It
is 10AM. The sky is clear, streaked with strips of wispy clouds and
when the wind picks up it is strong and bitterly cold. I stand across
the street, in a park opposite the coach station, looking down onto a
giant motorway where cars pass underneath.
Except this time, I am not alone. Behind me my sisters are standing,
in the pale morning sunshine, chatting to each other. I steal a
glance at the horizon, a moment all by myself.
Paris,
of all the places I had ruled out. But after all that had happened
over three months, here I was. And it wasn't so bad. In fact, it was
still mysteriously beautiful to me. It suddenly occurred to me that
whatever bad that happened, experiencing Paris would never get old.
It was timeless, exciting and beautiful.
As
you look at the city, early in the morning, on a Sunday when everyone
sleeps and only the tourists straggle through the Tuileries Gardens,
amble through the fiery leaves that pave the banks of the Seine and
stand before the diamond shaped pyramids that flank the Louvre gazing
in admiration at the beauty before them, you realise that Paris is
very special, and very unlike other cities in terms of its beauty.
But it
is mysterious to me that such a place, whose ancient buildings and
cobbled streets, jet-black lamp posts and delicate patisserie shops
can also contain the filthiest train stations, the foulest smelling
Metro tunnels and the largest rats known to France. It is a mystery
to me that just beyond the invisible border which separates Paris
from the infamously less beautiful suburbs (the 'banlieue'), there is
complete lack of charm, of elegance and romance. The train ride home
brings me through into a land that is a world entirely different to
the city which has somehow charmed and tricked the world.
“The
most romantic city in the world!”
“The
capital of elegance!”
“The
hub of all culture.”
The
difference between these two Metro maps, and the difference between
the two geographical maps, is quite significant. London is a big maze
of Tubes, buses, cars, bikes and trains which lead out into 'Greater
London'.
Whereas Paris...
Paris
just stops. As soon as that invisible boundary which signifies the
ends of the city, you are no longer 'in Paris'. You aren't even
'Parisien' any more. You're in the 'banlieue'. (a word which doesn't
have a very nice connotation). Some of the 'banlieues' are nicer than
others, of course. Versailles, where the deceased monarchs castle
still reigns proudly, is a suburb which is more beautiful than any I
have seen yet.
But
take the Line D, south of Paris, past stations such as Villeneuve St
Georges, Evry Courcouronnes and the very best of them all,
Corbeil-Essonnes (which sounds a lot like 'corbeille' which is 'bin' which gave me the new nickname for it: 'the Bin of
Essonnes') and you realise that here, everyone's expectations and
standards are lower. There isn't a whole lot of beauty in these
slightly run-down suburb towns, least of all in the area of public
transport. They're dirtier, poorer and not romantic in the slightest.
However,
I have spent more of my time over the past three months in these
towns, passing through and waiting for the elusive buses and briefly
chatting with strangers who live here too. And the day that I found
my feet was the day when I took the train out of Paris, transported
myself away from the breathtaking view of the Sunday morning skyline
in the most romantic city there is – that was the day when I ended
up in the suburbs, in a small and dim apartment surrounded by a
family of African strangers whose love and openness was infectious.
So
did I find my feet? I come back to my senses and realise that my
sisters behind me are calling me, calling me up out of my reverie,
telling me that it is time to move, time to get going.
The
time to move, the time to get going, the time to walk to yet another
station, another Metro stop and another monument or fascinating
corner of this exclusive world. This has become the mantra I am forced to
adopt every time I set foot in Paris. If you are not moving in Paris, there is nowhere to even sit. The solution to this? Keep moving.
And
as I walk the streets with my sisters, it occurs to me that I don't
know Paris at all. And
the truth is, I will never know Paris. No-one ever does, fully. Once I met someone in the south of France, hundreds of miles and almost an entire world apart from Paris, who told
me:
"Paris
is a city that moves. People go there to study, then to work and
after two years, they leave. There's nothing left to see after two
years, nothing left to experience. The reason Paris is so good is
because the population changes every two years."
And
as you look on at the city, even after a weekend I get restless. The
same cafés, the same monuments, the same tourist shops selling the
same tacky souvenirs at every corner...and there isn't anywhere to go
to escape this madness.
Except
for the suburbs.
Life
goes on in the suburbs. Families live, schools run, children grow up
and the communities build their lives. There is solidarity and there
is semblance of stability. The constant movement of Paris is what
scares me sometimes, makes me feel that there is no identity to it.
Its identity has been formed around the ideals, the flocks of famous
writers, actors, actresses, politicians, hell everyone has
been to Paris at least once in their life! But who can say that they
have never moved on from it?
There
is a song, by Maurice Chevalier, which sums up Paris's reputation in what seems to
be a fairly accurate description:
Paris
sera toujours Paris !
La
plus belle ville du monde
Malgré
l'obscurité profonde
Son
éclat ne peut être assombri
Paris
sera toujours Paris !
Plus
on réduit son éclairage
Plus
on voit briller son courage
Plus
on voit briller son esprit
Paris
sera toujours Paris !
Three
months ago, I looked out onto the beautiful city skyline and tried to
contain my excitement. I was so convinced in that moment that I was
going to find my feet. But my feet weren't in Paris, not where the
tourists' heels clicked, not where the students filed in and out on a
yearly basis – not even in the cafés where waiters and waitresses'
black leather shoes squeaked, preparing to squeak away as soon as
they got sick of the same routine serving tiny espressos on
uninspiring round tables.
The
land beyond Paris, the somewhat excluded neighbouring towns where
life went on, where families grew together and communities held
themselves together with what they had, that was where my feet had
landed. And there were many moments of frustration, of undecided
emotion at what life had handed me, living in these communities.
I
am brought back to my sisters, who are saying goodbye to each other
as one of them gets on her bus to London. I wave and hug her, as we
promise each other to experience Paris once more, in the spring when
she gets a chance to come back. Because even after a weekend, there
are things we have not seen.
Sometimes,
I tell myself the next day when everyone has left and I am getting on
the train alone to go back to my small village, sometimes, it's
hard to understand why you have ended up where you are. When you're
bustling around, travelling from A to B, rushing in and out of the
two worlds which represent the same place, you don't understand which
one you belong to.
Sometimes its very hard living somewhere you never
expected or wanted to be living in.
Sometimes
the bad moments outweigh the good moments. Solving your problems on
your own, in spite of language barriers, waiting for elusive trains
and buses, sorting out grown-up things like social security,
insurance and installing phone lines, understanding terms and
conditions in a foreign language, receiving yet another bill for a
service or charge you did not expect (because you were struggling to
understand the complex vocabulary that was thrown at you and never
fully explained) and trying to find your identity in all of this,
often all of the above being done whilst fighting back tears...tears
of frustration, exhaustion and unrest.
That
is what the lecturers did not tell us about in preparation for our
year abroad. But if they had, perhaps we wouldn't have believed them
anyway. No one could believe that spending a year abroad would entail
some of the most difficult and loneliest moments of your life; the
connotation of a year abroad is much like the connotation of Paris.
You are presented with the romantic image; an unreal paradise which
in reality can't possibly live up to the expectations.
The
year abroad is all you can think about, but what happens when you are
actually faced with the reality? It's kind of like looking at Paris's
skyline on a cold but clear Sunday morning, where all is calm and it
looks exactly as you imagined it to always be. But the reality is so
incredibly different, worlds apart from what the tourists see.
Paris
will always be Paris, sings Maurice Chevalier; the most beautiful
city in the world. In spite of its deep mystery, its radiance will
never burn out.
Paris
will always be Paris, the more you darken its lights, the more it
shines on courageously; the brighter its spirit shines.
Paris
will always be Paris.
