Gwen - Passing through Paris

Often, when Americans think of Paris they imagine a Hemingway flavored, Woody Allen directed figment that is loosely set in the twenties with highlights and overtones taken straight from pop culture and Disney. The interesting thing is that somehow, regardless of the reality of what lies before them, many American tourists come away from their trips with the impression that their delusion is true.

Something about Gwen’s personality afforded her her own view of Paris. Tall dirty gray Haussmann buildings with their decaying splendor hobnobbing with faceless gray post war buildings. Clusters of feral young men with predatory eyes. Pairs of painstakingly dressed women, rail thin and tiny. The smell of expensive perfumes and human waste.
Perhaps at heart not that different from any other big city, but with a French touch.

 People told her she was crazy when she announced she was breaking up with her fiancée, and just shook their heads when she decided to try and sell her house and go traveling. And yet, somehow here she is in Paris flipping burgers and steak-frites in a brasserie. Watching people take the top bun off of their burgers and eat the rest with a knife and fork, then clean their plates with the top bun, or worse yet leave it in their dishes. 

Yeah, some Parisians really do that.

She had come to France hoping to find a new life, hoping for food that would inspire her, but after several months she was coming to the conclusion that the French food scene wasn’t for her. While good French food undeniably exists, it seemed to her to be an elitist thing rife with snobbery. “Good food should be about good taste, not how much money you have.”

Over all, Gwen was disappointed. Paris was a place for people with money. The main way of spending time there seemed to be related with either the spending, or the acquisition of money… But her tastes were, if not simple, frugal. She spent what free time she had walking around Paris looking for a spark, something to set her soul alight. Her expenses were limited to food, the tiny room she was renting, and an occasional used book from Shakespeare and co. on the rive gauche. In a sense it was an ideal, but not hers. Her plan was to leave as soon as she had enough money put away for a ticket.

This wasn't the place she was looking for.

Gwen - Zucchini bread zeitgeist

This is my kitchen. It isn't spectacular and it doesn’t have all the latest gadgets or designer furniture. It is neither pretty nor fashionable, but it is functional and it is mine. 

It’s my space in which he is sitting and talking at me, yet again, further illustrating the completely one-dimensional relationship he maintains with the world instead of interacting with it fully. I’m there peeling my zucchinis and I know that he doesn’t realize that it is over.

I don’t need drama. I don’t need an argument. I don’t need to lay blame.

I just need to be alone in my kitchen again.

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Well, that could have gone better... but then again, it could have gone worse.

"They" say all kinds of stupid things, for instance, they say that going down is the best part of roller coasters... but let’s face it, two years of free-falling downhill isn't fun, it's just tiring. I like the parts where you ramp up, where you can enjoy the view, and savor the moment.

But then, I’m not really into roller coasters… so, what am I talking about?

It’s not like he was bad guy. I wouldn’t have stayed with him as long as I did if he had been.

Although it felt like hours, “the talk” only lasted thirty minutes… Not so bad, nothing got broken, though he did throw a framed picture at me –missed by me by a mile- which I caught before it smashed against the wall. He got a bit carried away. He said some things that may have been true and some that I know were not. He said I was cold, and while it’s true that that whole scene left me cold, I’m pretty sure he meant to say frigid, and he meant for it to hurt me. But the truth is, although we may have connected at one point in time, eventually, when I looked at him all I saw was dust in the air. Little flying particles you can’t normally see that are brought to life by light. Pretty enough, in their own way, but ultimately immaterial. I’m not sure when I discovered that there wasn’t anything left behind it.

Maybe later I’ll think back fondly to the good times. But I wonder if maybe they’ve all been so diluted that they have ceased to exist for all practical purposes. Either way, although I may be kidding myself, I don’t think it matters.

For now, I’m happy to reclaim my space...
and I’m going to bake some Zucchini bread.