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On New York
The Statue of Liberty from Battery Park
Over the years, I’ve developed a knack for being able to slip pretty easily into the flow of most places I travel. I think it’s a certain combination of knowing who you are and having an unfailing sense of curiosity. What I’ve found is that each city has its own energy, and I can usually more or less figure out in half a day or so.
I didn’t get to spend much time exploring Austin, but I immediately got the sense that it is a city that takes great and serious pride in its weirdness. It is the sort of place where, if you want to create — be it music, film, art, food, or even new ways to do old business — you will be welcomed with open arms — as long as you embrace and encourage the quirky.
New Orleans, an amalgam of Southern and Montmartre-like charm with a cheeky sense of humor, insisted I relax and enjoy the heaps of serendipity it tossed my way. Anything goes in New Orleans, and it drives home the notion that sometimes you just can’t plan for life, so you’d better just take what it gives you, learn to go with it, and always take the time to laugh.
Paris first stole a piece of my heart more than a decade ago. The innermost aspects of my personality, the ones that only come out in their truest forms in solitude, feel at home there. It’s a place that has always invited introspection, a focus on art and beauty, and an emphasis on slowing down a bit and savoring the life you’re living.
And then London — beautiful & smoggy, grand and quaint London — charmed me with its contradictions. The modern energy mingling with the respect for tradition and history is nothing short of intoxicating, and it took me in and made me feel like I was a part of something at a time when I desperately needed to feel passion again.
But Manhattan? It offered me no such engagement, no such hospitality, no such efforts to gain my affection. No matter how I grasped at its metaphorical wrist, I was never able to get my finger on the pulse of the city.
In hindsight, with all the legend and lore surrounding the city, I probably should have known it would be different. As
Grand Central Station. Oddly, one of the least overwhelming places we visited, despite its grandeur.
I stepped off New York soil and onto the plane home four days after arriving, I still had no clue what to think. To put it succinctly, I was thrown for a loop.
The city offers no comfort when you’re feeling down, and it’s just as happy to chew you up and spit you back out as it is to inspire you. There’s no coddling to be had in Manhattan, and maybe that’s part of its appeal. It’s not that it doesn’t want you to succeed. It’s that it expects you to pull yourself up by your own damn bootstraps and can you get out of the way while you’re figuring out what the hell that means because it took care of its bootstraps a long time ago and its got people to see and things to do.
Manhattan is like that intimidating, stern-faced college professor who gives you the facts but expects you to put them together yourself — the one who gets a twinkle in his eye or the tiniest of smirks on his face when you finally do. (Professor Fred Lamer, I’m looking at you.)
The Chess & Checkers House in Central Park.
I knew it would take writing my thoughts out to wrap my head around Manhattan, and when I left, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever really want to return. But now I know I do. I want to show the city that I finally got it. And goodness knows there’s plenty more to explore, to be baffled by, to experience and observe.
I’m well-versed in travelling solo at this point in my life, but I feel very lucky to have had a travelling companion for this particular trip. As frustrated as I felt with the city, I still spent most of the trip talking, learning, laughing and smiling.
As I recall my four days in Manhattan, what comes to mind is much like those dreamy flashback sequences you see in films sometimes. My memories of the city itself are admittedly fuzzy, due in large part I suspect to the incredible sensory overload from the people and the lights and the noise. But they’re providing that soft glow, faded-edge background that makes the clear human moments in the foreground seem magical.
- Tucking my arm into the crook of my boyfriend’s elbow and laying my head on his shoulder as we waited for the subway, or a show, or the line to move.
- Marveling at how the rain on the streets was snow at the top of the Empire State Building, laughing whilst running around the perimeter as fast as we could to get pictures before escaping the frigid wind & going back inside.
- Sneaking sugar-encrusted nuts from our pockets into our mouths whilst warming up inside a church in Lower Manhattan.
- Watching him tap story ideas into his phone.
- Feeling entirely too human over slices of pizza in the middle of a crowded, chain restaurant, yet with the distinct notion that no one at all was aware.
- Enduring endless teasing about my supposedly high frequency of bathroom visits.
- Three blissful words for the Perpetually Cold like myself: shared body heat.
- Sharing tins of lamb over rice from halal carts.
- Learning and playing chess as the midday light turned into an afternoon haze in Central Park.
- Sitting next to each other in an airport, immersed in separate novel-inspired universes, but still connected by intertwined limbs.
Perhaps this was Manhattan’s plan all along — to teach me that you can still find bliss and comfort and laughter in the midst of life’s frustrations and obfuscations. Those stern professors are funny like that — always handing you lessons behind the lessons.
The 86th Floor Observatory of the Empire State Building
Me, Interviewed
For her college computer class (do we still need those?), my sister was tasked with interviewing someone and writing a blog post about it. Because I am, in her eyes, a paragon of truth, wonder and interesting things, she chose to interview me. Or maybe it was because I’m, you know, around. Whatever. Anyway, she asked some good questions about my travels and my writing, so I thought I’d post the Q&A here, in case anyone’s interested in what I had to say.
Kate: Why do you think you are so drawn to the city of London and its European borders?
Ditty: There’s a certain energy to London that I’ve never really felt anywhere else. As Samuel Johnson said, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” Admittedly, I haven’t had the opportunity to visit many big cities yet, but London obviously has a very different feel to it than my native Kansas City or even Paris. There’s this wonderful dedication to the arts in London, and in Europe in general, whether it’s by way of the many museums or the gorgeous architecture or London’s fantastic theatre district. In many ways, a city like London is always changing while still retaining this rich loyalty to its history and culture. That paradox fascinates me.
Kate: What is one of your favorite experiences you had while you were in London and why?
Ditty: One of the most interesting experiences again relates to the theatre. I ended up seeing Birdsong twice, which ended up being a fantastic decision because they had four actors out sick for the second performance, including one of the principal actors in the second and third acts. This afforded me the opportunity to see how different scenes played between different actors, how they were forced to modify some scenes because they were shorthanded, and how the audience reacted differently to various aspects of the show as well as how the actors responded to the audience. I wrote about it in a little more detail on my blog, but, in short, it was really very educational for me as an artist and entirely fascinating as an observer.
Kate: What is your least favorite?
Ditty: My least favorite was getting lost twice on the way home after having had a particularly nerve-wracked and in some ways mortifying evening. It was snowing, and I was freezing, and I was exhausted, and I wanted nothing more to crawl into bed and turn off my brain ‘til morning. Unfortunately, my sense of direction had other ideas, and I ended up taking a wrong turn and having to walk much farther than I should have to a tube station, and then, about 7 minutes from my bed & breakfast in Hammersmith,, I ended up hopping on the wrong bus and managed to find myself back across the river right under Big Ben. I did eventually make it home, but it was not my finest series of moments, to say the least.
Kate: Could you see yourself making London your permanent home in the future?
Ditty: I don’t know about “permanent home,” but I could certainly see myself spending lengthier amounts of time there. In a perfect world, I’d have a flat in London, an apartment in Paris, my house in Kansas City, and maybe a beach villa, too. I draw different things from each place, and I’d love to be able to pick up and go wherever I’m feeling drawn in the moment. I’d go to London for energy and inspiration; to Paris for beauty, a little existential meditation and creative focus; to the beach for a little R&R; and back home to see family and friends.
The truth is, as much as I love spending time in Europe, and as much as I’d love to do a lot more travelling, I think I’ll always consider Kansas City a sort of “home base.” I think that’s probably a very “Dorothy” thing to say, but it’s the truth.
Kate: In your opinion, what are some specific qualities that Britain has that the United States lacks?
Ditty: Again, I’d have to point to that respect and loyalty to history, art and culture. Europe is very proud in a lot of ways because it’s experienced so much. There’s a great scene in the film EASY VIRTUE where Kristin Scott-Thomas’ character is berating Jessica Biel’s Larita for her suggestion to sell off the family’s land: “Coming from a country no older than the chair you’re sitting in, it seems a very practical solution.” We do that sort of thing all the time here in the States. We knock down buildings and build new ones instead of restoring them. We put a much higher priority on the practical rather than the beautiful. There are obvious advantages to those ways of thinking — forward progress is a great thing — but you lose a certain respect and appreciation for what’s come before.
Kate: Instead of going to go see major attractions such as Westminster Abbey, etc., what are some lesser known attractions in London that you particularly enjoyed?
Ditty: There’s a really interesting art/science gallery called the Wellcome Collection that’s worth checking out. It’s sort of a nice break from the more traditional galleries and museums. I also enjoyed a quick visit to the Old Operating Theatre Museum, where you can see a vast array of historical medical devices and instruments, as well as the operating theatre, which is exactly what it sounds like: a place where doctors could gather to watch an operation.
I’d also highly recommend catching some West End theatre. You can get very cheap tickets for day-of shows at the TKTS booth in Leicester Square. I think a lot of people tend to go for the big stage musicals, but the stage plays are really what I’ve enjoyed the most. The Woman in Black is a fantastically spooky piece, and it plays at the Fortune Theatre. The Comedy Theatre, which doesn’t necessarily stage comedies but so far in my experience has provided ambitious shows with fantastic actors, has become my favorite theatre, and it’s just around the corner from Leicester Square. It housed my favorite shows on both trips — namely, La Bête, which transferred to Broadway shortly after I saw it, and Birdsong, which just ended its run.
Beyond that, there’s also the highly entertaining street theatre in Covent Garden, the various markets in different boroughs, and really simply walking around and immersing yourself in the energy of London. There’s really no better place to simply people-watch — Trafalgar Square can get particularly interesting sometimes after 10 p.m. You can also catch red carpet premieres in Leicester Square on a pretty much weekly basis (they had the NARNIA and TRON premieres while I was there), and it’s always kind of neat to see the set-up they create (you can also glimpse the actors if you’re into that sort of thing and are willing to fight the crowds). They went particularly all-out for NARNIA, transforming the entire square into a sort of winter wonderland, and they had these huge laser-light-show things set up for TRON, which was interesting to see.
Kate: What was one of the weirdest things you experienced on your travels?
Ditty: On my last day in London, I was wandering around my favorite places bidding them adieu, and a guy jogged up to me in Covent Garden. He immediately started rambling about how he’d seen my magenta tights and thought I looked interesting and that he had a friend who worked in the fashion industry and that I had reminded him of her due to said tights and also my knit hat and coat. At some point I became fairly certain he was trying to hit on me rather than pickpocket me (it’s often very difficult to tell the difference, I’ve found), but he was saying odd things, likely due to his nerves, such as I had “one playful eye,” which immediately made me wonder if I’d somehow developed a lazy eye since I’d last looked in a mirror, or that I seemed “bouncy.” He also told me about the novel he was writing — it was his first — which sounded like it would either end up being really quite interesting or really quite terrible. In the end, he turned out to be a nice enough guy, and he requested a hug “since we’re friends now,” and I gave him one. He was the first native Brit to hit on me, so, despite it being really quite bizarre, I recall the memory fondly.
Kate: In a nutshell, how would you describe the people of Britain?
Ditty: Well, I can’t really speak for all of Britain, of course, but I do interact with a fair number of non-Londoners on twitter. To sum them up, I’d have to say that, in general, they are a delightfully witty bunch, often with dry and somewhat acerbic senses of humor but with an undercurrent of real kindness beneath the stiff-upper-lip exterior. As for London itself, it is truly a melting pot of different cultures, nationalities and personalities; there’s really no way to sum up the people of London other than to say they’re fascinating in their diversity.
Kate: You’ve also been to France, what is your favorite thing about France and why?
Ditty: Imagine your typical, entitled, stressed-out, always-in-a-rush American bustling up to a French person, who is in the midst of sipping the tiniest cup of coffee you’ve ever seen. Before the American can even get out whatever question he or she thinks is So Very Important, the Frenchman delivers a look of utmost disdain, which clearly says, without saying a word, “Chill the fuck out. There is nothing in the world that is more important at this moment than me enjoying this tiny cup of exquisite coffee — certainly not you.” At which point, if the American is smart, he or she does indeed chill out, find a pastry or a crêpe, have a seat on a bench or at a table outside a café, and look around at all the beauty he or she was missing while busy being busy. That is my favorite thing about France.
Kate: Would you say that the atmosphere in European countries has a significant influence on your writing? If so, how?
Ditty: Most definitely. There’s so much beauty and energy in Europe that it’s hard not to find inspiration. Over the three weeks I spent there this past year, I think I filled an entire moleskine notebook with observations, notions and stories, and those usually take me a good year to fill up. The access to so much great theatre motivates me as well, and I’m actually in the very beginning stages of planning a short film inspired by a human statue I saw in Trafalgar Square.
Kate: If you could only visit one again, would you choose London or Paris?
Ditty: There is honestly, truly, absolutely no way I can make that choice, and you are a terrible person for even making me consider such a thing. Both cities are full of meaning for me, and I can’t imagine not getting to visit both of them again multiple times throughout my life.
Kate: What should people keep in mind before traveling abroad?
Ditty: That’s a very broad question, and I think there are a lot of better resources out there for the practical side of things (when to go, what to do, what to see), but I will say this: Consider yourself a guest in someone else’s home when you travel abroad. Be polite. Use your manners. Try not to inconvenience your hosts. Try everything that’s offered to you, even if you don’t think you’ll like it, because every experience has value. Engage your hosts when it’s appropriate, and learn everything you can without being a pest. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, and be grateful when you receive it. Smile. Laugh. And look up (and down).
Kate: What are some examples of how you “dare to be different?”
(Ditty’s Note: This is a running joke in my family ever since my fifth grade teacher told my parents I was “eccentric” and “dared to be different” during a parent-teacher conference.)
Ditty: Ha, well, there are so many examples I could give, but I fear most of them are simply me just being a bit weird rather than me actively daring to be different. But I’ll try. One thing that seems a bit unique is that, when I decide to do something, I do everything in my power to actually do it. Whether it’s writing a script by a certain date or revamping my health & fitness, I seem to have a bizarre level of drive and perseverance, and that’s something I seek to cultivate.
I also do my best these days to be my authentic self, regardless of the expectations of others. So, in that respect, it’s not that I try particularly to be different; it’s that I embrace the aspects of my personality that don’t necessarily mesh with the typical.
Oh, and I also do things like taking up horseback riding, fencing, going to London alone for my golden birthday, signing up for aerial acrobatics and pottery classes, and spearheading a sisterly helicopter trip.
Kate: What inspires you to write?
Ditty: I like to examine and attempt to explain various aspects of the human condition through storytelling. I think it’s human nature for everyone to do that in their own way, whether it’s through art, science, politics, philosophy or religion. For me, it’s always been writing, though I’ve been less aware of it at certain times in my life.
I was once accused of writing to escape, and writing can do that for folks temporarily, but it’s never been that for me. Writing is a means of understanding, not escaping. So, to answer your question as properly as I can, I guess it’s really just life that inspires me to write. Whether it’s an overheard conversation or a weird news story or an amusing encounter or simply a poignant observation that leads to a given story, it’s always a product of the emotional core of life.
I don’t really recycle my real-life experiences as often as I recreate the emotions felt during my experiences. And because of that, I hope that what I write is emotionally truthful even when it’s obviously a bundle of lies. As Neil Gaiman so eloquently puts it in A Writer’s Prayer, “Lord, let me be brave, and let me, while I craft my tales, be wise: let me say true things in a voice that is true, and, with the truth in mind, let me write lies.”
Kate’s write-up (complete with unflattering pictures of me + 20 pounds) is here.
[London Calling] Winter
Wrote this mid-trip sitting on a bench at the Tate Modern.
—–
Even though there are obvious downsides, like the physical discomfort, I find I like visiting places in the winter better than during other seasons. Anywhere can be beautiful in the spring, with its easy-on-the-eyes greens and new life.
But in winter, the veneer is gone. That new life has passed away, and the world has to work a little harder to make you love it. To be charming, it must compensate. The cold of the snow, for instance, is — at least in moments — outdone by its beauty. The gray of the sky works to give everything else the opportunity to seem brighter.
Not everything takes advantage of the opportunity, of course, but the occasional burst of color or energy takes strides toward making up for the drab melancholy fighting to overtake one’s soul. A tossed snowball and the accompanying laughter becomes the final advance of happiness and hope against the void.
[Memories of Paris] The Artist in Montmartre
Street Art in Montmartre
By the time we reached Paris, I’d more or less given up on my admittedly silly fantasy of capturing the heart of an impossibly handsome British or otherwise pleasantly-accented man during our two-week adventure across the pond. I still made an effort to look presentable each day — we were in Paris after all — but the uncharacteristically cold and rainy weather coupled with my growing ennui translated into comfort taking a slight edge to cuteness in my day-to-day dress and make-up efforts. It’s probably worth admitting that, at a few days into our Parisienne adventure, I was feeling the effect of having sacrificed all self-control when it came to our appetites.
Despite my somewhat gloomy mood, I was excited to visit Montmartre — the artist’s haven on the outskirts of Paris. I had vivid and lovely memories of a nighttime visit more than a decade before. I’d had my portrait drawn by a cranky, wizened old woman who only gave me a discounted price only because I’d overheard her give it to someone else, and she’d cautioned me not to tell anyone else what a bargain I was getting. I’m not sure if that was some sort of reverse psychology form of viral marketing or not, but, for fear of angering the mysterious Old Woman of Montmartre, I do believe I kept what I’d paid a secret.
I remembered the view of Paris from the steps of Sacré Coeur; it was clear and cold, and the lights of the city were glorious and have probably only become more so in my memory. The cathedral had been closed by the time we made it to the top of the hilly district, and visiting it this time — and climbing the 300 steps to the basilica for an even better view of the city — was high on my list of priorities.
Of course, the day I decided to take on this venture, the rain let up, and the sun came out, and I found my loose-knit sweater becoming rather warm during the ascent to the top of the cathedral. (The view, by the way, was well worth the climb, and 300 steps go quickly when you’ve got gothic architecture and gargoyles keeping you company along the way.) My sister, suffering a cold, had opted to sit quietly in the atrium and write letters to her friends back home.
By the time we reached the center of Montmartre — requiring more ascent and descent of steep hills — I was sporting what might qualify as slightly more than a pleasant, dewy glow. I was feeling the pastries we’d had for breakfast, as well as the absence of water (water bottles took up space and added weight to our already full purses, and thus often got left behind). In short, I feeling rather round, rather sweaty, and rather unattractive.
But we’d reached my favorite part of Montmartre, so I ignored my self-consciousness and focused my attention on the myriad artists in the tiny square. Some sat quietly; others shilled relentlessly. Some looked shy; others looked proud; and yet a third category seemed to simply exist in a state that took no notice of the throng of tourists oohing and aahing over the various artistic efforts on display.
As we walked, I paused momentarily, as I did at each stall, to look at a display of handcut silhouettes. I paused a moment too long — or, in hindsight, perhaps just long enough — for a man bearing scissors and a rectangular piece of paper to approach me. He spoke to me in French, and, having been warned many times about the methods of swindlers, who hand you something and then demand payment, without ever having asked for or received the intention of the person now holding the sold product to buy it. I smiled and held up my hand in refusal, saying, “Non, merci.”
“Where are you from?” he asked.
I cringed inwardly, as I did every time my accent gave me away as a non-native speaker. “The United States,” I replied, with an apologetic expression.
He touched my arm and told me he was going to cut my silhouette. I once again said, “Non, merci,” and told him I didn’t want to pay.
“You don’t have to pay. I’ll do it, and then you can see if you like it.”
He smiled at me, and at some point I realized that he looked quite a bit like Heath Ledger, as styled in THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS, which is probably my favorite of the late actor’s roles. He was tall, and his hair was long and pulled back in a ponytail, and he sported just the type of goatee I like — the sort that looks as if it were a happy accident. The humidity of the day had added a little wave to his hair, and there were a few strands at his hairline fully curling. He had a playful smile.
I’m not sure what switch flipped in my brain, but I felt myself reaching out. Before I could explain it, my hand was on his arm, and I was leaning in, telling him I didn’t want to waste his time. A second later, in what was quite likely a well-practiced move on his part, my hand had ended up in his, and he was once again trying to convince me to let him cut my silhouette.
I shook my head, still smiling, and said, “I’m good, but thank you.”
And at that point, he looked me up and down and said, “I can see that,” which, coming from most folks would be utterly cheesy and ridiculous. But hey, I was staring into the eyes of IMAGINARIUM’s Tony, who could get away with being smarmy because he did it so charmingly that you simply didn’t care. And, if the movies had taught me anything, at any second he could transform into the even more handsome Colin Farrell or — better yet — the gloriously sexy Johnny Depp — and sweep me off to a visually stunning and surreal world where anything imaginable could become reality. And besides, he was holding my hand.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had held my hand in a non-“Let’s join hands”-in-a-large-group sort of way. At some point the months had become years, and, while the gesture was nothing unusual, it was a moment of magic. In some ways, the gesture — so simple, so void of commitment — always has been for me.
The first time I remember my feelings for a boy going from platonic playmate to warm and fuzzy was in the basement of my childhood best friend’s house. We always played down there — video games, board games, action figures, the usual. The basement wrapped around itself; when you went down the stairs, you could enter on the left or the right. We always took the door on the right; the door to the left led to his much older brother’s room. One day, seemingly on a whim, my friend decided we should turn out all the lights and venture through the basement from one side to the other. It would be scary and thrilling, he assured me, and we would feel so brave, and he’d lead the way so I wouldn’t be too frightened. He was always able to convince me to do silly, potentially harmless-according-to-him things (like jumping from the decks of unfinished houses, or climbing fences, or taking a punch to the gut), and I — despite the ‘punch to the gut’ incident — trusted him.
He turned out the lights, and starting at the door on the right, he took my hand and let me through the dark, over the board games and video game controllers, around the discarded furniture and stored Christmas decorations, through his brother’s room — full of possessions I never felt comfortable exploring, being an older sibling myself, who very much valued her privacy — and safely to the door on the left. He turned on the lights, and we laughed in relief that we’d made it through the dark, hand in hand, and I felt warm and alive and excited and full of potential.
I think that’s the part of the gesture that’s always been so magical for me: the potential. It’s the representation of a moment where nothing has happened yet but anything and everything still might.
And so, when the artist in Montmartre held my hand, I felt that sensation again. I was playful. I was coy. I was, apparently, charming. I was things I didn’t realize I still knew how to be. I operated outside of my own neurosis, with a confidence that didn’t seem to be my own. It was bizarre and wonderful. It was a relief. I knew nothing was going to happen beyond this moment between myself and this man, however charming he might be. But I still felt that feeling of potential, except this time it was all my own.
He asked how long we were staying in Paris, and I told him, and he said I should come back and see him, that we should go for a drink. I answered with a peut-être and a smile, even though I’m sure we both knew that I wouldn’t return. I bid him au revoir, and then my sister and I walked away.
“Well,” my sister said, “you can’t say you didn’t get hit on in Paris now.”
I laughed. “Only because he was trying to sell me something,” I replied. “I’m not sure it counts.”
“It counts,” she said.
And I decided that she was right. “I’m going to pretend it does anyway.”
[Memories of Paris] Culture & Creature Shock
The first day in a new city can be a bit of a trial. Throw in different culture, different customs, different transportation, different street signs, and a language barrier, and you can pretty much count on lusting after your pillow by the time night falls. However, most people who travel to foreign lands know to expect these things going in. It doesn’t prevent them, but it makes them a little easier to deal with, along with the knowledge that the next day will be easier and that things will seem less, well, foreign.
My first day in Paris was no exception to this rule. Even after having spent a week in London, Paris was still a shock to the system. I’m lucky enough to have received a solid education in French in high school and to have been one of those who took well to it, but even so, ten years down the road, the language skills get a little rusty. And since I never reached true fluency, being thrown back into near-full immersion was enough to make me resort to that comfort phrase the French have learned to despise: “Parlez-vous anglais?”
This question, so simple in construction, often goes over in a less than stellar manner. I imagine too many ugly Americans have passed through Paris to save it from being associated with the arrogant belief that everyone in the entire world should speak English, as opposed to the possibility that the person speaking it simply wishes not to offend a true francophone by completely butchering such a beautiful language. In my case, my fear was in being able to understand a native Frenchperson’s response. I do OK with basic speech, and I could likely converse at ease with most six- to eight-year-olds, but the mental speed required to keep up with the thickly accented words flying from the mouth of a hurried owner of a boulangerie (so different in sound than those emitted by even a fluent American) is a skill I admittedly no longer possess.
In London, when we were lost, it was no problem to approach a group of native Britons to ask for directions. Worst-case scenario, you get basic directions with a smug look. In most cases, you get amusement at how far off the track you are and then clear, polite instructions to get you headed back in the direction you need to go. In Paris, you are often met with a scowl. If you make the mistake of starting with “Parlez-vous anglais?” the scowl deepens and is accompanied with a curt “non!” or a begrudging “un peu” before getting a quick shake of the finger in the general direction you need to go and a slew of quick, often incomprehensible words. I exaggerate, of course, but not by too much. The English are burdened by their polite reputation; the French by the imposition of the rest of the world to visit their beloved Paris.
So, between annoying eighty-five percent of the French people I came in contact with, the sardine can of people that was the Eiffel Tower, and my complete inability to decipher the subway map (the description from my journal reads: “The Métro looks like a tangle of Christmas lights after a year jumbled up in a box that’s been moved from one house to a new one and gotten dropped and tossed a few times along the way.”), I was ready to get to the hotel and crawl into bed.
Sadly, as soon as I pulled back the sheets to do exactly that, I discovered that something had beat me to it. I grabbed a piece of paper, folded it, and smashed the round critter between the leaves. Upon seeing the red contents of the bug upon the unfolded paper, I knew we were in trouble. I told my sister to get out of her bed, and I went to the computer. There I confirmed my fears with a quick Google Image search and then looked up the French word for bedbug. My poor sister had not had the foresight to look before she collapsed, and thus she’d spent a good five or ten minutes sharing space with the flesh-eating, blood-sucking creatures under the sheets. I stomped down the stairs and up to the clerk’s desk, along with the piece of paper bearing “la carcasse de la punaise.” He was sufficiently horrified — so horrified, in fact, that he was adamant about not venturing into our room. He handed us a key to a new room, and I waited for the accompanying offer to help us move our partially unpacked luggage. No such offer came.
I’m sure the other occupants of our hall, as well as those on the floor below us, appreciated our midnight trek to the opposite end of the hall, which took several trips to get all of our things transferred. We checked our beds thoroughly before we got in them. One of the insects had managed to latch onto my sister’s pajama pants, and so I banished her to the shower, clothes and all. It was after 1 a.m. by the time we finally slid into our beds, paranoid, exhausted, and afraid to go to sleep. I, for one, laid a T-shirt over my pillow and covered my torso and shoulders with a cardigan, having decided I was only willing to risk bedbug bites on my legs.
Eventually, I did fall into a quite satisfactory slumber, despite my fear of being eaten alive and/or horribly disfigured in my sleep. Fatigue wins out over everything in the end. And the good thing about having a nightmare of a first day is that there’s really nowhere to go but up on the next. Upon waking, the bedbugs having been content to stay in our original room and spare our lives, we experienced our first French breakfast, which vastly improved our impressions of Paris.
[Memories of Paris] Food
There’s an old dieters’ method that involves indulging in a single bite of dessert and tossing the rest. The idea is that nothing tastes as good as the first bite anyway, so you get your little indulgence without the caloric bomb and ensuing guilt.
Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of such tricks anyway. Smaller portions, sure, but if you put something delicious in front of me, I’m going to want to enjoy every last morsel of it. That being said, the sad truth is, most stateside desserts don’t pass the first bite test. The first bite really is the best. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s all downhill from there, but, by the time I finish a dessert here, I’m usually ready for it to be done. We part ways on friendly, perhaps-I’ll-see-you-again-sometime sort of terms.
But Parisian food is magical, and its superpower is making you lick the cardboard box in which you carried home the pain aux pommes. Or pick up the broken pieces of a raspberry tartlette from the floor of your hotel room and eating it anyway. Or get caramel au beurre salé ice cream (from Bertholli) followed by spéculoos & yogurt gelato (from Amorino) ten minutes later. Or stage a breakfast pastry and nutella heist on your last day at your hotel because you can’t bear to leave such delicious and decadent treats behind without one last forbidden tryst.
You see, Parisian food has the power to inspire passion, ardor — even pure, unadulterated lust. After much study, I believe I’ve grasped the Method of the Parisian Culinary Delight. While all Parisian food has its charms, this method of seduction can be seen and experienced most intensely, I’ve found, in the Parisian dessert.
When you first encounter it, you’re stricken by its straightforward beauty. The care taken to ensure it is aesthetically pleasing is a wonder in and of itself. It’s not fussy or pretentious; it’s not pretending to be something it’s not. It is, quite simply, well-presented. The appearance alone makes you want to know more, to see if what’s inside lives up to its exterior.
So you commit to a first bite, forking over the three euros. If you make a habit of indulging in these little rendezvous, you quickly learn to request them as “take away,” so you can get get to know one another somewhere private, without the pressure of fellow pleasure-seekers or, even worse, the creators of these little delights. I’m sure there are some folks out there who enjoy indulging their exhibitionist tendencies by sampling in public, but I am not one of them.
Once you’ve settled into a quiet space where you can focus without distraction, you have that first bite, careful to get a little of each component of whatever you’re eating. If it’s a tartlette, then you insist on some of the filling and some of the crust. If it’s something layered, like a macaron or a mille-feuille or, God help you, a religieuse, you go for a bit of everything. You’re not going in depth yet; you’re simply getting a taste of everything your Parisian dessert has to offer.
And this is where the Parisian dessert and the typical American dessert showcase their wildest difference. The American dessert boldly pulls out all its best moves on the first outing. The burst of flavor in that first bite may send you reeling, but when you go back for a second bite, your mind is no longer blown. You’ve seen it all, and there’s really nowhere to go from there. You enjoy its comfortable company while it lasts, but you both know it’s going nowhere. This is why the dieters’ dessert method, more or less the equivalent of a one-night stand, works so well in the States.
But the Parisian dessert! The first bite of the Parisian dessert engages you fully, but it doesn’t overwhelm you. It makes you think. The bright flavors and perfect textures come together in unexpected ways: buttery pastry, tart fruit, sweet custard… They all seem fairly straightforward, but somehow, in a Parisian dessert, their synergy elevates them. And you have to know more. The first bite is not enough. You’re hooked. And so you take a second bite. And the flavors intensify. They reveal more to you, which only serves as an irresistible temptation to dig deeper into the elements that make this dessert what it is. By the third bite, you’re an addict, driven only by the need to feel more. Logic no longer matters. Driven only by your desire, you become a full and willing participant in this dangerous liaison. You’ve crossed a line.
It’s the beginning of a lifelong, torrid love affair, made only more intense by the times spent apart. Every time you have a non-Parisian dessert, your thoughts will wander back, filling you with so intense a longing that it nearly breaks your heart. The non-Parisian dessert becomes a cheap substitute, something to get you by until you can, at long last, be reunited with your true gustatory love. Any moment with a Parisian dessert becomes filled with an intensity reaching desperation, a need to experience as much as you can while you have the opportunity.
And that, my friends, is how you end up ingesting one pain aux raisins topped with nutella and cream cheese, a bowl of granola & whole milk, two cookies, a caramel, a nougat treat, half a cheese panini, half a beef panini, half a préstige (pistachio & chocolate creme layered dessert), half a pecan-apple tartlette, half a baba rhum, a small ice cream, a small gelato, half a small quiche lorraine, half a baguette sandwich, half a chocolate tartlette, and half a rhubarb-apple tartlette all in one day. It is also how you gain five pounds in one week. But that’s another secret of the Parisian Culinary Delight — it loves you just the way you are and encourages you to do the same.
[Memories of Paris] Pigeons
I’m back in Kansas City now after having spent a week in London and a week in Paris, and I’m looking forward to finishing up my short film and starting some new projects, too. London was wonderful for taking in the art other people had produced, and Paris was perfect for creating some of my own. I wrote this on the plane back from Paris; hope you enjoy.
PIGEONS
Most people have one of two reactions to the pigeons swarming the square in front of Notre Dame (or really any other place in Paris). Amusement mingled with amazement at their sheer audacity is one of them, and it is usually reserved for tourists. The other is indignant annoyance, usually combined with a vigorous shooing hand motion or the harsh thwap of a menu or a book or some other flat object. This is demonstrated in perfect form by waiters in outdoor cafés.
A third category, much smaller in both number and stature, is the fascinated child, who sees the pigeons as an odd sort of temporary pet meant to be chased around whilst giggling.
These are the three largest divisions of pigeon interaction, but there is a fourth, and it is the true rare bird of pigeon-related behavior: the elderly man or woman who insists on feeding these avian creatures, considered by many to be nothing more than rats with wings. These folks are content to sit amongst hordes of them, in fact encouraging the birds to come closer. They remain nearly motionless, living statues, save the motion it takes to toss a handful of seed onto the ground.
I saw one such woman as I looked down upon the square from one of the towers of Notre Dame. Admittedly, I’d never given these eccentrics much thought. But from the gargoyle’s eye view, I was suddenly stricken with curiosity. What possesses any given person to adopt such behavior? I myself fall into the Amused Tourist category when it comes to pigeons, but when more than three approach I start imagining Hitchcock-esque scenes and quickly add space between myself and the feathered creatures.
But this woman had to have been keeping company with at least fifty if not a hundred, in front, behind, and some even sitting on the bench right next to her. I was a little baffled, and no small part of me was rather frightened for her safety.
I turned to tap my sister’s shoulder to show her the spectacle, and when I turned back, I saw something even more bizarre. A mass of pigeons was hovering in a column of sorts, only a few paces from the woman. I peered at the strange pillar, for a second annoyed that I was so high up. I pitied the gargoyles who surrounded me, always watching from this dead space between heaven and earth.
But then the column began to change before my eyes. Whether it was some sort of cognitive process catching up to reality or a bit of magic happening on the ground, I cannot say with any certainty, but I know what I choose to believe. I no longer saw a pillar of pigeons but a man, matched in age to the woman on the bench. He wore a Bogey-style hat, and a pigeon sat on top of it. His arms were outstretched, and there were three pigeons on each. The woman did not run away frightened or jump up with excitement. She simply remained on the bench, her face turned toward the man. I could not see her expression from my position, but it must have been welcoming, as the man sat down beside her, displacing some of his avian companions (though they did not seem to mind — they almost seemed to make room for him, as if they accepted him as an equal, just as deserving of the woman’s attention as they were).
At that moment, we were siphoned into another stairwell leading to the very top of the tower. From there, I could see all of Paris, but the woman, her pigeons, and her mysterious male companion were gone. The bench was empty, for a moment, and whatever I’d just witnessed (a meeting? a reunion?) remained only in my memory.
© 2010 Elizabeth Ditty
