Rentrer à la maison

Difficile, parfois, de commencer un billet. Ca fait longtemps que je n'ai pas écrit en français, mais les circonstances s'y prêtent. Après tout, la France est au centre de l'actualité en ce moment avec l'élection du nouveau président, même ici, aux Etats-Unis (enfin... au centre de l'actualité internationale, n'éxagérons rien!). 

Sur le plan personnel, je finis une année d'enseignement de français, et je m'apprête à rentrer à Paris. Certaines personnes disent, pour expliquer mon départ que "je rentre à la maison" ("I'm going back home") et, objectivement, ils ont raison. Mais, bizarrement, je ne le vois pas vraiment comme ça, ce retour. Parce que, même si la Pennsylvanie n'est pas mon "home", c'est devenu mon lieu  de vie. Et il y a un petit déracinement qui s'opère en ce moment. Je dis au revoir aux amis qui m'ont accompagné ces derniers temps. Je m'habitue à l'idée que je ne vais plus vivre avec mes colocs, que mes habitudes, bien que formées récemment, vont changer. 

La partie de moi-même qui a été élaborée ici, j'aimerais pouvoir l'exporter. Je ne veux pas être la parisienne que j'étais avant d'embarquer dans cette aventure américaine. Ce que j'aimerais garder de ma vie ici, c'est avant tout un contact humain plus détendu. J'ai appris à être un peu plus simple:  On va boire une bière? Ok! Je te retrouve dans un quart d'heure. J'ai  davantage le sentiment d'assumer qui je suis, et j'espère que la vie parisienne ne m'ôtera pas cette confiance nouvellement acquise. C'est à moi de continuer à m'affirmer, bien sûr. Mais, je connais la capitale et elle peut être dure. Je connais son métro et ces corps qui ne se regardent pas. 

En vivant dans une ville à taille humaine (à Bethlehem, on croise souvent des connaissances dans les commerces), j'ai pu mesurer à quel point c'était agréable d'avoir des repères, et que la proximité, ça peut être chouette. Parce qu'une demi-heure de métro pour voir un pote, ça casse un peu le côté spontané de la rencontre... 

Mais je pense qu'il y a moyen d'allier mon futur mode de vie urbain avec les habitudes que j'ai acquises ici. En rentrant à Paris, je vais m'engager le plus concrètement possible: dans la recherche d'un emploi, dans du bénévolat et des activités. C'est quelque chose que j'ai appris à faire pour moi-même ici, aux Etats-Unis, en partie parce que c'était le seul moyen de faire connaissance avec la ville et avec les gens. J'ai pris des cours de tango, j'ai proposé des cours de conversation, je me suis investie dans mon travail au théâtre, etc. 

Et c'est peut-être ça, le problème avec l'idée de "home" : on le prend pour un acquis, quelque chose de connu, de familier. On fait moins d'effort pour découvrir les facettes cachées de ce "home". Je me lance donc un défi: rentrer à la maison pour faire connaissance avec ma ville natale. Aller à la rencontre des gens et des paysages sans trop de préjugés. C'est ce qui m'a permis de vivre à fond ces trois ans en Pennsylvanie et je pense que c'est ce qui va me permettre de m'épanouir à Paris. 

Bethlehem, PA, USA

Esplanade de la Défense, Courbevoie, France

Danse mirage

Studio au bout d'une allée aux gros pavés séparés par des touffes d'herbe. Un de ces petits coins insoupçonnés, magiques. La porte entr'ouverte du studio donne sur une petite cour. On entend la grosse pluie frapper le sol. L'odeur rappellerait presque la campagne. Pas de bruit de moteur, même en sourdine. Chansons de ralliement des oiseaux alentours.

Et nous, on danse. Sol de bois et corps en fête. Improvisations en tous sens, chorégraphies faciles. Gens de tous gabarits, quatre hommes et un peu plus de filles. Tous différents, et bien contents. D'être là, dans ce petit coin retiré de la ville. Bien contents de danser, en attendant la nuit, dans l'éphémère mirage du Paris parfait.

Campbell Soup revisited

I admit I'm being a bit lazy these days, posting photos instead of writing, but what the hell and do I really need to justify my actions for this blog? Not really. (But, I really do need to work on that whole guilt trip I have about everything these days, but that's another topic and we don't really want to go there now)

Anyway!

Here's the picture of the day, taken near the Rue St Honoré, in Paris.

Paris, unassumingly

I'm sitting in my little room, half-listening to an old man talk about philosophy on the France culture radio station: ..."qui se définit par la défaite des cultures hérétiques en Occident"... A little dense for the morning, but the voice in itself is a form of music, or at least - human presence. I quite like it when I can have the radio on and zone in and out of it.

I went to a very interesting photo exhibit with Nathalie yesterday at the Fondation Cartier (extremely cool building by the way, conceived by the architect Jean Nouvel, same one who made the Musée du Quai Branly). William Eggleston is a (famous, apparently) american photographer who casts a modern and unassuming eye on Paris. That's what makes his photos so refreshing. No unecessary prettiness, but glances of what makes Paris alive with a pretty incredible use of colour.

In his own words : "I approached it (Paris) and am still approaching it as if it is just anywhere". What a great idea! Everyone should do that, instead of refer to Paris with that sickly reverence usually reserved for the dead or the almost dying.

His technique is basically "point and shoot", and he only takes one shot of each subject. So, if he missed the moment, then it's gone. You can feel that energy in his photos, especially when people are within the shot. A working black man repairing the pavement, and looking straight at the camera with a shovel in his hand, and right behind him, his colleague, also looking straight out and pointing. This very narrow perspective is created and forces us to see these people. Quite provocative, in fact. Too bad there weren't more people shots. Many still lives, some very smart and cleverly composed, tending towards abstraction. Others, glimpses of beauty in unexpected places, like the one with the green light reflected on the wet pavement.

I should probalbly also mention his paintings, or graphic work exhibited which would also be commonly referred to as "doodles" if anyone else were making them. At first, I honestly was shocked that they would exhibit doodles from anyone in a museum. But then, when looking at the frames that combined the doodles with a photograph, I changed my mind. Both mediums completed each other, since they were reactions to reality, each in their own way. The photo: an immediate reaction, point and shoot, and the doodle (I really should call it a drawing): a delayed reaction based on the photograph. Kind of cool.

I'm happy I went to see this exhibit (pure luck, it was Nat's idea), because it also tells me that people - artists - want to picture Paris in other ways than the everlasting cliché served to us all the time. They want to desacralise it, make into a stranger that can be discovered all over again.

I'm still trying to figure out where I stand about this city. I still can't figure out if I like it or if I don't. It might sound silly, but this is my home town we're talking about, which also happens to be one of the most popular places on earth. So, the question is, can I not like Paris? Very conflicting relationship.

Somewhere in a notebook, I wrote this, which still applies: "When I came back to Censier, I decided to get some bread, and as I was waiting to cross the road, I looked up at one of the buildings in front of me and there came a feeling of peace, in the sense that at that precise moment, I wasn't fighting with Paris. It was my city, and I liked it."

PS: informative review of the exhibit in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/apr/05/william-eggleston

While walking

Accentuated sense of estrangement as I struggle to truly write what I feel. Only time when thoughts are clear : while walking. But no pen or paper in mid-air, so the thoughts dissolve as the heeled foot hits the pavement with a tap.

Article in the New Yorker about a great writer who died because he tried too hard to write exactly what he felt - David Foster Wallace, the contemporary struggling scribe who ends up hanged in his garage with an unfinished manuscript on the table for his now-widowed wife to read. The suicide of a depressed man who thought salvation resided in writing fiction. It didn't work out but then, he attempted to write a book solely focused on boredom. There's no harder theme than that, I don't think.

Would be better if I could not identify with his story and his fate. Not saying that I'm adept at hanging but, you know. It's not about the death, more about the struggle. He didn't succeed in his endeavour. Everyone might have said he was great and meant it. If he didn't believe himself, the hype really didn't matter.

The wind last night was steady and slightly strong. Clearing the head and giving that night time its special song. And I thought about a theme for a book. Where a woman can't love because of her fear of dying. And I thought about Wallace and I thought at every tap of the heeled foot - some that stayed, some that faded.

Memories, not messing up and strikes in Paris

Today, there are a few things to talk about.
First of all, my dream. I dreamt I was back in Ireland and saw one of my friends again, and was so happy I climbed to the top of his shoulders and just stayed there, looking at Dublin from his height and touching his curly hair. I was happy.

Maybe that dream emerged from the fact that I miss being in Ireland, and that with St Patrick's day, I'm reminded I could actually go back. But I feel like I can't. It's weird. But the dream maybe also emerged from the fact that I watched this film last night - Before sunset. These two previous one night lovers meet again after 9 years, and walk around Paris, talking. The film is about a lot of things, love and reality and how life can be unforgiving and imperfect. But it is also about a memory - the memory of a perfect time. And refreshing the memory is very painful for both of them, because now they're in reality.
That's a little bit how I feel about the whole going back to Ireland thing. Things have changed, and I'm not sure I'm ready to accept the change. But on the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be so melodramatic about it.

The other thing I wanted to say was that Seattle Rep. got my application, so that means I didn't mess up by putting the wrong documents in the wrong envelopes. Fiou! That's a relief!

And the last thing is that today is National Strike day (grève générale) in Paris and in france in general. So, as a hommage, a few pictures from a previous strike: the Universities and research community (they're still striking).