Waking up in Paris, what better life is this?
Tiny boulangerie five steps across the little empty street from our hotel. Fresh baguette, and chocolate chip muffin which Bess thinks is the best thing she's ever had in her life.
The sun is shining, the city is ours.
Emma finds the bus that takes us to the Eiffel Tower. We had booked a tour before we left to up to the top then found out our tour was with a scammy company so we quick dumped that and got refunded before ever leaving the states. The kids are so excited to cross the bridge and see this towering steel friend with solid fat steel legs. We gather underneath her, gaping. We find a sidestreet away from Little Cairo that is at the base of the tower, selling mini versions of the tower. The sidestreet looks like a Woody Allen movie with the tower majestically towering ha through the throng of trees and creamy dreamy wedding cake carved buildings. The kids take a million pictures here, and we help an indian mom force her two daughters to put their arms around each other for a picture by actually lifting their arms and arranging them into loving sisters.
I get a hot soda for 2 euros bargain notatall and we gaze and stand in awe. Bess finds little tents by the bridge where people are selling necklaces so we buy some for friends and Nathan searches for falafels, his new passion, which just looks like a pitafull of impending diarrhea to me. We sit by the river waiting for the bus, buying condoms with the eiffel tower on them, noticing the heat and that the bus stop seems to be getting more and more crowded. The bus finally comes and we cram on to an already crammed bus and this is one of the funniest moments on our trip which we immediately photo. We are a mass hot casualty in this bus, 95 degrees, about 50 thousand people, most with no deodorant, all lurching along the Seine held up by the skin of the person next to you because we are all touching. If we don't have Covid by now, this is the icing on our Covid miracle. The bus keeps stopping but no one can get on, everyone laughs (not the people waiting but us lucky ones still hitching a ride).
We get off at the bridge by Musee D'orsay, the big old train station made into an impressionist museum. I'm so excited because we get to see Van Gogh's Starry Night so I'm running pretty much while the girls and Bruce stop on the bridge to buy a lock, sharpie on their names and the names of someone they love, lock it onto the bridge and throw the key into the river. The girls know we have a timed entry so they come back quickly and Bruce
where's bruce
why is he buying a lock he's already all locked up with that girl
Finally I'm just alone on this street corner wondering what happened, and Nathan comes back from the museum where the rest of them are waiting in the heat and I Charlie Chaplin explain with silent movie waving arms that Bruce is lost on the bridge and not answering any texts so he jogs across street and up over the bridge and I wring my hands and finally Bruce is secured and they are both running back, up and into the museum
We get B a wheelchair because he has to rest his legs and then we run up to see Starry Night and I get in the room and it's NOT starry night the one I drew for years with third graders at Stonehurst, but A starry night, a different one the real one is in New York. Dude.
Still we love Van Gogh. We don't love Tolouse Lautrec he's just so messy. We laugh about what makes art. We get into the elevator all elevators are shoeboxes in France, and we're talking about Van Gogh writing letters to his brother to please help him get more paint, he needs paint he uses so much paint and his brother sent money for paint so we could see it right now right here in the future. Thanks brother Theo.
We pose like art, Bess falls over from artisboring tiredness, Bruce finally in a moment of true Old Bruceness lifts her up and carries her out of the statuary like a broken roman goddess, trailing her hands. B and Nathan have the best time because of the wheelchair combined with Nathan's art history class, the two of them look at every painting and Nathan chauffeurs them through the place with commentary, style and knowledge and happily no leg usage.
We peek at Notre Dame from a bridge since it's under construction, and then have a nice fight in front of Shakespeare and Company because people want to eat a 20 dollar per person lunch and I want to grab bread and keep going. They win, I eat another overpriced pizza while the waitress gets every order wrong but at least it takes a long time and is expensive. Barry says it's good to sit and watch people and I say yes, but not these people. Some other people, later in the day, when I can stop and sit.
On our way back Nathan Bruce and I split off again because the other three want to stop at a different store, and we'll meet up at the metro. Bruce Nathan and I wander, finding a hidden street packed with souvenirs and falafels and ice cream and curvy alleyways and secrets. We like the sidestreets where a tiny car will sometimes come through and you have to flatten against the building. We get a crepe for Nathan and Bruce talks more about that girl and that but what if he's gay though and then we're late getting to the metro but we meet up with rest and head back to our little white hotel.
Everyone rests but I tell Nathan I want to do the laundry so we find a place that is open, it's 7 pm, and we pack up all the laundry from everyone like a service and walk to a lavarie and figure out the machines in french and the detergent from a little store on the way, and we pile in french laundry and eat french bread on a cobblestone street and imagine living off this street where there are codes to get into the garage looking doors and obviously these are all walk ups, 3 or 4 stories. This would be your life, little cobblestone street in Paris.
I love Paris, but I don't think I could live in any city. For reals. I need to drape my whole self over a countryside where I can be barefoot and see horses eating on green hills near a creek. That's my Anne of Green Gables self. So even in Paris, I love this place, I love the language, so I will keep it in my heart but I belong in the wild.
I don't remember eating that night, I'm not sure what we did. All I remember is that it was 10:30 and we were all so tired but it was our last night all together in Paris and so I said hey let's go see Sacre Coeur, I've never seen it and the guy on the train said it was his favorite spot. We could sleep but Nathan says we won't remember sleeping, we'll remember this but Bess says she remembers all her sleeps. As we're leaving Bruce says wait I wanna go so we sigh a bit because when you take him outside he is like a deaf toddler but we love him and we all take off. What I like about Emma and my plan for our trip is that we did every thing exactly in the time allotted and it was planned and executed exquisitely and there was even time for weird side things like the museum we didn't think we'd have time for and the Sacre Coeur which wasn't even on the radar. I like these kids because they always say, should we? and then Yes.
Up to the funicular, up the sweaty glass box to the Dome building atop the hill, and all of Paris strewn below. Literally packed with people like a concert just got out, everyone looking at the night sky and the Paris skyline. People selling beers and Nathan telling them no, I'm celibate. We breathe in the view, the church, the swarm, the people, the heat. Our feet are killing but we walk all the steps down and then we're trying to figure out the way home that looks the least like the dark street we're standing on near a group of people who look like they perform murders and then have coffee after. We lost Bruce for awhile but then he came back, we always wait so he's not lost is Paris, I guarantee if there's one thing we got really good at on this trip is to be standing at the top of a cobblestone street in a group, looking irritated and waiting for him to show up. We decide to bus it over to the Eiffel Tower cause it sparkles every hour til midnight so we get there at 11:57 and we see that all lit up, and even though we don't realize that the OTHER side of the tower is the less ghetto side, the grassy side, I guess it doesn't matter when you're looking up at Paris sparkling. Bess said that was her favorite memory of the trip. We navigate our way home amidst nightlife Paris, people spooling back into their homes, and you know it's vacation when you're looking for a bus past midnight.
We have to pack all our newly laundered stuff so we can early do the Louvre before catching a train for Versailles in the morning.
But somehow, it's our last night, so after packing I wander downstairs and the courtyard with the open sky is so pretty I lie on the ground looking up. Then I can't have them miss this so I barefoot it up the stairs and knock on the girls' door, and we end up in the courtyard after midnight, lying on the grass and looking up at the stars and the jagged French building tops, all of us except Bruce talking about our trip, and whether we're happy, what we could do better, how are we doing. We ask B if he's happy Bruce is here even though he's having trouble doing any of the stuff with us, he's troubled with who he is and how he fits in the family even though he's always been there since birth, he's talking endlessly about this girl and then not ever satisfied with the talking results and so talking again the next day, same bat channel.
B says he is so glad all the kids are there.
So we say ok, then, B. You got your wish. We're happy then.
I like that our family has gathered in this movie set of a grassy courtyard and that we got to be here, and that we have a real live home where we can go back to and belong to with this cemented lovely in our pocket, forever.
