Paris 2

I met back up with my friend late that night, and we went to the apartment where she was cat sitting.  The apartment was very chic, located in one of the more well-to-do parts of Paris, and the cat was named Rothko and very affectionate. 

I got up the next morning, and with free reign over the kitchen, I made myself an omlette du fromage and ate it with a glass of white wine, while Rothko floated in and out of the kitchen.  I headed to Montmartre because it was close, and I had heard of it before.  It was Halloween, so I figured a visit to the cemetery would be appropriate, even during the day.  And it was a splendid day, in the 50s and sunny. 

I was interested to find out what exactly was Parisian about Paris.  That first night, I hadn’t seen much that was terribly unique.  When I got off the bus, when I got off the metro, I felt like it could have been Madrid.  A lot of streets in one European city look like a lot of streets in other European cities.  The pharmacies all have green crosses.  The buildings don’t go much higher than 5 or 6 stories.  Restaurants have canopies.  The key then is to get to those distinguishing elements, the ticks or idiosyncrasies of a city, what makes Paris Paris, Madrid Madrid, Berlin Berlin, etc. 

One thing I picked up on fairly quickly was the arrangement of the seating in the terraces.  A small thing to be sure, but these quirks are small things.  The monuments, the sites, don’t count.  Of course the Eiffel Tower is Parisian.  But that’s not the sort of thing I was concerned about.  I was interested in quirks. 

In Madrid, terraces are always arranged in such a way that seats are centered around a table, whether four, three, or two seats per table, facilitating conversation between a set amount of people all facing each other.  In Paris, tables and chairs tend to be arranged in lines, in what you could call stadium seating, making it difficult to talk to anyone that’s not right beside you.  Everyone is facing the street.  Presumably, that which goes on in the streets is worth your attention, a live air theater that goes on toujours.  If there is one place in particular where the line between art and life is hazily indeterminate, it’s Paris. 

This bleeding of art into life and vice versa continues into death.  There are three major cemeteries in Paris proper, and many more in the suburbs.  They are elaborate, consisting in many above ground graves, crypts, some of which are about the size of porta potties, others which are more on the mini-barn scale, all of stone, all impressively carved.  Gargoyles are pretty common, along with crows/ravens.  The main pathways are cobblestone, and there are small, mostly overgrown, spaces between the graves, mostly fit for cats and smaller animals. 

And popping out from the obscurity of the graves, the flowers. Bouquets, single stems, carnations, roses, lilies, left by family or admirers.  The plots in these cemeteries are a hot commodity, mostly reserved for the elite, whether military, government, or cultural.  In Père Lachaise, for example, one must have been born in Paris, lived in Paris for an extended period of time, or died in Paris.  With the last option, we should add that one should probably be decently well-known, with Jim Morrison being a case in point. 

Most of the names are French men and women who I’ve never heard of before.  It’s strange to visit a cemetery, without having any real connection with not only those buried but also to the culture and history itself.  You become a foreigner at least twice over.  A non-mourner in a place of mourning, and in my case, an American in a place of French history and memory.  I can appreciate this, but necessarily from a distance.  Such is the plight of the traveler, however…the one who traverses physical distance in a desire to traverse the distance of cultural and historical difference, to press his or her face against the glass that never quite seems to break. 

In Arlington Cemetery, for example, those buried, although I never knew any of them, they gave their lives as part of a national narrative of which I am a part.  In France, not so, unless we generalize to the common foes that our countries have had over the years.  Instead of feeling ghostly amongst the ghosts, I feel heavy, the weight of my difference in my veins. 

And then I ask myself, “Why flowers?”  Of all the things to leave at graves, why flowers?  Are they the beauty that dies, just like us?  Egyptians would leave most of the dead’s positions with them in the crypt for enjoyment in the afterlife.  Flowers don’t take up as much space as, say, your favorite chair or your books.  Shriveled flowers are also easier to clean up.  And yes, there must be groundskeepers and crypt sweepers, for without the efforts of the living, the dead are nothing.  Perhaps more interesting to consider is whether the inverse is true as well.