"I've never been to Paris."
"What?!"
"Doesn't it seem like I've been to Paris?"
"Many, many times."
Several years ago, my friend and I were strolling down Broadway, having that conversation while I noticed a large patch of NYC sidewalk that had somehow been infused with sparkles, and made the ground glisten while we walked. He later wrote a beautiful song lyric, "You turn these leaden streets to gold," which always reminded me of that walk.
I studied French for 6 years, lived with a French roommate for 5 years, and dated a 1/2-French man for the better part of 2004. For the brief moment of my life when I was an architecture major in college, I studied the flying buttresses of Notre Dame, and for most of my young adult life have been bombarded by images of Paris - literal and figurative - through my studies and the company I kept. Let's not even start on my fascination with Henri Cartier-Bresson.
When I was in college, I directed a short on 16mm film, called "Au Café," (b&w still featured above) based on a piece I had written in a café in Ann Arbor, daydreaming about what it would be like once I had moved to New York, and been to Paris, and the strange fleetingness of an emotion's importance as its significance is changed over time. I wrote, "Soon I'll be in New York, then Paris, and all these words will just be words one day."
My father is obsessed with French culture - an obsession that spilled over from his interest in wine. He has constructed details all throughout my parents' home to emulate the architectural nuances. This past summer, I was home visiting, and my father said to me, "Did you know that Grandma has always wanted to go to Paris? First Grandma, then me, now you. Sarah, you HAVE to go."
That same week, I accepted an opportunity to fly to London to produce and direct a short film for my friend Clara, and decided that the 3-hour train ride was just too easy to pass up, and finally - after a veritable lifetime - I was going to Paris.
Immediately upon my arrival, Paris set out to prove itself just as magical as I had ever hoped. I walked out of my hotel and crossed the street to the Jardin des Tuilleries. A man pedaled up on a bike, and started asking me something in French. Six years of study instantly failed me, and
I apologized in English for having no idea what he was saying. "Ah! You're not French?" He said in a thick accent. "Where are you from?" I told him I was in from New York, and he gave me a look up and down and declared, "You are too stylish to be American!"
I walked approximately one city block through the park and found myself looking at the Louvre, framed by a pastel sky of soft light, blue and soft pink fluffs of cloud, and forgive the obvious metaphor, but it truly looked like a painting! I turned towards the river, and walked just one more block and down some stairs, et voila - I was walking along the Seine in the late afternoon sunlight. Right then, I knew this place was ethereal. It had crept into my dreams, and my thoughts, and my work, and my life, and when I got there it was not as if the dream had come to reality - it was as if I had finally fully stepped into the dream.
And, it was a miraculous dream, full of twists and nonsensical delights. Once, I walked right up to a cart in the middle of the street, and selected from a huge array of candies - soft and chewy ones, chocolately crumbly ones - filling a little white-and-pink-striped paper bag. I got a pizza from a hole-in-the-wall shop, and they put crême fraiche on it. Whenever I bought something, the shopkeeper would put extra little presents in my bag. And, every time I left a place, they said, "Au revoir," as if I were a long-lost friend, and they had been truly thrilled that I had stopped by.
In creative works from the French culture, like films and music, I have always sensed a certain ironic other-worldliness. Like the French saw some hilarious joke about life not being real - about the possibility that we don't have to take it all so literally - something they would imply, but if you weren't in on the joke, they weren't about to bother to explain. In Paris, I wondered if maybe none of it
was real - if maybe I had finally fully understood the joke.
To view more photos of Paris, please visit
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Families get hip for the holidays!
About Sarah Sloboda
I walked approximately one city block through the park and found myself looking at the Louvre, framed by a pastel sky of soft light, blue and soft pink fluffs of cloud, and forgive the obvious metaphor, but it truly looked like a painting! I turned towards the river, and walked just one more block and down some stairs, et voila - I was walking along the Seine in the late afternoon sunlight. Right then, I knew this place was ethereal. It had crept into my dreams, and my thoughts, and my work, and my life, and when I got there it was not as if the dream had come to reality - it was as if I had finally fully stepped into the dream.
And, it was a miraculous dream, full of twists and nonsensical delights. Once, I walked right up to a cart in the middle of the street, and selected from a huge array of candies - soft and chewy ones, chocolately crumbly ones - filling a little white-and-pink-striped paper bag. I got a pizza from a hole-in-the-wall shop, and they put crême fraiche on it. Whenever I bought something, the shopkeeper would put extra little presents in my bag. And, every time I left a place, they said, "Au revoir," as if I were a long-lost friend, and they had been truly thrilled that I had stopped by.
In creative works from the French culture, like films and music, I have always sensed a certain ironic other-worldliness. Like the French saw some hilarious joke about life not being real - about the possibility that we don't have to take it all so literally - something they would imply, but if you weren't in on the joke, they weren't about to bother to explain. In Paris, I wondered if maybe none of it was real - if maybe I had finally fully understood the joke.
Clara's short, "The Accent Coach," is the story of Hester Sound, a fictitious accent coach to the stars and self-perceived guru, who is being interrogated in a faux Hollywood interview by a TV host named Charlie, played by Max Dowler. Also starring Damian Lynch, as a pseudo-voodoo-shaman, we think it promises to be a pretty hysterical little piece.
Whilst in London, my birthday arrived! I treated myself to champagne flight on the London Eye, which offers pretty spectacular views of the city, particularly on a clear, sunny day, like my birthday turned out to be. In fact, for most of the time I was in London, I was lucky enough to see very little fog.
To view more of my photos from London, please visit my facebook page, and be sure to become a fan to get instant photo updates from wherever my wanderings take me.
I was fascinated with the way the light was playing into the landscape - I learned that much of the foliage was salvaged from the real growth that occurred on top of the once-used elevated train tracks, that had been left to the elements for decades, until the High Line's recent renovation. While there was something slightly artificial about the way it was bouncing around due to all of the reflective surfaces, it was still natural light, in that its source was the sun. It gave the whole scene a rather magical feel.
A tangential highlight to my excursion was running into a few friends as I tried to make my way out of the park - a ran into a friend of mine, and then a couple I'm friends with - and had one of "those" New York moments. My mom never used to believe me that in a city of eight million people you could, very often, run into people you know. Well, this one's for you, Mom: this afternoon, I ran into three people I know in five minutes' time, amidst wispy and flowering plants and heavenly light, hovering over West 18th Street.
The goal was a festive occasion without a lot of fuss for my parents, who were looking forward to the rare time with all their kids and grand-kids. So, I created bright-colored invitations, asking the guests to take part in a potluck by bringing an entree to share - that way reducing the cooking and preparation time for my parents. Then, I baked shortbread cookies, almond biscotti, and a white layer cake with cream cheese frosting topped in berries (all recipes from joyofbaking.com). The day of the party, I picked flowers from my parents' gardens, and arranged them in assorted teapots. I brewed sassafras tea, iced it, made it sparkling by adding cream soda, and topped it with a scoop of Honey Hut vanilla ice cream for root-beer-flavored gourmet mini-floats. I also concocted St. Germain cocktails, using the elderflower liqueur and Prosecco for a Happy-Birthday-singing toast.
"The other side of the coin."
"Bun in the oven."
"Figments of your imagination."
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