Monday, November 21, 2005

escargots sounds so much better than 'snails'

Over this Thanksgiving break, I wanted to meet Robert in Paris instead of London for two reasons:
1. Paris, in my mind, is an infinitely more beautiful city.
2. Getting through immigration at Heathrow makes me stutter and I am increasingly both terrified of and convinced that one of these trips I will be pulled into a side room and interrogated even more harshly than I yet have been. A 25-year-old full-time student/yoga teacher doesn't look like she has much business traveling to London every month unless it's a guise for actually operating as a mule. It's actually one of the first things that comes to mind when I think about marrying Robert -- after throwing mental confetti around in celebration of love and committment and togetherness, I feel relieved enough to sigh, thinking about passing right by Passport Control without heart palpatations. Those people are paid to instill the fear of God and when they've hammered you down into tiny pieces, they always say, "Have a good day, love." Like they hadn't just spent twenty minutes asking me how many credit cards I have, how much money I have access to, what my boyfriend does, what I do, how we met, how long we've been together, are we engaged, am I pregnant, where is he from, can they see my return ticket, and what sort of work do I plan on doing after I graduate.

That last one raises an interesting point, actually, given that very soon I should be in the process of applying for the same jobs to which I applied four years ago. I wonder, sometimes, if any other "creative types" are also tempted to turn the 'F' into a 'B', transforming an MFA into an asset instead of a drawback.

Paris is still beautiful. I hadn't known what to expect find, having read about the rioting in the suburbs and the burning cars and enraged minorities, but all of that seems to have ended. We spent the weekend walking around through the Marais and the Palais Royal, running around the Tuilleries, and eating melted Monte D'Or cheese by the fire. The year's Beaujolais Nouveau came out on Thursday and twice we've stepped into dark restaurants with big windows to drink glasses and eat snails with pesto and garlic. Yesterday, at the inadvertant suggestion of a woman whose blog I read every day, we went to the Musee Rodin and strolled through the garden and sculptures, stopping to turn our faces up toward the sun before we went inside. Then we took a taxi to Sacre Coeur, which Robert had never been to, ever, and we looked out over the city, using the binoculars to find his apartment by the Opera and then we went inside the church, where a service was going on.

At Le Fumoir, we shared a plate of brebis cheese with apricot preserves and drank wine and I was overwhelmed with remembering the first time we'd been there, more than two years ago, during a summer rainstorm, when we were first falling in love and getting to know each other at the same time.

I've spent all day reading Garcia Marquez and finishing Duras' The Lover while Robert has been working. Outside, the sky is overcast and heavy. I know it will be freezing but I'm wearing a short skirt and my vintage high-heeled Ferragamo boots and we will along the river and pretend that this isn't going to end in 36 hours. Robert is upstairs in his coat, calling, "Let's go. Come on! Sarah!"

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

you seem to float about everything in life.
i am not making any judgement here.

9:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i meant to say "above" not "about"

9:46 PM  
Blogger Sarah said...

What does that mean? That I'm distanced from it? Does it make you feel removed from what I've written?

11:24 AM  

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