“Bom dia a todos! Tudo bem?” // Good morning everyone! How are you? Joseph and I are doing really well. We were eight weeks in Paris, then back home in Santa Luzia for the summer. Now we are headed back to Paris for a few weeks. I have been in what I call an “existential pupa“1 for quite some time. Funny, isn’t it. What you expect is not often what life delivers. It’s a Rolling Stones’ truth (enjoy a listen), isn’t it? Life turns out a whole lot more shades of gray than a singular dazzling this or an absolute dire that. Of course, there are those as well.
That was cryptic, wasn’t it? I will explain, of course. But probably in far too many words. Lol! But, first, “say what, you guys were in Paris for eight weeks?”
You might remember from the last post that in October (2022) we purchased a small apartment in Paris. We were back there this Spring to “encourage” the completion of the renovation as well as to unpack and to feather our little nest in The City of Lights. The trip was physically exhausting but, of course, equally rejuvenating, exciting and fun.
The apartment turned out beautifully. (You can take a quick video tour if you wish.) Plus we went to several great museum shows, to the opera and to a terrific ballet. We ate great food, and inhaled amazing pastries and chocolates. Plus we met phenomenal and interesting people, who just might become new friends. Of course we did a lot of what we love most. We were flâneurs, that is, strollers.
Strolling to Somewhere
“So what about this ‘existential pupa’ thing?”, you might ask. “For goodness sake, you were in Paris and back in your Santa Luzian paradise? Snap out of it!”
Well, an “existential pupa”, I think, might be my given nature. How I become, or grow as, a person. It’s, to use an overwrought metaphor, a chrysalis. After a bit I might, hopefully, emerge anew, refreshed and, perhaps, slightly more “evolved”. It is my constant, life-long process.
I may think too much; some of you will concur. Perhaps I feel too intensely; some others of you will nod yep. Or I may spend too much time with my own dark shadows; there are now, I know, more bobbing heads. And I might be too much the perfectionist. Do I hear an Alleluia chorus?
But my life is that of the flâneur. And it is not a causal act. Many lazily translate the French “flâneur” as the English “loafer”. Piffle! A flâneur is never just strolling and certainly not ever loafing about or dawdling. Oh no, not at all! The flâneur is observing. That is, seeing, contemplating and cocooning in thought and in feeling.
And, for the flâneur, to observe is to discover. That is, to unwrap new gifts as well as to savor fresh magic in the already familiar. A flâneur chances on a world outside of himself and its revelations change her for good. I need to stroll through my existential inversion carefully seeing and listening to its observations and cues.
The Truth and Nothing But the Truth
Our flânerie starts in Santa Luzia, of course. Here is the place where I have discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, that strolling is one act in my self-revelation.
To tell you the truth, I went to Paris this time not wanting to go to Paris. And, to be totally, I went to Paris only to be proved right. That is, we did not belong in Paris. That it could not be our home. Not that I was conscious of this at the time. But you ask, “how can this be true, how could you not want to be in Paris? I have always loved Paris. Over and over I have declared Paris my favorite place on Earth. And I have visited Paris nearly a dozen times over two decades. Plus I know Paris exceptionally well as the consummate . So something was truly and weirdly amiss.
But I committed myself to a new life somewhere else. Somewhere other than Paris. To Portugal and in Santa Luzia. I am learning the language. I have become deeply infatuated with the Portuguese language. And I am discovering, acclimating to and becoming part of a vibrant culture into which I very much to integrate. I can honestly say THIS is what I want more than anything else. Só quero portugalizar-me! // I just want to become Portuguese.
Plus we are making friends, which involves a huge commitment of time and of energy. Both of which I feel are extremely precious resources at this point in my life. Especially since we are very much committed to maintaining the precious relationships with which we are already blessed.
I did not want to muster the energy for even more friends, for a fourth language, as well as all that is involved in truly becoming part of a place. I didn’t think I could muster any more.
Just Gray or Shades of Gray
In Santa Luzia I had re-acquainted with the truer me. And I had recommitted myself to hard work of becoming that truer me. Santa Luzia gave me the energy for this. I did not, and could not, lose now lose.
There were many rainy, gray and chilly days in Paris. We had already lived through the much milder and sunnier Algarvian version of late winter. And here we were again but in heavier coats plus hats and gloves! The gloom outside reinforced the gloom I nurtured inside.
But we walked day-after-day exploring the familiar as well the new. At some point, for me, the gray skies morphed from gray gloom into a perfect canvas. A backdrop to a glorious tableaux vivants.
I had walk past Tour Saint-Jacques perhaps hundreds of times. Of course, I had always noticed it. How could anyone not. But with blank mut canvas behind now every detail stood starkly as if highlighted. And I am not sure I ever noticed the chestnut trees in Paris. But now they blazed across the city. Brilliant white, soft pink and crimson torches.
One wants, expects even, every day to be a perfect 10. Not everyone will be or can be. I realized then — appreciating details and blossoms for the first time really — that 5s and 6s are pretty darn special. And that even 2s and 3s are special in their ordinariness.
A good chunk of gloom lifted and with it my own inexplicable sourness and recalcitrance.
Much More Than Shades of Gray
The
- I like the sound of “pupa”, it has a certain ring, no? In English it conveys a bit of “yuck” and “muck” factor. But also its connotes all that scientific yumminess. ↩︎
