Steak Tartare

The past few months in New York have been some of the most multicultural of my life–I may have been living in my childhood home, but I was working for a French Canadian site, hanging out with the Almost British One, who moved to England the same year I moved to France and never came back, and I spent most of my weekends hanging out with French people (yes, I found myself some French people in America).

One of them, the Country Boy, came to New York from the middle of nowhere in Ile-de-France. He spoke no English, but he soaked everything up, Times Square a delight instead of a nuisance, the idea of a giant park in the middle of a city like New York simultaneously ridiculous and incredible. I spend most of my weekends walking him up and down the island and revelling in hearing French again. We didn’t know each other very well–he’s a friend of the Parisian–but somehow we found things to talk about, especially when it came to Paziols, where he’ll be a counselor this summer.

One afternoon, while talking about our boss, he said something that stuck with me. Elle a une vision de la France qui n’existe plus. She has an image of France that doesn’t exist anymore.

I understand what he meant–our boss left France when she was my age, and after several decades, policy changes, the end of the franc and the entry of the Euro… I’m sure certain things must be different. I can only imagine what it would be like to leave America at the beginning of the 80s and come back now to see what has changed. I see why her France, the France she hangs onto in her head, may not exist anymore.

For awhile, I considered myself as having a different problem entirely: my version of France isn’t so much a version that doesn’t exist anymore, but one qui n’a jamais existé, one that never existed. My vision of France, the France I miss so much, even when especially when I’m back, walking these streets again, is cobbled together from homestay programs where I had a built-in family and university life when everyone is your friend, of falling in love, not only with Paris, but with the Canadian and then the Parisian. Tossed in, especially now, are snippets of other people’s Frances: Peter Mayle’s Provence, Christophe Honoré’s Bastille, Francois Truffaut’s Saint-Germain, Paul Mayeda Berges and Gurinder Chadha’s quais de la Seine. I can force-march my friend, the Almost Frenchman, back to le Centenaire, where Emese and I used to go for steak tartare when we couldn’t make a decision on dinner. It’s still as good as I remember, but not nearly as perfect as when it was just another option, just another night in the city. I can’t get over the feeling, even as I’m here, living and breathing Paris, that it doesn’t belong to me anymore, and it stings.

But I realized today, as I wandered from my second steak tartare lunch in Paris, that a second problem has edged its way into my perfect vision of this city–it changes. Unlike New York, where buildings are torn down and thrown back up in the blink of an eye, Paris changes slowly, fading and morphing so subtley that you don’t realize it until the place you love–in my case, my favorite bakery, home to the best palmiers in the city–has become no more than a cheap shop for tourist trinkets.

The Almost Frenchman and I wandered all over the city today–more than two hours of walking, along the quais of the Seine, along the Saint-Germain I’ve seen in the films. Here it all is for me, tangible and real. I want it to be mine again, and yet I worry about how much it has already changed, how much I have already changed. Relationships are impossible to relive the way they once were. I’m a strong proponent of the theory that no one ever changes, not really, but the paths that lead people and places away from one another hardly ever lead you back to where you started; to try to fit into the mold of what you were before things ended is a fruitless endeavor. To live in Paris–to live for Paris the way I remember it is a silly thing to even attempt to do. So instead, I’m mulling over the idea of a new Paris, a fresh start for the both of us. Maybe it’s in the cards? Who can say… for now, I’ll have another glass of vin du pays d’oc, and allez, maybe one last steak tartare lunch, pour la route.