I went to Paris (again) this weekend. Turns out that as a resident of France, I can now get into a lot of monuments and museums for free. I did not know this, but it is a very handy thing. I went with two other assistants from the Lille academie, and we climbed to the top of Notre Dame, something I've never done in five trips to Paris.
It's over 400 steps in a tight, twisting, claustrophobic staircase with just two real places for a short respite. From one watch tower to another on the Great Wall, it's over 2,000 stairs that vary in size from small to a jump and stopping every five-ten stairs is expected. This felt similar except there was no place to rest.
The view was lovely, though, despite the clouds.
We also went inside the Pantheon, which I'd never done, and went down to check out some of the graves of famous French people. I still don't know who Leon Gambetta is exactly, despite having read his Wikipedia page and the little panel in French that tried to (badly) explain it. But all the high schools and streets are named after him, so he must have been important.
As we walked to the Pantheon, we passed the Eglise de Sorbonne, and the little cafe where, almost exactly two years ago, I met Abdel. He was some guy who randomly started talking to me on the streets of Paris, asking if I knew if Sorbonne had canceled classes due to strikes. I had no idea, being that 1) I'm not French, and 2) I didn't go to Sorbonne. But we ended up prendre une verre (getting a drink) for about two hours at this little cafe near the Eglise.
I remember that conversation vividly, mostly because afterwards, he gave me his number and told me to call him. I did not call him. Why? Well, because (let's do a list again) 1) at that point, I was terrified of speaking French on the phone, 2) I was in a foreign country alone and calling up a random, older guy seemed like a bad idea, and 3) I had very little interest in doing anything more than having a drink at a cafe with him. As I'd told him I was a writer (I use the term loosely), he told me that I was not adventurous enough to be a real writer.
That comment has stuck with me over the past two years and sometimes I wonder if he's right. If you ask any of my friends, they would balk at the idea that I'm not adventurous enough. I mean, I moved to China just because I could, and I spent a year having absolutely no idea what I was doing, and now I'm in France, and to them it's just incredible. To me, though, it's not. It's just what I did. I don't feel like I was being adventurous. At times, I felt like I was being stupid and crazy. Why? Because I still don't go out with people I randomly meet on the street (not that I meet that many), and I still say no to things I should say yes to, and I still chicken out when it comes to stupid things like calling people. It's just part of my overly-cautious personality that I can't get rid of.
My example for Abdel was Emily Dickenson, an extremely famous and talented writer who never left her house. But I think she had a fantastic imagination whereas mine is limited, which is probably why I do need to be more adventurous. But my cautious streak is still there and it's never going away. And I just have to live with that.
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