At first I thought it was jet lag. Flying from Winnipeg to Paris,
adding seven waking hours to my internal clock, then adding even more hours
by staying up till daybreak. When I phoned my wife I told her, "I'm not
on Winnipeg or Paris time. I think I'm set for Bangkok or Tokyo, it's probably
still early evening there."
It wasn't jet lag keeping me up. It was Mira, my twenty year old daughter. She was showing me "her Paris", hopping bars till two AM with a crowd of Eurokids, then packing into a late night club till the Metro started up again at six. By the second night of carousing my sense of time had warped far more than half a day. It had warped half my lifetime. I was in my twenties again, reliving a youth I had never had.
I never knew this Paris of hers. It was not the one that I remember. I visited Paris in the 70's like so many others, unshaven and unwashed, clomping down the Champs d'Elysee in hiking boots, with a tent and sleeping bag tied to my back pack. I must have looked like an explorer searching for some unmapped world. Paris was almost that unknown to me. I was astounded by its cathedrals and art galleries, lost in its subways and alleyways, and spoke only enough French to sound like a complete idiot.
My daughter, on the other hand, arrived in Paris fluent from her French immersion schooling. She had a work permit and an agency to help her find a job in a cafe or hotel. She found a hostel with no curfew. She found the hidden haunts of artists and activists. She even found free public toilets. I was mightily impressed.
Then she decided that her true desire was a job as a journalist. Months passed. So did her savings. I offered my parental wisdom. I told her, "Let's be realistic. You've only had two years of journalism school. You're wearing yourself out for something out of reach. You'll just get hurt and disappointed."
A week later, she got a job as a journalist. And I realised that most of my parental wisdom was merely advice on how to fail gracefully.
However, I used what was left of my wisdom to find a way to compensate. Spend an excessive amount of money on airfare then toss around more money setting up her apartment and taking her out to restaurants. Voila. A parent still has something to offer.
I land just in time for the weekend. We soon join her friends and I sense that getting a job was not Mira's only yearning. Certain names of young men keep coming up. In fact everyone seems to have his or her own certain name, certain person. Or two. Her whole crowd has a restless energy that keeps them moving through the night. Murmurs, glances, knowing laughs, sudden tears, flashes of temper. There is more than clouds of smoke in this, their favourite club. There's fire.
All this passion is fascinating stuff but easier to experience at a distance, especially, the distance of middle age. I join Chuck from Montana, the quiet one in the group who is nursing a beer by the window. He has turned his back on the dancing and singing. He's looking outside at the rain falling on the cobblestones.
"So what do you do back home?" I ask.
"I hike," he answers. "All over." He talks of camping in the Grand Canyon, back packing through the Rockies and the deserts of the South West.
"Not the same kind of roaming around in Paris, eh?"
It takes another beer before Chuck answers. "There was a woman," he says. "A Parisian. She came out for a vacation at a cattle ranch where I was working."
She and Chuck fell in love. Then she returned to Paris. He followed her. They tried to stay together but nothing was the same.
"I didn't fit in, not here, not with her friends. This place has been Hell."
"So, it's over between you?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "It's been over for almost a month. We don't see each other. We don't even talk. Soon, I'm heading home." He looks down the empty street as if someone might appear. "But I keep needing to say something. I wouldn't say it to her, just to one of her friends so it'll get back to her. My trouble is... I don't know what I need to say."
A memory surfaces. Paris. April 1971. I was wandering alone through the Louvre, brooding about someone I was no longer with, a woman travelling another route with another man. I walked through room after room of life sized statues and courtly paintings. Perfect works of beauty. Nothing moved me in the least, not till I gazed past them at a young woman, far less perfect but far more beautiful than any peice of art. I watched as she brushed aside her hair and whispered something tender into her companion's ear.
I look to my daughter as she dances with her friends. Yes, I remember this Paris of hers, after all. Paris, city of longing.
END
Winnipeg Free Press May 10/98