corps values
A week before we left for Paris, Joshua and I had a routine check-up with our primary care doctor to make sure everything was in working order before we took off overseas. (We have the same doctor and she had us in the room together for the appointment—something she'd never done before but which proved kind of interesting, once we got over how much it made us feel like old people.) At the end of the appointment, she said in all seriousness, "When you get over there, would you please tell me how French people stay so thin? We doctors have been trying to figure that out for years."
After the trite responses of "It must be all the walking" and "Well, they do eat a lot of fresh food," Joshua and I came to the same conclusion about the true way Parisians maintain their enviably sleek corps (bodies): "Smoking."
Cigarette use in Paris is so profound that you can't walk two steps without getting engulfed in secondhand smoke—either from a stinky traditional cigarette or from one of those new-fangled e-cigarettes that science is proving to be even more harmful than "normal" death sticks, thanks to the vapor that allows more malevolent particles to enter the lungs. (I'm not a fan of smoking, in case you couldn't tell. What someone wants to do to their own health is one thing, but I don't wish to share your life choices simply because I walk by. My, my, this soap box is slippery...)
The thing is, I don't remember the smoking being this prevalent the last time I lived here, or the last two times I visited. I remember being overwhelmed as a kid during my first visit, but I gradually got used to the general haze that permeated the atmosphere—to the point that it seemed odd to see people huddled outside bars and restaurants once I returned to California. Now that Paris has its own set of smoking laws that mostly prohibit puffing in public places (restaurants, stores, parks, etc.), maybe I'm encountering the effects of smokers being forced out onto the streets and into my path much more than I did in 1999. But whatever the reason, Paris has really gone up in smoke.
Lighting up certainly seems to be the prime method for maintaining one's Parisian sleek, considering it not only kills your appetite thanks to the stimulating nicotine hit, but also kills your sense of smell—and with it, taste—the more frequently you inhale. The practice also keeps your hands busy (and your body outside) instead of letting you get handsy with a baguette or a brasserie beefsteak.
My other suspicion is that French people (men and women) just don't eat all that much. A proponent of this theory, Mireille Guiliano, even published a book in 2004 called French Women Don't Get Fat, and it was a veritable Bible of how to eat like a French person—small amounts of quality ingredients—and still look lean and mean in your Dior trousers. Being the impressionable teen I was then, I snapped up the book, only to discover it was basically a reiteration of what had been ingrained in me since childhood: Everything in moderation. Though the age-old adage didn't save me from a bout with anorexia in high school and a subsequent weight gain my first year of college, I'd like to think that since that time, I've naturally subscribed to the edict of "Give your body what it wants."
But I've noticed something about Parisian women during my daily study of their habits: they do eat. I frequently see slender young women marching down the sidewalk gnawing a baguette sandwich the size of their fashionable handbag. I've even seen willowy business women tucking into hearty brasserie meals of entrée, main dish, side dish, salad and dessert—with a plate of decimated bread and a half-empty wine glass nearby. They drink wine, they eat chocolate, they enjoy bread...so what gives?
Another thing I've noticed is the prevalence of products promising to aid in minceur—weight loss. Every other page in a French magazine or poster in a pharmacie window is an ad for a pill or a liquid or a powder or a cream that promotes rapid weight loss, complete with the striking before-and-after photos I'd only associated with those terrifying Hydroxycut ads in America before now. I've also noticed that the tone of these ads is nothing short of withering: there's an implication that if you stopped to read this, you're already too fat—just buy this [cream, powder, liquid or pill] to regain your "real" (read: thin) beauty.
While America could widely be considered the kingdom of fat shaming—it sure feels like it, if you've ever lived there—we also still manage to be the most obese country in the world (according to the most recent list published by The Lancet Medical Journal). But the difference is that American ads seem to target their audience with an inclusive if not condoning attitude: "Do you want to get in shape and feel amazing? Do you want to look as awesome as this handsome athlete bounding across the screen? Then get off the couch, call this number and let's DO THIS!"
The French tactic, on the other hand, is decidedly more subtle, but somehow more cutting. There's a disdain to the language in magazines when discussing weight loss, as if to say, "If being skinnier is not on your list of priorities, don't even bother looking at these clothes. They're not meant for the likes of you."
So imagine growing up in a culture that is simultaneously exultant about how delicious [insert animal body part here] is when prepared in a [insert complex food form here] and yet reminds you on a daily basis that you're worthless if you're not thin and impossibly tan—though God forbid you ever show an ounce of effort lest you spoil that chic cloak of mystery that's draped casually on your narrow, bronzed shoulders.
With that kind of constant pressure, who wouldn't want a cigarette?
And then I stumbled upon something truly funny in a bookstore in the chi-chi-est shopping mall in Paris, Le Bon Marché. There, amid the novels from abroad and the thick fashion books that are heavier than the models inside was this little tome, entitled: Sushi Slim, ou Comment Garder La Ligne à la Japonaise. (Rough translation: Sushi Slim, or How to Maintain the Line of the Japanese Woman.)
Apparently, the Americans look to the French for lessons in thinness, and the French look to...the Japanese.
Which just seems to prove that no one really has the secret to lifelong litheness, no matter where they're from. Whether it's cigarettes, fresh food, lots of bread, lots of walking—or lots of sushi—we're all just muddling through the best we can.
I hope my doctor isn't too disappointed.
playing nice
I like to think of myself as an optimistic person. (Ironically, some of the least optimistic people I know consider themselves optimists, just like some of the least fashionable "trendy" people I see are "obsessed" with the resurgence of flatform footwear. But I digress.)
I've tried to adopt an attitude of positivity throughout most of my life, though that makes it sound like a conscious effort. The truth is, optimism is my coping mechanism, and has been since I was a child. Growing up with a very sick parent and, therefore, growing up very fast puts an emphasis on action more than reaction—every piece of bad news must be met with an action plan, "how we're going to handle this," rather than the admission of feelings of overwhelming sadness and defeat that nip at your heels every moment of every day. So you excel in school, you excel at activities, you try to be as nice as possible to everyone who crosses your path—even people who don't deserve it.
But while I've been busy trying to cause as little disturbance in the world as possible, it seems that other people have made it their life mission to more than fill the void. Put simply: why is everyone so rude?
Parisians get a bad rap for being rude, cold, snooty, you name it, but honestly—before living in the neighborhood I do now—I really didn't see it. Sure, there were anomalies, but for the most part, everyone I came across in 2010 was cordial and polite. This time around...not so much.
As a native Californian, I recognize that I'm accustomed to a certain amount of aggressive friendliness that others even in my own country find alarming (ever try to hug a Midwesterner?). I realized coming to Paris that the culture would be different, the customs new, and I tried to adapt and adopt as best I could. In every shop, I would dutifully greet the staff upon entrance ("Bonjour!") and exit ("Au revoir," "Bonne journée") and in between they pretty much left me to my own devices. I think it took our grocery store clerk—the one who saw us every day for six months straight and who was always very professional, if a little cold—almost our entire time living in Paris the last time to finally crack a smile of recognition. (Cue celebratory whooping on the way home.)
But this time, my experience of Parisians has been entirely different. Perhaps it's due to our change of location: in 2010, we lived in a very diverse area that was populated with families, lots of different ethnicities and tons of different tongues; now, we live in the most touristy arrondissement in the city, two blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Shopkeepers are quick with English (often it's stronger than their French) and very dismissive—I had a butcher tell me that he has to "fight" the tourists' English when they come. (This was after mistaking me for a Brit and, when I corrected him and insisted on speaking French, profusely apologizing.)
I understand the general frustration with tourists—as you'll know, if you've read other rants on this blog—considering I get nearly beheaded or shoved into traffic every day of the week when someone decides they need to take their umpteenth picture in the middle of the sidewalk where I happen to already be standing or that their backpack couldn't possibly be as large as it is as they turn quickly in a crowd. But what's gotten to me lately is the lack of courtesy that's shown to anyone, regardless of where they're from.
Case in point number 1: the grocery store, or pretty much any retail establishment where there are narrow aisles or displays to maneuver around. In America, if I was wandering down a grocery store aisle and came upon someone in my path, I would excuse myself quietly and gently slip by after they'd given way. Here, there are no cursory "Excusez-moi"s (or even more insistent "Pardon"s), there's just the sudden presence of another human body pushing against you to pass by. No acknowledgement of one's existence, just a shove, an elbow to the ribs, and it's done. An older woman banged my basket with hers while I was inspecting the vegetables and it wasn't until I looked up to see if she was going to acknowledge the fact that she'd nearly knocked the basket out of my hands in her mad dash to the zucchini that she said, very clearly and loudly, "Excusez-moi, madame."
I felt chastised, as though not only had I been in her way, I was now making a big deal about nothing.
Case in point number 2: At a recent theater performance, the show was sold out but Joshua had a ticket (he was attending for a class), so I put my name on the wait list. I was number two and was told by the box office attendant that I'd likely get in, I just had to wait until curtain (3pm) to find out if there were any available seats. Standard practice. So I stood by and waited while the audience streamed past me and curtain ticked closer and closer. When the time came, I waited in line to get back to the same box office attendant, who told me, "No, no, the performance starts at 10 after, you'll have to wait." So wait I did, a little confused, but figuring I just hadn't understood her French the first time. Ten minutes later, the stream had stopped and I inquired again if there were any tickets to be had. Again, she told me to what roughly translates as "hold my horses." So I went down to the theater space with Joshua so he could find a seat—aware all the while that it might cost me my place if I weren't standing right there when she called my name—and suddenly saw all the other people who'd been behind me on the list traipsing up to the door, tickets in hand. I rushed back upstairs, hoping I hadn't shot myself in the foot, and politely asked if there was still one more seat left (knowing full well Joshua's professor had just turned in three unclaimed tickets). I was brushed off again while the attendant consulted the list (where my name had been conspicuously crossed out) and conducted a lengthy conversation with the man behind her until she finally deigned to allow me to pay her 30 Euro for the privilege of running back downstairs a sweaty bundle of nerves to take the last seat.
These illustrations may seem trivial. They may even seem petty or normal to someone who was raised in a big city and considers these interactions just part of daily life sharing very little space with very many people. But the accumulation of incidents like these every day—compounded by daily news stories in which people are cruel to other people merely because they can be and stories in my own circle that "So-and-So is being rude to So-and-So because she's too nice, or too quiet, or too [insert mindless adjective here]"—make me question the sanity of our society. Yes, you cut in front of me in traffic, but in the grand scheme of things, do you really think you're getting anywhere that much faster? Yes, you shoved me out of line in the grocery store—only to have a new line open up and be behind me after all—but does your food taste better because of it? Yes, you made that person feel small and left out, but does that really make you feel big, or just momentarily inflated?
If we really examine what makes life truly livable, can't we see that it's the times we feel heard, seen, loved, trusted, respected, valued, that make us feel alive?
Can't we all just play nice?
happy anniversary
Three years ago today, I married my best friend.
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| "I do"...what exactly? |
Yes, that sounds romantic, and yes, he is. But I don't really think I understood just what marriage meant when we exchanged vows in my dad's backyard that afternoon. I'm still trying to figure it out, but these last three years have certainly been an invaluable learning experience.
I write about weddings every two weeks for a blog in Sacramento Magazine (check them out here), and I think I first found them so fun because they were cathartic. As anyone who's every gotten married will tell you, the day that's supposed to be "the happiest" of your life is often anything but. Stress, weird family tensions, more stress—did I mention stress?—will leave you exhausted at the end of the day, desperate to eat the two tacos you've been holding on a plate for three hours while everyone who witnessed the event comes to tell you how lovely it was. (True story. By the end of the night, my brain was so fried it basically just chanted: So. Hungry. Just. Want. Tacos.)
Since then, I've had the chance to chow down on many more tacos (though not recently, since Paris seems to excel in crappy Mexican food) and almost all of these meals—Parisian tacos or otherwise—take place while staring across the table at my husband.
How many meals we've shared together by this point, I can't even tell you (though I guess I could do the rough calculation, if this were a statistical blog—thank God it's not), but the crucial point is this: no matter what kind of day I'm having, no matter how tired, how hungry, how sad, how anxious, how anything I've been, I always look forward to sitting face-to-face with Joshua across the table.
It's not just because he makes me laugh (which he does so often that I sometimes wonder if people on the outside know how ridiculously silly he is), not just because he makes me think (I grew up hating politics, and it's only since being with Joshua that I realize I hate the pundits who talk about politics, not the actual practice of human-on-human interaction), not just because he has a damn cute face—I look forward to continuing this weird, wonderful, wild and pock-marked journey that is our relationship every moment we can.
My parents had a nearly 30-year marriage that wouldn't have ended were it not for my mom's death in 2007. Joshua's parents have been married for 41 years and counting. Growing up, I always pictured myself having a long, perfect marriage like those that I observed. That is, before I realized that the word "perfect" is exactly the problem. Marriage isn't perfect, people aren't perfect, perfect isn't even perfect (the word is starting to look alien, I've typed it so many times).
Marrying your best friend isn't a process of perfection unfolding before you each day like some sort of fantastical yellow brick road on which you traipse with ruby slippers. It's bumpy, and dangerous, and there are unexpected potholes and you might turn an ankle—or even break one—every now and then. But if you're lucky, the person you naively said "I do" to however long ago will be there to grab your arm before you fall or stand by while you gather your pieces once you've shattered on the ground.
During the past five years (two of dating, three of marriage), I've had the privilege of having Joshua there to grab my arm, help me gather my pieces, make me guffaw till cookie comes out of my nose, bolster me, turn to me, challenge me, question me, comfort me, lean on me—and above all, love me. All of me. That means more than I could have possibly known three years ago when I donned a white dress and stared into his face, wondering what the hell we were doing.
Truth is, I still don't know. But I'm sure looking forward to our next meal.
