I’m on the 9 line on my way to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. I’ve wanted to go for almost as long as we’ve lived in Paris. My beautiful bride is gone for the month so I decided to take the opportunities to do some of the things I wanted to do for a while now. I love sitting in the last car in the back so I can watch the cars ahead go up, down, left, right as we travel under this glorious city. You never really think about all the hills under the city. The homeless guy asking for money pour mange (to eat), the old woman with a book - an actual, published on paper book. The too loud tourists getting on at Trocadero and the natives giving them the “please shut the fuck up” stink eye that needs no translation. Fucking tourists.
Of course I fell in love with a dog on the metro. It’s a dog on the metro!
Eventually, I make my way to the station with the RER A line and get on a car that is nice and air conditioned. There’s a family of five in the RER with me. They chose this car before me and as I jumped in just as the doors closed I can’t really complain about loud kids. It’s actually quite cute. Momma is teaching the two smallest English using flashcards. Little girl keeps pronouncing are - aré. English is stupid. She seems to have had enough of this shit and is now singing and dancing down the aisle. I thought she’d stop when she saw me noticing, but she did that French thing that they teach their girls early and looked me deadass in the eye as if to say, “say something, I dare you, putain!”
I said nothing, smiled and she pirouetted away singing something beautiful. Everything in French sounds beautiful.
I walk all over letting myself get lost. It sounds silly, but that’s how I learn a city. If the tourists go one way, I go someplace else. There is an unexpected downside to this: I often get mistaken for a native of wherever I happen to visit.
There was a fussy little toddler. I think she was African - her mama was speaking a language to her I couldn’t begin to identify. Anyway she saw me looking at her, I smiled and waved and suddenly she wasn’t fussing anymore and smiled and waved back. I walked on and turned to find her still staring and she lit up, smiled, blew me a bissou (that’s kind of a big deal) and waved so, of course, I did the same. She doesn’t know it, but I love her.
Eventually I make my way to the touristy places. Their touristy for a reason, after all.
I’m standing at the edge of some parc in SGeL looking at the city from a perspective I have never seen.
I can see the Tower, the Ballon, my arrondissement is over there, I know where. It put a lump in my throat because I know all of the times I almost missed this. I thought about all the times I wanted to not be here anymore. About the time or two I tried to make that a reality. I thought about puking up a bottle of pills when I was fifteen and having my stomach pumped fifteen years later when I though crushing them would keep them down.
And I cried.
I can see home, kid. All that noise, all that pain, all that not being wanted bullshit you had to eat - it didn’t break you. It made you an asshole who always punches up. It made you care for and love the other throwaways and miscreants. And eventually it led you here. That’s not Monsieur Eiffel’s Tower anymore, it’s yours.
I remember that I have two goals on this trip: get lost in SGeL, and write or draw something. So I stand right there against that rail and draw.
Did I tell you? I started an online drawing class yesterday because I to create the art for my next kid’s book myself. I used AI for the last few. Yes, I am aware that I am a terrible human being for that. But I make up for it with a plucky can-do spirit and an sparkling smile.
No? Fine. I’m just a terrible human being, but I’m trying to do better today than I did yesterday.
I make my way to a cemetery. I love cemeteries. Some of my first memories are the Beth Israel Cemetery. We lived in a duplex at the end of a cul-de-sac that abutted the wall that kept all the zombies at bay. I would climb that wall and play hide-and-seek with my first best friend, BeeBee. He was a Jewish kid so it was okay. He’s buried there now. Something, something, circle of life.
I turn to go when I see a name I have only ever seen once before. When my wife was one year cancer free I got a tattoo to commemorate it. I had to find the perfect artist - someone who could turn my badass wife into a badass work of art. That artist was a woman by the name of Alayna Magnan. She created my favorite piece.
So when I got the word that Alayna died last month from cancer the irony hurt a little more than you can likely imagine. She did a few other pieces of mine so I went and stood in front the family Magnan sepulcher. No, I don’t know if it was her actual family, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that a creative soul was still here in the art she created, and I thought sending up a little prayer of gratitude to her wherever she is was the least I could do.
I thought about all of that on the ride home. I was thinking about it when I crawled into bed at 3 AM. I put on some DeBussy and drifted off thinking, this life is enough. This life is more than enough.
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You get to support my work while showing your rebellious side. Also, there are some adorable pieces inspired by my pup.
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