The Land of the Free

It was high December, just over a week before Christmas. Kate, my California homegirl, was not long for Paris. She was soon to return to where the skies are not cloudy all day (that would be San Diego). She and I had a plan to meet up that night, and to take a big walk around the center of the city to photograph the Christmas lights. The Santa hats I bought for us to wear as we did so were just a last-minute inspiration.

Kate and I met at her office at the Bibliothèque Nationale. I presented her with her hat -- which she loved, and promptly put on -- and we thumbnail-sketched a route that was to include the Palais-Royal, the Place de la Concorde, the rue Saint-Honoré, the Place Vendôme, and perhaps the Madeleine. Our first stop was for a quick drink at the Nemours, the nearby café where she and I had sat many times over the previous two years. We even had a favorite waiter, who generally would let us know by the infinitesimal twitch of his left eyebrow that he was happy to see us.

But that evening, our arrival at the café was akin to something out of a "Cheers" episode. "Salut, les filles!" A little roar went up as we crossed the terrace and pushed open the door. I felt a shuddering ripple of self-consciousness, and the uncertainty that comes with finding yourself on new territory.

Had we been in midtown Manhattan, I doubt anyone would have batted an eye at two girls in Santa hats having a drink the week before Christmas. But apart from their encounters with roving bachelorette parties, Parisians aren't prepared for women voluntarily looking silly. (The bride-to-be in Paris undergoes "un enterrement de vie de jeune fille" -- i.e., a burial of the single life -- which requires her, like her Vegas counterpart, to endure ritual public humiliation at the hands of her friends).

No surprise, I guess, certainly not in a town, and in a culture, that places a premium on elegance, and on staying pretty (and particularly on girls' staying pretty). One does not aspire to achieving holiday silliness along the lines of Santa hats worn as outerwear. One aspires to being cool, i.e., desirable. The idea of benign, pleasurable goofiness is actually difficult to articulate in French. The equivalent words tend to have the stain of judgment on them; they imply literal craziness, idiocy, inappropriateness, or outright stupidity.

Translation: a girl would have to be engaged, insane, or an imbecile to dare such a thing.

(Or she would have to be performing two shows a night at the Crazy Horse, in which case the hat would add a bit of frisky festivity as well as much-needed warmth to a costume otherwise consisting of a g-string, thigh-high stockings, and heels.)

Or, perhaps, to dare such a thing, a girl would have to be foreign.

It is not uncommon for women, especially American women, coming to Paris to hope for the day when they pass for a local. It's understandable. The conventional wisdom -- and the literature -- on the subject is oppressive. The Parisiennes are chic. They don't get fat. They can tie scarves. They've got that je ne sais quoi. And on and so. Insert your sweeping generalization here.

For the record, I have never passed. What's the point? I am a curvy, smiling, size-14 blonde, and that right there pretty much screams "not from here." What is more, I speak fluent French with a foreign and difficult-to-place accent, and I know as much about French seventies pop singers as I do post-structuralists. So in Paris, I do not wish to pass, because it is more fun to be something that I am resolutely not back home: mysterious and exotic.

It is also more rewarding. I had a special friend for a while whose eyes tended to glaze over as I spoke. Sometimes on the phone I could hear him not hearing me. I thought it was perhaps that my grammar was so bad he just couldn't bear to follow along. I finally asked him. He explained that it wasn't that he didn't understand me: it was simply that he liked listening to me talk.

Crazy.

Someone told me once that French women don't like to laugh out loud -- or perhaps not to laugh too loud -- because they don't think it's sexy. I do not know if it's true. I do know that most French comedies, and French comedians -- with one or two exceptions -- aren't particularly funny. So it's possible that women (and men, for that matter) are short on occasions to laugh.

But to me, that prospect -- even if it is only half true -- is just sad. Laughter is breathing, only better. My childhood heroes were comediennes: Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. Cloris Leachman and Gilda Radner. Even Cher, one of the stars in my personal firmament, whose glamour and platform shoes fascinated me, was a great comedienne.

And by the way, I like Santa hats. I had a good-luck ritual for years when I lived in Los Angeles. It entailed wearing a Santa hat on the drive north home for Christmas every year. I did a lot of waving at folks on I-5. It kept my spirits up and kept me from being scared shitless that a Rutger Hauer-Hitcher situation might back up on me before I cut over to 580.

So yeah, I guess that makes me kind of a "love me, love my hat" kind of person.

As Kate and I sat down, removed our coats, and adjusted our red and white faux fur stocking caps, I realized that this uncertainty was not the result of having crossed over some good-taste boundary into deep embarrassment.

On the contrary. I was simply coming to appreciate fully that to be "not from here," and to be at home with who you are, is to be free. Amen.

Comments

[Frances N. Damas]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Regards, Frances...

[jeanmandel]

Frances! I am always happy to hear from you. I leave Saturday to spend New Year's in Paris. Full report upon my return. Happiest of holidays to you, my dear.