Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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People often ask Tom and
me, “How did you decide to start coming to Paris for the summer?” I usually give a short answer,
but here is the truth. It all started in with our
habit of walking on the beach at sunset on Sanibel Island. Twenty or so years ago, we met a man named
Bob on the beach just because he was usually out there walking at the same
time that we were, and we walked along the same two-mile or more stretch of
beach. That’s how uncrowded the
beaches are on Sanibel Island. If you
keep seeing the same person each evening, of course you say hello, and of
course you end up in conversation sooner or later. Then one day Bob introduced
us to a man named Wid. That was no
accident. Bob knew that Wid was a
university professor in Ohio, as was Tom.
Of course he should introduce them. Wid’s field was political
science, and Tom’s was American literature.
So when Wid’s friends Dean and Alvi were visiting Sanibel at the
beginning of 1998, Wid realized that Dean’s field overlapped very much with
Tom’s. He also realized that Alvi was a community organizer of the same ilk
that I am. Of course Wid had to
introduce Dean and Alvi to us. We didn’t already know Dean
and Alvi because they lived in Athens, Ohio, the home of Ohio
University. We lived in Columbus,
Ohio, the home of The Ohio State University.
Believe it or not, Ohio is a big place. That just meant that the four of us had
much to talk about. So of course we
arranged to take Dean and Alvi out canoeing on the Sanibel River. While canoeing, we talked
nonstop. Talking is a good way to
notify the alligators that you’re canoeing around the bend; they’re afraid of
canoes, and people, so of course they move out of the way. A favorite subject on one
fine February afternoon of canoeing was Dean and Alvi’s recent sabbatical in
Paris. Dean knew a man named Roy from
graduate school days. Roy was a professor
of comparative literature at a university in Paris. Roy and his wife Barbara go to the U.S. for
the summer and like to have their Paris apartment occupied while they’re
away. So of course Dean and Alvi
stayed there for a while. Tom and I are city people,
so as the four of us paddled two canoes down the Sanibel River with swamp on
either hand, of course we all talked about Paris, and that apartment in
Paris. It was a fun winter; we got
together with Dean and Alvi a number of times for canoeing, dining, and
walking on the beach. The idea of
spending time in an apartment in Paris was firmly planted in our
imaginations. When we returned to
Columbus for Tom to teach Spring quarter classes at Ohio State, we got
lucky: Tom was selected to “do the
Bath program” that summer. This meant
that he and I would be like “mom and dad” for twenty-some
twenty-something-year-olds who opted for a study abroad program in Bath,
England, during the summer. The length of the program
was six weeks, so at the end of it, we still had almost a month and a half
before we had to be back in Ohio. So
of course we said to each other, “Let’s go to France!” We realized that Roy surely
had his apartment rented out and it would be unavailable, but we also
realized it couldn’t hurt to check on that; it couldn’t hurt to ask. So of course we called Roy. Here’s where being an
optimist comes in handy. When Tom
spoke with Roy, we found that he was worried about the Paris apartment
because his August renter was a no-show.
The place was unoccupied. So of
course we arranged to rent it for the rest of that month. Off we went to Paris. It was the first time I’d ever been to
France, and for Tom, the second. The
first time he was here was in the mid-1970s. That first day when we
arrived in Paris together in 1998, we were not jet-lagged since we’d only
come from England. We had energy. We looked around the apartment briefly, and
then went out to explore. We had one
of those almost useless maps given away by the department stores. Soon we were lost, but we didn’t care. We just wandered around – we saw the Eiffel
Tower – we saw charming streets of the 15th arrondissement. We were in Paris! Finally, the sun was about
to set and we needed to find dinner.
We saw a place in front of us, a classic looking old-fashioned
brasserie on a corner across from a charming church. The brasserie was called “La Tour
Eiffel.” We decided that since we knew
the apartment wasn’t far from the Eiffel Tower, that somehow we’d find our
way home from there after dinner. We loved the place for its
ambiance. Framed photos of the way the
neighborhood looked in the 19th century hung all over the one wall that
wasn’t either behind the bar or composed
of glass doors open to the street.
Some of the photos showed the Eiffel Tower under construction. Our extraordinarily rusty
French that we’d not used since college was fine for seeing us through that
first dinner together in Paris. When
dinner was over, we realized from the address printed on the receipt that we
were on the rue du Commerce, just a couple blocks from the apartment. So of course we were not lost. That first summer, we only
had a couple weeks in Paris. Then we
rented a Peugot minivan and traveled for a few weeks, without reservations,
in a grand circle, a tour de France. We fell in love with France, and we vowed
to come back every summer. Roy was happy to hear this,
because he would not have to find two or three different renters every
summer. It would just be the Cooleys,
every summer, year after year. His
neighbors in the building would surely prefer that to a string of strangers. And so it is. We are part of the neighborhood – a
summertime part. Yesterday afternoon, after
working, we didn’t want to have any plans;
we didn’t want to see any museums.
We just wanted a nice long stroll all the way down the avenue Félix
Faure to the edge of the city and back.
When we were almost home, we decided to dine at that brasserie, La
Tour Eiffel, again -- the site of our first ever dinner together in
France. We had not dined there in a
while. Travers de porc was one of the daily specials. Perfect. We dined, we reminisced, we
walked home. Thank you, Bob, Alvi, Roy
and Barbara. And thank you, Wid and
Dean, wherever in heaven you may be.
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Friday, August 23, 2013
Eiffel
Tower as seen from the middle of the Pont de Bir Hakeim.
Beautiful
mosaic on the entry to a school near the end of the rue Rouelle.
Gateway
to a luxurious apartment building and garden on the rue Raynouard.
The
RER train bridge connecting the Allée des Cygnes to
the right bank, 16th arrondissement.
Flowers
(above) and grasses (below) in the Square Bela-Bartok.
Above
and at left: Complicated and
decorative chimneys on the rue Raynouard. (Always remember to look up.) |
