Heritage

I should know better than to say this, but Paris is France to me. I can almost hear condemnation ringing throughout the French countryside. Well, I am American, and the city of Paris is the city introducing me to France because we live in a world where celebrity dominates, and Paris is a celebrity is […]

I should know better than to say this, but Paris is France to me. I can almost hear condemnation ringing throughout the French countryside. Well, I am American, and the city of Paris is the city introducing me to France because we live in a world where celebrity dominates, and Paris is a celebrity is she not?

Now, I may be weak submitting to contemporary influences, but this is my opinion: to me, all of France thrives in the city of Paris. I don’t know, but the stones making the streets, and buildings were mined from the countryside. They are born of the earth; they represent the French terroir the same soil and climate and topography sustaining the fruits and vegetables and flowers. Smell the lavender while tasting the grapes bearing the richness of the peoples’ countryside. I must taste the grapes only though as I don’t drink wine.

I believe that I have just felt tremors reverberating beneath my seat from such a provincial confession.

Well, I cannot say that I hold any direction while writing this, and I think this appropriate because wandering aimlessly releases schedules and stresses while stifling the need to arrive at destinations. Wandering frees the mind opening the eyes to seeing everything beyond the glare from the screens absorbing us, and I did this during my first visit to Paris many years ago, so I met wonderful people in the markets and shops wanting to teach me their ways of speaking and living while wanting to understand my ways. They were a marvelous collection of generous people smiling before my stumbling expressions, and I hold the memory of them today. I hold the memory of each of them more vividly than any piece of art, or architecture viewed.

That is telling isn’t it when considering the magnificence of art, and design soaking the country of France?

To visit France is to visit the lives of people living as life should be lived. Now, I am not saying living is exclusive to the French, but they do possess a special skill as joie de vivre is not just an expression: it is something held deeply, and I have been lucky to realize that I held this as deeply when sharing life with my parents. In fact, many times, I’ve acknowledged that I could not have realized this without experiencing the French people making Paris. Additionally, I don’t know if I could have felt the comfort that this realization has provided in the wake of my parents’ deaths. So, from this realization, I hold the memories of these French people while saying often that, when standing before the physical absence of my family, I have no home because my family’s life was within the land that I have sold. Yes, they are there as I imagine us being there together, and they are standing beside me despite being gone from the earth that I have sold. Yes, I sold the earth embracing us with our gardens, including a wildflower meadow, as it provided too much pain to be appreciated once standing alone.

I read those words remembering our gardens, and I feel the joy of life that we shared when our lives were lived as one. We are as the people of Paris and all of France as we are born of our terroir as they are born of theirs.

With everything that I have said, I am duty bound to confess, if my name has not revealed me, that I am not French: I am half-Italian, and half- English. My heritage sandwiches the country of France, and I find France being the creamy center of my world as wonderfully rich as its sauces and custards. My mouth is watering, so I tell you that I, as the people of France, was raised with wonderful foods made from the recipes of our ancestors, and many of the ingredients were grown in our gardens. The tomatoes that my father grew were born from seeds that my Italian grandfather brought from Italy. Yes, the first ripest tomato during each growing season was harvested for its seeds; then, those seeds were placed to wax paper and dried stored within the attic for the next growing season. Seasons evolving to decades of care to preserve our heritage, this made me; this makes France, and I know this as I have seen pride within the eyes of its people as they present the fruits of their labor.

Now, I tell you without feeling sadness: this tradition died with my father. Oh, I attempted carrying it forward, but the seeds failed when not receiving the warmth from his touch, and I lamented this many years until realizing that the vines are thriving within me still.

Well, I have wandered too far down the paths of our gardens because I’ve learned to allow myself to be taken. Yes, I must stop as I want to speak of Paris and its inspiration as I’ve written bits about Paris many times. Recently, Montmartre became the location of a French character whom I met within a Chinese restaurant one evening. However, I want to allow a fictional character to speak in her voice as she speaks of the people of Paris as I have spoken of them while writing this piece:

‘I stepped into a market fillin’ the streets of the neighborhood that I was passin’ through. Why, I tell you that there was many a cart, and they were drippin’ with straw and piled high with fruits and vegetables and cheeses. There were rusty buckets of freshly cut flowers perfumin’ the air, and wooden crates holdin’ bottles of wine. My eyes were achin’, and my nose explodin’, and mouth waterin’ from everythin’, but my stomach was grumblin’, so I needed somethin’, and a banana seemed right. Well, I selected one, and the old woman offerin’ it to me asked for her money: I speak little French, so I could not express my unknowin’; instead, I held the money forward and looked to her sparklin’ eyes. Well, I tell you that every wrinkle comprisin’ her crepey expression lifted around her jubilant gaze, and she reached touchin’ my palm with her fingertips liftin’ the coins and tellin’ me their worth. And as she identified them, I repeated her words, and, when she had her money, she held my face between her hands and smiled as fondly as a mother smiles to her newborn baby before kissin’ my cheeks.

What more could be said of Paris and its people?’

Well, I repeat myself in variation: I don’t have a direction with this; however, I can tell you that my memory has delivered me to Paris many times during my life. Even while plucking the dandelions’ greens from the lawn, for my ailing English mother’s luncheon, a task shared with my mother many times, I’ve thought of Paris; I’ve thought of the French people, and I have realized that an ocean separates us, but our heritages connect us.