I visited Paris this past summer after a 37-year hiatus and guess what?
Things had changed.
When I left, a young woman in her bloom, I had no idea it would be so long before I would behold the lofty Eiffel Tower again, see the magnificent Sacre Coeur, or witness snails swimming in a perfect creamy French garlic sauce.
This time, one thing I learned about the city, renowned for its gastronomic delights, surprised me. Paris had fallen behind my home state of California in the delicacies it had to offer.
In my 37-year absence, the Californian cuisine had far out-ranked the French.
The croissants were not as buttery, the coffee not as smooth, and the choice between small and large snails (I think someone was tricking the foreigners into buying their much bigger and cheaper cousins — ugh!) was grotesque. Thirty-seven-years ago the tiny ones were bad enough.
My California friends and I concluded if you’re looking for good food, head to California, not Paris.
In California, we now even have a specialty coffee from Yemen that sells for $16.00 a cup at Blue Bottle Coffee in Oakland. I know the French don’t have this.
It wasn’t just the food though, everything seemed dull compared to what I remembered. The city was overrun with foreigners who now inhabited the city, no one seemed to speak good French, and, being the month of August, it was packed tight with tourists.
But the saddest moment for me was when I finally raised my eyes to the Eiffel Tower after so many years.
I used to live a few blocks away. I would often walk to the Tower and sit on one of the benches, at the end of a long stretch of meticulously manicured green grass lined with beautiful flowers, and a walkway on each side. I knew it well.
It was my most precious memory, and I had saved it for the last day. When we finally approached the Eiffel Tower, after a long, hot ride on the metro, I could see nothing of the splendid picture I had so well etched in my mind years ago.
Until this moment, I had ignored the gnawing tug at my heart telling me the Paris I once knew I would never return to.
Everything was fenced in now by the kind of wire fence you’d find on a cheap midwestern farm; the grass was worn thin with bald patches everywhere, the flowers were scanty and scrawny, garbage was a common sight — the Eiffel Tower I knew was gone.
The Paris I knew was gone.
And, I suppose, to be fair to Paris, so was the young woman Paris once knew. Both of us swallowed by time.
___________________________________________________________________
Elizabeth Y. Hanson teaches parents the secrets and skills to raising brighter children with a focus on getting the early years right. She is the founder of Smart Homeschooler™ and has been a consultant and researcher in children’s education since 2001.
Click here to receive a free 27-page booklet on instilling a love of reading in your children and a long list of hand-picked classic books for preschool through sixth-grade.
