Paris, March 1993
When I was seventeen, I graduated early from highschool. My boyfriend at the time was much older, and he surprised me with a plane ticket to Paris - careful to choose a departure date just weeks after my eighteenth birthday, so my parents could not stop me at the airport.
The trip was a disaster.
Within hours of checking into our hotel, he tucked all our cash into his jean pockets and abandoned me with no food, no francs, and a terrifyingly limited vocabulary. He was off to find his first love, a Parisian woman with long, brown hair and porcelain skin. The woman whose photograph decorated his home back in Iowa.
He came back occasionally, but it was clear this was not our trip.
My most vivid memory is the morning he brought fresh custard to our hotel. I had not eaten in several days, and I was in danger of passing out from low blood sugar. The sweet cream dissolved on my tongue and slid down my thirsty throat like melted ice. My second course was one ripe clementine. Sugar and acid. Nothing ever tasted so good.
Strange that this photo is one of the few that turned out - and one of only three that survived all these years. My Pentax K1000 was broken, and most of my pictures were black. Empty.
In this image, the Eiffel Tower seems misty and romantic, the kind of Paris I never had.
Comments (6)
In December, 1976, my previous wife and I visited Paris to celebrate Christmas. Christmas eve we went to a small restaurant a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe. My wife left the table to go to the rest room, and I heard the staff talking about us in French. They said, "Ah, he is with his lover." I understood French, so I told them, "No, she is my wife." "But you are so in love!" the waitress replied. That night we went to see "The Nutcracker" ballet at the Paris ballet. We shared a box seat with a perfect French family with three perfect young girls. There was a light snow that night. It was pretty romantic. I was married to her for 21 years, and we shared some of the happiest moments of my life.
I'm sorry you were hurt on that trip. I suspect you used that pain to good advantage in your life going forward. And, of course, you know there are limitless possibilities for romance in the world. Best wishes.
Posted by Denny | June 12, 2004 9:38 AM
Posted on June 12, 2004 09:38
Christ, and you didn't murder him? In France, you know, they look on le crime passionel pretty leniently. A year in jail, maybe. And at least they would have fed you.
Posted by dale | June 12, 2004 5:38 PM
Posted on June 12, 2004 17:38
You've converted such a painful memory into such beautiful writing. The picture is almost like a postcard from the 1930s. What brought this memory up? Was it the photo itself, or something else?
I love the sensory details you remember too, what you tasted when you were in need. Those sorts of sensations are so bright and vivid. The graham crackers and apple juice I had after surgery was divine. It tasted like it had in Sunday school, ice in the juice, sweet with sweet.
Posted by kel | June 13, 2004 9:47 AM
Posted on June 13, 2004 09:47
This is one of those entries I keep coming back to, wishing that it would go away, or at least work its way down the page, so that I can stop thinking about some of the many things that people are capable of.
Posted by Keith | June 14, 2004 3:33 PM
Posted on June 14, 2004 15:33
i love your blog. i feel like i know you. we're the same age, & so much of what you write here seems to speak to this very core but hidden part in me i haven't taken the time to listen to in quite a while. strangely enough, something like your paris experience happened to me, as well. i was 19, though, and in new york, at a greyhound bus station.
Posted by ann | June 14, 2004 9:46 PM
Posted on June 14, 2004 21:46
That was horrible. That was so horrible that I first assumed it was not about you but about a character in a movie. Hopefully you found a way to deal with this traumatic experience, I can imagine it makes you wonder (at least temporary) if you are lovable and worthy enough. I also hope this idiot guy either never found her or that she told him she had never even liked him at all, crushing him completely.
Posted by Anne | June 25, 2004 1:31 AM
Posted on June 25, 2004 01:31