The Paris of our dreams

Quite sheepishly, I found myself crying through most of "Julie & Julia" in the theatre, grateful for the projection-glow darkness, wadding up lumps of damp old napkins in my purse. So much of it was sob-worthy: the brilliant Meryl Streep [about which there is really nothing more to say]; the joyous reverence for food and its loving preparation; the familiarity of a girl writer [living in Queens, no less!] trekking to a bleak day job; the spectacular patience of wonderful men; and, of course, the cheerful Paris of our dreams. 

I came home, smug in my disdain of blogs and finding, already on my bookshelf, a first-edition copy of My Life in France co-written by Julia--whom we all really feel comfortable calling by her given name by film's end--and her grand-nephew, Alex Prud'homme. And then everything was conflated: I read Julia with a mental voiceover by Meryl, and, in my mind's eye, could see so clearly the marvelous Parisian flat of the film--though I've just been told by the Real Julia that their apartment had no heat and had a kitchen on the third floor. The book included photos taken by the Real Paul: And there was a gray and white image of the Real Julia leaning out a window of the Real Flat . . . all which seemed vaguely Unreal. The narrative was breathless and thrilled; everything in Paris was wonderful despite the winters hunched over a coal-burning stove installed in the sitting room with both of them bundled in layers of long underwear typing with stiff, numb fingers.

And yet, it was hard to reconcile that it was only three years after the end of WWII. Yes, there were still ration cards and passing mentions of France still regaining her footing after the war. But it was impossible to imagine that the Europe of Julia's rapture was the Europe that Władysław Szpilman had just survived in Warsaw. [I still haven't recovered from "The Pianist," which I could only watch while periodically stepping out to do laundry in the basement.] But I guess that's just the point: It wasn't the same Europe.

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My own memory [deeply unreliable] of my three days in Paris is rosy, fashioned from too many sentimental films. My vision of Paris is the same as that for any other city that becomes a vessel for all aspiration--London, New York, Shanghai, Casablanca--which means it's all entirely impossible. It was March, gray, and cold, yet I remember being beside myself with happiness. There is a photo of me smiling while standing in a horrid green hooded coat on what I remember being the Champs-Élysées [but probably wasn't]. I was staying with my old journalism school friend, Todd, his wife, and their three children; the bed was in the laundry room, and I recall feeling very grateful for their kindness [that part is true for sure]. I raced through the usual suspects: the Notre Dame, the Louvre [I had such low expectations of the Mona Lisa--expecting it to be the size of stamp--that I was actually pleasantly surprised that I could actually see it from the back of the crowd], the Sacré-Cœur, Montmartre, and the Shakespeare & Company bookshop. I remember nothing of what I ate except for the croissant at Orly airport [the best ever!], and an incredible pot of pasta that Todd's wife, Jenny, made for lunch with astonishing carelessness from a plastic tub of crème fraîche that she just picked up down the street. 

The Paris of Julia Child's experience seems to have passed through a parallel time; it is city completely devoid of grief. Perhaps it's a testament to her own love of life that she saw only abundance and reasons for happiness. By the time I was there, in 2000, that Paris was long gone. There were already the roiling tensions and resentments over North African immigrants and its accompanying Islamic traditions. It was late winter, and the city possessed none of the legendary light about which so many had written. But I wanted to believe it was still there and that, if I went back again, the wintry clouds would shift, revealing all I had imagined.