (If I’m really on point that day I’ll get a “Good girl!” thrown my way.)  

It’s the combination of the two—a variety of levels and ages of students and the purely joyous teacher—that makes me unbelievably proud to be a part of the experience. And it’s worth bragging about.

Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t observe the scene without my mind running back to compare it with my last dance class in Florida. The teachers are equally as inspired, but the room is sparse. Few students, not much space, and alas no piano. At Centre de Danse du Marais, a live pianist plays perfectly in time to our dances, making musical jokes as he goes. (When a student demonstrating a step messes up, he’ll strike a chord so dissonant M. Lazzarelli doesn’t need to shout “Mistake!” And if an Japanese girl is doing a routine for the class, the key changes directly to a pentatonic scale giving a stereotypically Asian vibe.) An ipod hooked up to speakers can’t compete. But why is it so different? Is it because I’m living in big city Paris now and not in little retirement towns in South Florida? Or do the French just love ballet more? Is America not paying enough attention to the arts? That, at least, I feel I can respond to with a resounding “Yes.” I only wish that soon Americans will wake up and fill their dance classes (and art and music classes) to overflowing states just like here in Paris. 

(Source: paris-danse.com)