Pinkeye in Paris

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Christmas this year, even at home, with all of the pomp and circumstance of our large family, it never really holds the same joy as it used to. Don’t get me wrong, it is still wonderful, as mentioned previously it is my favorite holiday, (with Halloween a close second- but that is just the heathen in me), but now it is just more…calm. I try to rekindle that excitement each year, by going to shows, Christmas parties, teas, watching sappy movies on T.V., making cookies, sometimes poisonous disasters that resemble cookies (refer to the previous blog), but I have come to realize it may be a feeling that is as fleeting as childhood- you take it for granted and then it is gone. I still remember it- that is what makes not being able to achieve that feeling so annoying. You can’t miss something you have never had. I feel it for other things now, not necessarily with the same intensity, but it is there when I least expect it. The problem is that I can’t really figure out how to channel it into the giddy passion that was once Christmas morning. Most people say it only returns when you are in love or have children of your own, but on that, I will just have to wait and see.

This year, it really could have swung either way. In general, despite my sarcastic tone in a lot of my writing, I am an optimist. I don’t really waste much time in being angry or upset about things, situations, or people, all of which have too much power over you if just the thought of something- or someone- creates grinding teeth, veins popping out of your forehead, and a puce face (not to mention how incredibly unattractive that is, and that it scares small children… and small dogs… and sometimes birds… small ones) I prefer to let things go, worry causes wrinkles -although I must admit the bureaucracy in France does its damnedest to try to make me puce, but I refuse- puce is not a good color on me. Point being, I was afraid this Christmas would be very lonely. Thanksgiving prepped me for that- it is nice spending it with new friends, but again, not the same. The crowds of strangers accentuate the lack of familiar faces. I have been lonely before, but I have never actually been lonely on Christmas, I think that may have killed me. That only happens in the movies right? I think some plots revolve around actually saving someone from the grasp of Christmas loneliness.

Well this year, with a lot of planning and sacrificing, my mom made her way across the pond to save me from my potential solitude. She arrived on the morning of Christmas Eve, and we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Paris. We are a dynamic duo to be sure, formidable together in our randomness and senses of humor. Our holiday appropriately began with me being on the second straight month of a horrible cold. She was ready to eat, drink, and be merry, and I was a sniffling, sneezing, oozing ball of unpleasantness. We made our way from the airport and settled into the hotel, which happened to be fantastic and overlooking the Pantheon, unpacking a bit and catching up on life. Shortly after I also realized I had a very real eye infection. I had noticed the beginnings of it the night before but thought it was just part of the general splendor of my continued illness- which now I believe was an allergy to France. Well, to be on the safe side, I told the consierge that I was in need of a pharmacy for various reasons, one being an eye infection. After he recoiled in horror and crossed himself vigorously, he pointed us in the direction of the closest pharmacy.

Before I go on, you must understand that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are like Sundays in France. If it is holiday, or a Sunday, no one works, no one leaves their homes, and nothing is open- no stores, no markets, and only one pharmacy- usually bordering Egypt and invisible. It is often like trying to find an open needle in a pile of needles on vacation. Luckily, Paris still had signs of life, and we searched for the green blinking neon cross that marked the closest seller of relief.

After almost jumping for joy at the sign of an open pharmacist within walking distance and being given an obscene amount of medication, we popped into a pizza restaurant on the corner and had lunch. To my horror, I could not taste or smell anything, and I managed to choke down some sort of pizza that looked like the same French pizza I have consumed a thousand times, so I just conjured the taste in memory and it probably turned out better than reality. Paris, like Nogent is not lacking in pizza restaurants further proving my theory that the French are obsessed with pizza. The only difference being that they often serve theirs with a half-cooked egg in the middle. Hmmmm.

After filling ourselves with pizza and my eyes with medication, we walked to Notre Dame. Even on a freezing, grey afternoon it never really looses its majesty. I think it is its iconic persona or the history you can palpably feel when you walk up to the exterior, despite the beggars pleading to photo-snapping tourists and the crowds of people that just seem like they don’t belong. When you look at Notre Dame you feel that no modern person should be allowed to stand next to it, in their blinding yellow Northface jackets and overstuffed camera cases. Despite the detail and exterior opulence of the gothic carvings, it has a simple crudeness that says, ‘I have been here longer than you, you think you know me, but you don’t… not really.’ It seems like a place that wishes to be left alone. The interior is bare, dark, solemn and cold. At all times of the year it seems cold, the only reprise being from the brilliance of the rose windows, but their colorful radiance is unnoticeable from the exterior, and they provide more of an illusion of light then actual illumination. Notre Dame stands straight and rigid, a testament to time, like a decorated war veteran at attention, with its uniform of carved medals and odes to what it has accomplished- survival being the highest accomplishment- drawing attention and conjuring questions. Yet on the interior, not much is offered or acknowledged and the only life is a life lived vicariously through strangers accepted as its own.

I would have thought Christmas Eve would have conjured a different image of the cathedral for me- something celebratory, something decorative and wise. But it seemed the opposite. There was a Christmas tree erected in the square, decorated with lights and shiny red baubles, but it seemed a bit of a mockery. The more people that entered the doors, to gawk in silence at the surroundings, smell the damp age of the stones, and crowd the isles with no intention to linger, the more it sighed. It has a beautiful bitterness, and I don’t know why I describe it as such.  I do not discourage visiting, just the opposite. But maybe it was the grey of the day, maybe it was my ill eyes looking upon it, but it is a structure created to torment souls, and it does its job eloquently.

When we parted from Notre Dame, we hopped the metro and made our way west toward the La Defense where I had searched out a Christmas market. Under the Grande Arch, the modern answer to the Arch d’Triumphe, and on a scale that is impressive in itself, were the white tents and warm wine smells I had become familiar with in Strasbourg. We wound our way through the booths of cheese and tried meats, trinkets and toys, sweaters with smiling Santa Claus faces and wooden carvings from Africa. To my disappointment, there were not many Christmas tree ornaments, and that was what we were looking to buy. Exhausted and starving we found a booth that had led us to it with two fingers in our noses. In huge vats a woman was making a concoction of potatoes, cream and cheese and for a ridiculous amount I bought a bowl and we sat down and shared it. Full, and a bit more warm, we strolled around a bit longer then decided there was nothing there we couldn’t live without.

We had grand plans to go to a midnight mass at one of the local cathedrals, but after a warm café dinner of quiche lorraine and a chocolat chaud on St. Germain des Pres, a purchase of two decadent pastries (I decided to save mine in case my power of taste was returned to me for Christmas) and a warm bath, we decided that God would understand if we stayed tucked into our lovely warm room this year…he couldn’t begrudge us for it anyway, we are not catholic!

Mom had brought a tiny Christmas tree with miniature ornaments and tinsel, and a shrunken twinkle lights set that to her dismay did not work. We were both disappointed in the lights (she assured me in her anger that she had even put the batteries in to make sure) because that is our favorite part of the tree. Each year we over-adorn our family tree with thousands of tiny lights just under the legal electrical capacity… or maybe just over. I remember laying in the dark as a child and watching the blinking patterns of color, on..off..on..on..off, the different strands blinking at random. Sometimes it looked like there was order to it- top, middle, bottom, top, bottom, middle- and I, who likes the idea of control, but knows it is only an idea, enjoyed finding the patterns to see how long they would last. Not long… it always went back to being an unpredictable chaotic flash of energy, much like life.

Christmas morning we slept late, no real agenda, no real constraints on time. We opened gifts and to my delight, my nose was in half-working order, so I ate a healthy breakfast of chocolate and caramel covered pretzels, minced pies, and the rest of my pastry, preserved on the freezing windowsill the night before. Like a child with a new toy, I played with my new sleek camera, a replacement for the large digital brick that fed on the life of four batteries at a time, weighed half a ton and had recently decided it would rather take photos with the thematic color of purple. I had taken to calling my old camera Barney because it was a dinosaur who loved all things in a shade of violet.

That afternoon, we enjoyed not having to be anywhere. Both of us were familiar with Paris, but were fascinated by the buildings, the history, and where our wonderings would take us. We walked along the Seine, the enormous grounds of the closed Louvre, and the Champs-Elysse, looking in the windows of closed shops and marveling at the thousands of lights hanging in the trees that flank the wide boulevard leading to the Arc d’Triumphe. The day was bitterly cold, and the wind cut our faces and surged through our clothes, freezing limbs and toes. We often stopped to recharge and find a warm place to stand. Sometimes it was the metro, sometimes it was a café, but we coveted the breaks like two cell phones docked at their charger, and when I could tell the batteries were full we would set off again.

Unlike Christmas Eve, more things were closed Christmas Day, which was expected and normal, but true to a city with a lot of tourists we did find plenty of places open to duck into and thaw. For our Christmas dinner we had reservations at an Italian restaurant (again, can’t seem to get away from the pizza) mainly because it was open, had good reviews, and was serving dinner that night. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to eat more traditional French food, like what I had been eating for three months, but options were limited as French people who would run and cook in the traditional French restaurants would definitely not be working. But I shrugged it off and decided it was an appropriate teaser for our Italian adventure to come.

Our dinner was relaxed and tasty, and although it was Italian it had a prefix menu with three or four courses, and that in itself was very French. I feel you have to experience the magnitude of a real 5 hour French dinner while in France, and you can’t always get that in a restaurant, but you can try.

Afterwards we walked south down Georges V in a cold fog to view the Tour Eiffel. It has always appealed to me more in the dark, with its glittering lights that dance on the hour and its shadow-casting framework. Rather than resembling the miniature duplicate toys they sell on its first level, in the dark it changes constantly, as if it could move or breathe, and it plays off the buildings near by and looks at its own reflection in the Seine. As we approached the river, it came into view- an eerie sight, covered in freezing fog. It was dark, and late, and the top two thirds were hidden in a frozen cloud, as if they had never existed at all- possibly taken a holiday to Prague where they have a scaled down version of the top half.

For Christmas, they install a small ice skating rink on the first level, and although I did not see the rink, it sounded frightful- as I imagined someone building up speed, losing control and sailing over the edge. Above the rink they have installed green lights pointing downward into an upside down funnel-like Christmas tree. I don’t know what the significance was, or if logistically it was easier to do than to attempt stringing the lights upwards or in another color, but we both looked at it with our heads on a tilt for a few minutes and shrugged. I guess green lights strung like a phallice are better than none? I left it as something for France to ponder.

After our brief detour, we hopped on the metro and wound our way back to the hotel to prepare for our journey, by couchette, from Paris to Florence the next evening. We had bought Eurail passes for a week to facilitate getting from Paris to Italy and back and to do our traveling in between. I was a bit nervous about returning to Castiglion Fiorentino, where I had studied for a semester at A&M. I had such fond memories of the place it had become more of a fantasy, and I was afraid any changes would ruin my memories. But I really wanted to take someone there who could share my happiness of the place, and who better than my mom, who had not only this year made my Christmas wonderful but had always made sure my Christmases were wonderful, and that in itself is something not everyone has.