Paris Journal, Postscript
Thursday 7/13
Hard to believe we've been back for almost two weeks already. I was itching to get home and to sleep in my own bed by the time we got on the plane, and really for the last few days of the trip, and so was Nicholas (though the same wasn't quite true for Suzanne, who wept on our last night). But perhaps inevitably, the return has been a bit of a letdown in some ways. Work, bills, home repairs, lawn maintenance--it was all still here waiting for us, and though Branford is a nice little town it can't quite match the glories of Paris. Of course we do have the beach, the water, the breezes, and all the comforts of home--but it doesn't help that it's been really hot, the breezes have been scarce, and the jellyfish have come in about six weeks early this year, making it impossible to swim at our neighborhood beach.
Already we have talked about whether we can swing Paris again next year--but that remains to be seen. In the meantime I'm hoping that what Hemingway says will prove true, that Paris will turn out to be "a moveable feast." What he actually writes, in a passage from a letter to a friend that became the epigraph to his book, is this:
If you are lucky enough to have lived
in Paris as a young man, then wherever you
go for the rest of your life, it stays with
you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
I will pass over the delicate question of whether we were "young" during our time there, observing only that youth is relative. And I'll assume you don't have to be a man to get the benefit. The little matter of whether a stay of five weeks constitutes "living in Paris" is also a bit tricky (certainly Hemingway was in residence a lot longer), but I like to think we were there long enough to pick up at least a bit of the real flavor of things.
Still, I'm left wondering what exactly Hemingway means when he calls Paris a moveable feast that stays with you the rest of your life, and what exactly, if anything, the concept might mean for us. Hemingway's memories of living in Paris are deeply bound up with being poor and happy and deeply in love with his first wife, and with all the good writing he got done there and his coming of age as an artist--and all those things are very personal and specific to the unfolding of his particular life. Some of the best parts of the book (and ones that especially resonated for me) are about the act of writing, the discipline it takes and the wild ups and downs of the writing life. At one point (I can't find the passage now) he says, roughly, that Paris is the city best "organized" (that's a definite quote) for living as a writer. And though we inhabited a different Paris than Hemingway way did, and though I can hardly call myself a writer in same sense that he was one, I can still understand what he meant by this. In Paris the appreciation for things aesthetic runs deep. The city itself is beautiful and alive, and the people there care deeply about food and wine and art and books. When I was there, the act of writing felt natural, like breathing, and I did a helluva lot of it. That's been hard to sustain since I got back. But having experienced that way of living, and having fallen under its spell, I'm hoping that I can continue to draw on this experience, this knowledge, for sustenance, and that I can carry forward some of the inspiration I experienced in Paris into my life here. I hope that this will be true for all three of us, each in our own way but also together as a family. That's the moveable feast I'd like us to be able to continue to savor.
Hard to believe we've been back for almost two weeks already. I was itching to get home and to sleep in my own bed by the time we got on the plane, and really for the last few days of the trip, and so was Nicholas (though the same wasn't quite true for Suzanne, who wept on our last night). But perhaps inevitably, the return has been a bit of a letdown in some ways. Work, bills, home repairs, lawn maintenance--it was all still here waiting for us, and though Branford is a nice little town it can't quite match the glories of Paris. Of course we do have the beach, the water, the breezes, and all the comforts of home--but it doesn't help that it's been really hot, the breezes have been scarce, and the jellyfish have come in about six weeks early this year, making it impossible to swim at our neighborhood beach.
Already we have talked about whether we can swing Paris again next year--but that remains to be seen. In the meantime I'm hoping that what Hemingway says will prove true, that Paris will turn out to be "a moveable feast." What he actually writes, in a passage from a letter to a friend that became the epigraph to his book, is this:
If you are lucky enough to have lived
in Paris as a young man, then wherever you
go for the rest of your life, it stays with
you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
I will pass over the delicate question of whether we were "young" during our time there, observing only that youth is relative. And I'll assume you don't have to be a man to get the benefit. The little matter of whether a stay of five weeks constitutes "living in Paris" is also a bit tricky (certainly Hemingway was in residence a lot longer), but I like to think we were there long enough to pick up at least a bit of the real flavor of things.
Still, I'm left wondering what exactly Hemingway means when he calls Paris a moveable feast that stays with you the rest of your life, and what exactly, if anything, the concept might mean for us. Hemingway's memories of living in Paris are deeply bound up with being poor and happy and deeply in love with his first wife, and with all the good writing he got done there and his coming of age as an artist--and all those things are very personal and specific to the unfolding of his particular life. Some of the best parts of the book (and ones that especially resonated for me) are about the act of writing, the discipline it takes and the wild ups and downs of the writing life. At one point (I can't find the passage now) he says, roughly, that Paris is the city best "organized" (that's a definite quote) for living as a writer. And though we inhabited a different Paris than Hemingway way did, and though I can hardly call myself a writer in same sense that he was one, I can still understand what he meant by this. In Paris the appreciation for things aesthetic runs deep. The city itself is beautiful and alive, and the people there care deeply about food and wine and art and books. When I was there, the act of writing felt natural, like breathing, and I did a helluva lot of it. That's been hard to sustain since I got back. But having experienced that way of living, and having fallen under its spell, I'm hoping that I can continue to draw on this experience, this knowledge, for sustenance, and that I can carry forward some of the inspiration I experienced in Paris into my life here. I hope that this will be true for all three of us, each in our own way but also together as a family. That's the moveable feast I'd like us to be able to continue to savor.
posted by Steve Shoemaker at 10:22 AM
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