Never tell me that coffee is not the source of eternal youth. I have been feeling absolutely dire for two weeks and, in desperate fatigue, drank a double espresso yesterday afternoon; within an hour’s time, the clouds parted and the world was new and fresh as a dewy rosebud. I woke up regrettably early this morning and, acting on aforesaid principle, made with sluggish but steadfast dispatch for the coffee shop. A strange thing happened when I emerged from the house; I became conscious of it some moments after. It is a strange thing that has been happening consistently since I returned to America.
I keep thinking of Paris. No, that isn’t right. I keep thinking as if I were in Paris.
It would be easier, you would all know what I meant, if I said things about this town remind me of Paris. But that is not what I mean. Nothing about this town really reminds me of Paris. The streets are much too wide, the flowers too diverse, the women too blocky, the men too sheepish, the dogs too animal. There are no wrought iron balconies, and no kiosks selling cigarettes and smut magazines with an air of dismissive elegance. There are people awake and moving at eight in the morning who are neither street-sweepers nor bakers—what needs more?
Quand-mème, as I walk my two knee-high escorts around town, any time of day, I find the furniture of my mind unexpectedly rearranged. You know what I mean when I borrow the phrase “unbearable lightness of being”? There is some spiritual medium that suddenly envelops me as I walk up Martin and then East Street, between King George Street and Maryland Avenue, that I remember from the air in Paris. I remember it walking downhill from the Pantheon on the rue Lhomond, when my hair was tied up in knots because it was too long or short to do anything about, smiling at the salutes of a couple of delivery men in a van—here in America we call them catcalls until we get to Paris and realize they are much too chivalrous, much too appreciative, for such a name.
It is a feeling too earthy for a halo and too clarifying for a fog, and too visceral to be only a state of mind. But for me it is distinctly Parisian. I knew I would see no blue windowboxes of geraniums, nor no slick-haired businessmen with glowing skin and Hermes accessories, and if I got a catcall it would be a catcall (only this and nothing more). Nonetheless, though I expected to see none of these things, if I had seen them it would not have surprised me. It would not have surprised me to see the Eiffel Tower instead of the cupola of the State House in the middle of the roundabout.
Maybe it is the weather—that is one thing that this part of America shares with that part of France—a langourous damp in the air on the clearest of mornings, that can turn into a heavy drug for days and days, and then suddenly rains itself out into childish freshness.
But I am more persuaded that this strange syndrome is a result of my current place in life, one so unusual for an American of my age that the only phrases for its description are in European languages. “Laissez-faire” is what I mean, or “que sera, sera.” A state of working hard without being quite sure of the goal, of commitment without certainty of the outcome.
I think most Americans do not experience regularly this state of being, except on holidays. There is nobody who is going to mow their lawn or fix their deck today; if it was going to get done in time for the Fourth of July, it would have got done yesterday. If not, laissez-faire. C’est pas grave. Qu’est-ce qu’il y a de faire? No one’s really going to notice, anyway. Holidays are the greater equalizers—everyone is in an equal state of committed lethargy. Kind of like the greater European population is from two until five, every day of the work week. They spread out their siestas over the year, while we save them up for bank holidays.
Nota Bene: As I was walking back from the coffee shop, my matinal lethargy was broken by a musically rapid flow of French language, spoken in the most impeccably nasal intonation. There were three people sitting in a car parked at the curb, discussing place or custom, something that required immediate assessment. They were speaking French, in the most impeccably nasal intonation, and all of them were black. Truly, this is a great country.
(first published 7.4.07, 9.15am)
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