Walking in Montparnasse

Getting Lost

Montparnasse is, or seems to be, less touristy than the area that I’m living in (16e). There are more supermarkets, practical stores; stores for life instead of entertainment. People walk with intention, giving light to and isolating the few tourists who look up, wide-eyed. It’s all new for them. They look up in awe. Awe of the unknown. Awe of the new. Those who are from here, look down, for to them, the monotony of concrete and Parisian architecture is all the same.

A woman, middle-aged and blending in well: her clothes are dark, her hair is tied up neatly in a ponytail. She’s un-obtrusive, merely becoming apart of the backdrop to my Paris. “Ou est-ce que la gare?” She’s asking me for directions. Little does she know how lost I am. Ironically I know where the train station is. I point her in the general direction of the station, murmuring my broken French. The woman stares at me and moves on. She’s figured me out. She knows I can only be of minimal help.

Walking along, I search for the street on my page. At a stop walk I spot a woman carrying a baguette in her bag. I figure she’s headed home. She probably knows the area. I ask her for directions. She looks up for a second, thinking. She’s searching for the English word for train station I think, eventually just shrugging and continuing to walk. I can’t blame her. I’m interrupting her day and more than that, not abiding with her norms: speaking French and eating baguettes. I give up on following the directions given and instead go into a small museum: Musée Jean Moulin.

Tour Montparnasse

Some Museum in Montparnasse 

The museum is small, centered around wars and the French military. It’s filled with posters-similar to ones of Uncle Sam, but with slogans less direct than the “I Want You!” That ‘good ol’ American know-how.’ We don’t waste time. The French are much more polite, or at least subtle in regard to propaganda. 

The museum emulates pride in a way I’m only familiar with as American. Some song plays out overhead, the French in the museum point excitedly. War brings out pride. It has to. War needs support or else it’s just a game sure to be lost. Pride fuels the respect granted to war-a respect that validates the violence. Iconic, legendary, the people in these pictures-these war heroes have a one up on me. They have been apart of something bigger than me-bigger than the entirety of my immediate world.  

Stepping out of the museum, the reality of the city settles back in-the hustle that comes with the 21st century. One cannot hear anything really, only background noise-noise that consolidates everything-all individual conversations blend into a monotonous 3 noises: cars, people, and the wind. 

Cartoon in the Musée Jean Moulin

Getting Lost. Cont'd

Being lost, I’m left with nothing to do but look around. A pair identical twins sits near a stand eating baguettes. I guess they really do start them early. France: A nation of baguettes. These girls are beautiful in a way only young girls are-beauty that doesn’t ask or strive to be noticed. Beauty that strives in its genuine nature. Their parents are MIA, or one of the bustling bodies searching for information-train times, etc. 

Girls eating baguettes 

Suddenly I become hungry. Hunger always seems to work like that. You’re fine until you’re not, and once you’re not, food is the only objective. Walking over to a row of carts I’m forced to choose between a crepe stand or a baguette. The men eye me down, waiting to see how ‘local’ I really am. Butter and sugar smeared on a crepe sounds perfect-the exact comfort any lost tourist needs. But I refuse. “Un sandwich aver jambon s’il vous plait.” You killed it Emily. You fooled them.

“Five euros.” The man answers in English. I haven’t fooled anyone. My accent might as well be dripping in red, white and blue. Part of being somewhere new-somewhere you’re not familiar with though is feeling outcasted. By being isolated you’re forced to see everything to a much deeper level, for one is not immersed, but rather observing. Observing the people, interactions-culture. It’s weird that I feel outcasted, considering they are speaking to me in English-my comfort zone. I guess it’s being outcasted from the general culture-the country as a whole. 

I sit, eating my sandwich, watching the Montparnasse train station; Montparnasse at its most hectic. A couple is saying goodbye. They’re young…real young. The girl still holds the awkwardness that comes at the tail end of puberty-just before it drips off and exposes the confidence intrinsic to a woman. The girl smiles, revealing her braces. The couple's public display of affection is one only capable of those who have never been hurt. They don’t have caution yet. They’re not wary of showing the world their happiness. They have no fear of jinxing their passion. They’re not afraid of love yet, embracing it fully. They haven’t experienced deception yet; men with game, or women with agendas. 

Men who have ‘game’ tend to be able to charm many. It’s deception, transforming yourself into what you need to be in that moment. I guess everyone sacrifices apart of themselves around different people, though. 

Louis keeps asking me to hangout. For the last couple years, real relationships haven’t interested me. How can I accept the responsibility of another’s reliance, when I myself am just learning the responsibility of relying on myself?

The Boulangerie Woman 

I hope I never have to rely on anyone. There’s a solid amount of homeless people in Paris. 
Regardless of whatever argument one may make as to why Europe is ‘so much better’ than the US, it’s undeniable that sadness and suffering occurs here too. 

Walking, I give my leftover change to an older woman who sits outside a bakery. Every morning she sits, leaning against a pole. Her clothes, although upon a closer look, reveal fine cloth, give the appearance of rags. Placing a .20 piece in her cup she looks up at me, her eyes not holding a look of surprise or relief, but rather duty. She grins. “Merci. Vous avez gentille.” 

The last time I gave money to the homeless was in New York. He was older, not even begging, but just sitting, looking to the floor, giving up on something; giving up on everything. I gave him five dollars. I understood him. Those days when you can’t get anything right. When everything feels attainable, but not in your present mindset. Trying to alter your mindset you just end up more confused; overwhelmed in questioning the most productive way for you to perceive your world. Seeing the bill in his cup, his whole demeanor changed. His eyes actually changed, from empty, blank, to revived. He nodded and looked up at me, crinkling his eyebrows in surprise. “Thank you.” 

I suppose I was expecting this same sort of transformation with this elderly woman. Maybe it’s just that I gave her less than I had given that man. Maybe people in Paris are kinder and receiving coins isn’t foreign to her. Maybe she was just having a good day, but I couldn’t help feeling that she expected I would give her that coin. She knew and I knew that walking away from a begging woman in the city I was raised to over-romanticize-a city in which I was now part of-was not going to happen. I would, subconsciously of course, give a large amount more to simply uphold this facade: an image of myself living in Paris, fitting into Paris.

I finish my sandwich and realize I’m on my own again. No more hunger; no more distraction. I jump on the metro, getting off at the Argentine stop. Walking out of the train, familiarity surrounds me. I walk the route I walk everyday, passing the fruit stand I stop at every morning. The man who works there-an older man, whose hands are calloused and white from working in the cold all day, waves at me. “Bonjour mademoiselle.” 

I’m a tourist in Montparnasse, but here I’m home. Here I can look down. Here I know where I am. I know the people. I am the woman with the baguette. 

Paris is just distance, really. Distance from a world I’ve been so confined in. And with distance comes clarity. A clarity of who I am, what I want, and how I treat people. 

At the same time, it’s just a matter of time until I become confined in this new world, making a life in Paris-making Paris home. 

With distance also comes missing my family. That’s been hard. I love my family. I’d give them my soul if I could. Without them I’d be nothing.