#15 Hallo Paris

#15

And so it came to pass that we returned to the city of my childhood. The moment we set foot on French soil it felt eerie for me: here I am, back in my third home for the first time since we left all those years ago. I had some very odd flashbacks & feelings of déjà vu about some very dull things as we wound our way towards Paris. The darkness of the tunnels, the signs telling you city A is this way, city B is that. My eyes kept darting here and there, searching for one that announced to the world: Bailly is this way, but I couldn’t see one.

Among the other mundane memories of childhood that came whirling back towards me were the stark white of the metro tiles, the posters that line the tunnels, the winding staircase descending from the glass pyramid of the Louvre. Every time I saw something like that everything seemed to come to a halt for me: I’ve been here before (well, yeah, Ashleigh, it’s because you have!). In many ways I anticipated most of these things, I knew I’d been around certain areas of Paris but in Luxembourg gardens, a place I’d thought was entirely new to me, I saw the little sailboats floating in the fountain and the children prodding them with long sticks, and suddenly the vaguest of vague memories came back to me. Asking my mum if I could prod them too, being disappointed when there were no sticks around for me. And then, vaguer still, memories of actually chasing the boats around and pushing them here and there. That last one might just be wishful thinking, but who knows, maybe it happened. A lot of Paris was like that for me, remembering this or that. I spent so many summer days in the Gardens of Versailles, so many days wandering the Louvre with guests. At the statue of Nike all I could think was, 'like the shoes!' My Godmother to my childhood self. So much of everything seemed so familiar, in the most distant of ways.

Out at Versailles we were so close to where I used to live I felt a bit lost. I’ve always harbored the wish to go back and see Bailly, and we were so unbelievably close. I could practically hear the giggles, the yelps of childhood as we ran here and there. But that time now is gone I suppose, and I’ve babbled on about it as though this is some sad sort of diary. I remember reading some quote somewhere by someone important (I’ve wracked my brains but I can’t remember) saying that it when we returned to such places it wasn’t the place but the childhood we were seeking. I wonder if it’s true.

Enough of that then! Paris, Paris. We climbed the Eiffel Tower, visited the incredible tomb of Pasteur, took a terrifying bike ride around the sites & headed to art museums in our free time. Musée d’Orsay was one of the most incredible museums I’ve ever had the joy of visiting. It seemed so compact in that old railway station, and yet everywhere you turned there was something fascinating to behold. The Art Nouveau in particular was amazing!

I’ve typed and typed, and at such a rapid pace, that my fingers hurt!

So I’ll be cutting this one short,

Salut!

Ashleigh Kozicz

PS: School: the deadline for the enmodes project and finals loomed in a way I didn’t quite like. Like the prospect of having to give a mangy cat a bath. My doodles became full of people frowning at flies. That’s probably insane. (It is). In the end none of it was so bad, but telling that to someone anxious about finals is probably like telling an arachnophobe in a room full of tarantulas that ‘it’ll be over before you know it!’ (in the cheeriest voice possible). Ah well, we’ve got to be brave as Vikings going forward I guess.