What Do I Miss? Mes Chats et Mes Velos

In 1992, I did a bike tour from Paris to Chartres, and from there to the Loire Valley and Burgundy to Dijon, before heading back to Paris--and, from there, taking a train, boat and train to England to visit my aunt.  

As I was about to head to Blighty, I was away from home for nearly a month.  I spent time with one of my friends, who lived near Paris at that time.  She asked what I missed most about home.

"Ma chat":  my cat.

Charlie I:  The cat who brought me back home.

Now, it  wasn't as if I didn't have friends in New York or anywhere else in the US.  Ditto for family: An aunt, uncle and cousin were still in Brooklyn, and my parents and one of my brothers were still living on the (New) Jersey Shore.  But the previous year had been a very difficult--though, in many ways, fruitful--time for me.  I wrote a lot.  How could I not?:  I was in graduate school, studying poetry.  My marriage had officially ended that year (though, in reality, it was dead long before that), and from Memorial Day until Christmas of 1991, I lost five friends to AIDS-related illnesses and the brother of someone I dated was murdered in the hallway of the building in which I was living.

Max

I was tempted not to go back, even though I had only to take a couple more courses, complete my dissertation (a book of poems) and take my comprehensive exam (which wasn't as difficult as I expected) to complete my degree.  After experiencing the losses I've mentioned, I had a kind of crisis from that happened much earlier in my life.  In retrospect, I realize that dealing with it--in part, by taking the trip I've mentioned--led me, if as indirectly as the route that took me from and to Paris, to the transition I would start a decade later.  

Marlee

Anyway, aside from the pain of past experience, I wanted to leave the United States behind, or so I believed.  Oh--I should mention that an acquaintance of mine was killed during our first invasion of Iraq.  I really believed that the country in which I'd spent most of my life was not, and could not be, a force for good in this world (I still feel that way, often) and it looked like Daddy Bush would be re-elected.  Him!--after eight years of Reagan!  I simply did not want to be associated with such things.  

(Would that I could have seen the future!)

Anyway, it seemed as if the only answer to my friend's question was, indeed, "ma chat".  (I had one at the time.)  She was convinced there had to be something else waiting for me:  she pointed out the family, friends, studies and writing I've mentioned.  And, of course, there were my bikes, although the one I was riding during that trip was quite nice.

The funny thing is I felt almost exactly the same way a couple of days ago, as I was leaving Paris.  In so many ways, my home country, and even my home town, are less tenable than they were nearly a quarter-century ago.  We have had non-stop war for the past fifteen years, and Donald Trump makes Bush The Elder seem like Nelson Mandela.  The idea of leaving is even more tempting than it was then, though I know it will be more difficult than I realized it could be in those days.

Arielle

I am back, for now.  And what did I miss, aside from some people?  Well, Max and Marlee--yes, I have one more cat than I did in those days.  And, today, I realized, I missed my bikes.  After spending more than a week riding a rental--which, as rentals go, was actually pretty good--taking Arielle, my Mercian Audax, for a ride today, with its perfect weather, seemed heavenly.  

So I missed my cats, my bikes and....

So What Do Picasso's Handlebars Really Mean?

The Presidentiad is in full swing here in the US.  If you like to hear lies, double-talk, evasion, babble, euphemism and things that are just purely and simply ridiculous, you can be, in the immortal words of H.L. Mencken, "entertained as Solomon never was by his hooch dancers".

I couldn't help but to think that the Musee Picasso let some candidate's speech writer--or some candidate for some office somewhere--write the commentary for one of the exhibits:

The good folks at Musee Picasso very thoughtfully provided this translation:

When I read the French, the last two sentences caused me to titter, with my fingers covering my lips, in that very discreet Parisienne sort of way.  The English translation made me laugh out loud.  That, of course, gave me away as an American.

So, gee, maybe, just maybe, Picasso's goats were a stand-in for lust and sex.  Really, now?  My first art history professor--a gay man who devoted the last years of his professional life to explicating the homoeroticism in Caravaggio--would be shocked--shocked, I say!--to learn that.

Hmm...I thought--with all due respect to the man and his work--that everything about Picasso had to do with sex, whether in general or about his own lustfulness.  I mean, you don't even have to read two sentences in any biography of him to know that he was a horny guy.

Want proof?  Take a look:

Lest you think that is an isolated example, check this out:

Now you know what this is really about--and it wasn't about a charge at the end of a Tour de France stage!:

Do Places Change, Or Do Journeys Remain The Same?

I'm back in New York but still living on Paris time, at least for today.  That means I couldn't sleep when I got home, fell asleep after opening my suitcase (at least, that's what I think), feeling too tired to fall asleep (or not tired enough to stay awake?) , then falling asleep again by my kitchen table.

In between, I found myself thinking 

My fourth-favorite sculpture from my favorite sculptor.

about the trip, and other things.

Although some things in Paris change, if you go back to it, you'll find more similarities with the City of Light you remember from however-many-yearsh ago when you first visited, or lived or worked, there.  At least, that is how I felt last year--returning after being away for more than a decade--and this year, more than three decades after I first saw the French capital.

In contrast, New York--parts of it, anyway--can change more in a few years than Paris or other cities can change in decades, or even centuries.  I was reminded of that when the former neighbor I encountered in the Cluny recounted going back to our old block recently and noticing how it was "so different" from what we lived in.

In Paris, of course, there are buildings that stood for centuries before Europeans got lost on a trip to India and found themselves in the Americas.  (No, Columbus did not "discover" America!)  But there are also aspects of daily living that haven't changed much, if at all.  Although it's a major, fast-paced city, people still take time to enjoy meals and passing streams of humanity.  Those things happen to a greater degree in other parts of France (at least they did when I saw them about 15 years ago), but there are still lively street scenes that, I feel, are quickly disappearing in New York--and never existed in the first place in other parts of the United States.

And, let's face it, you are never going to see anything like this anywhere in the US:

New bikes might have technology.  But they--save for those made by custom and traditional builders like Mercian--or those, like Mariposa, who are inspired by them--don't have the heart and style of this:

Yes, it's a Peugeot, and many more like it were built.  But it has all sorts of details--which, like cornices on Victorian buildings or harmonies in Mozart sonatas--that are actually functional and not only aesthetic or merely stylistic. 

OK, so I wouldn't have seen a bike like that ridden to victory, or at all, down the Boulevard des Champs Elysees last Sunday.  And its rider wouldn't have dismounted under the Arc de Triomphe to ascend the winners' platform.  But its owner may well have ridden through this:

La Porte St. Denis is one of Paris's "other arcs" (the Porte St. Martin is the other)--and, in my opinion,  more interesting than that more famous one.   And a lot easier to ride.  I know:  I rode by and through la Porte St. Denis (in the above photo) the other day, and I've ridden round and round the other one!

And I went back, and came back.