Paris Burning: Part XI

Paris Burning: Flight is Freedom

Part XI

(Paris) The night went past when they should have shut it down and gone to bed; but the hours they kept now were like a family at a hospital death-watch. When it would end, they couldn't discern. Gathering together, sifting through the rubble, they hashed out details already known.

During their zig-zagged walk, holding each other's warm hand, gripping like a lifeline but also staring each other down, they discussed her leaving Paris, returning to America. Wine-stained lips expressed to the other how a split would rip them down the middle, or justifying it in the first place. 

Gabriel said, “We don’t split up as easily as you do…” Charlotte confessed, “my ancestors have been doing it for three generations. My dad, his sister, my sister, the uncles, hell. It’s a family tradition.”

“Maybe we can’t love,” she said. “But that’s so sad,” Gabriel replied.

They were different. Too young to realize that where they were unlike, or dissimilar, was where they fit together like puzzle pieces. Their families had contrasting ways of altering, unfamiliar methods of executing conflict. With immature priorities, too selfish right now to see how their unusual relationship might bind them for another chapter; instead, they came apart. 

“Work. We work. That’s for damn sure. We work!” “I’ll go back, and go to work. Study, make money, practice law, maybe some art. Gabriel, maybe I’ll be happy?” Wistful tears gently rolled out of her blue eyes.

Forlorn, he pleaded: “My heart is yours, Charlotte; it’s softer than yours, I couldn’t make the decision you’re making. It is not part of my soul.”

Most of the serious regret wouldn’t surface for decades; doubt planted like a small tree that would grow into a giant oak. Their special enchantment was more substantial and profound than their notion of love at this point in their lives, they were blind to it. And experimenting with this sort of ardor was reckless, presumptuous, like fooling around with hard drugs.

Charlotte: “I know Gabriel, I feel like I’m forfeiting mi âme doing this.” “Do you realize that? I don’t want to defend myself—I’m trying to define myself…”

Gabriel: “But if you give up your soul how will you make art?” She answered, but it was empty, “I’ll have to figure that one out.” She couldn’t speak to how long that would take.

I’m so fâché Charlotte! 

She replied, “Don’t riot, you’re not a tax protester—you’ve got no yellow vest.”

“Maybe I should leave Paris too.” “But where would I go?” “I’m a Frenchman!” They were exhausted and broken, and it was late; but neither of them were petty or belittling. The rioting comment was flippant, she didn’t expect him to compare her nature to the hurricanes back in Houston.

Smoke wafted through the air, sirens screamed in the night, and the CaféSociety changed forever. A peaceful summer they knew along the Seine dissolved into a cold, crisp, dark, winter of discontent. The city, like their relationship, simmered and popped with tension; she was determined by her will, and he was disillusioned by his love. She seemed practically gone, and he lost focus on art because of the vacuum developing in his heart. Paris crumbled before their eyes, and his dreams were now blurred, abstract, and vacuous. He went looking for a pencil.

There were “spaces” in his life, gaps in the story—white canvas, ready to be painted, or in reality blank for a reason. But why? What happened during those gaps? How many white pages can there be between episodes? He questioned himself, meditating on summer’s calm, anxious about next year. He longed for the stillness, the peace, but he felt the isolation, the loneliness, approaching, crouching at the door. Could he start another chapter without Charlotte? How would he fill the gap? He looked to the white; he could see the patterns of the Gods. Sharpening his pencil and going to work; he looked to the white.

(end)

-30-

Fibonacci Sequence

2018©fiction by Mark H. Pillsbury

[this last video talisman is dedicated to the real Gabriel & Charlotte, from Bruce & Bonnie:

https://youtu.be/ZTIu4UbkK94 all these short chapters are read together to say this...]

(Fair use of copyrighted work shown herein above is not an infringement of copyright law, 17 USC  Sec.107)

Paris Stories, Part VI: Arrondissements Municipaux

Paris Stories – Arrondissements Municipaux

[Part VI] like a person, Paris shines brilliantly, as the “city of lights”, but with 22-different personalities. Actually, the twenty-two districts are called arrondissements in French, originally numbering around a dozen in 1790; each sub-divided into four ancienne (“former” or older) districts.

The twenty-two arrondissements are arranged clockwise in the form of a “spiral” (often likened to nature’s nautilus shell-shape, reflected in the Fibonacci sequence -- see Part IV of this series), starting from the center of the city, with the first on the “Right Bank” (north bank, or la Rive Droite) of the Seine. Similar to minor divisions in a personality, or the gradual differences we all share, but which make us exceptional through individual personhood; these subdivisions each exhibit the idiosyncratic variances in Paris which make it so complex.

Visiting cafes and restaurants gives a vision of each district’s grandeur. Making the twirling route from the center of the city outward in mathematical precision, moving from scene to scene; one can picture the different affiliations and intrigues of each group of writers, philosophers, artists, and curators whose lives are similar but vary according to their own experiences and worldviews, reflected in each neighborhood. (See Poirier’s book, Left Bank, Holt & Co. 2018).

Just as DNA bonds like a ladder along a double-helix, so Paris' personality trails upon either side of the Seine, and in each municipal district. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, of course; however, stereotyping Paris is impossible, and every arrondissement links almost symmetrically to the next neighborhood either Left or Right bank, Montparnasse or Montmartre, as unique as brothers or sisters from the same family.

As different as the two young lovers were, they shared the spark of discovery, the relief of escape, the procrastination of youth, the magnetism of common art, and the freedom of time. What they lacked financially, they made up with the richness of creativity, tolerance, curiosity, health, confidence, and the comfort of common attraction. In one way poor, there are many who'd label them infinitely wealthy. 

And they were in Paris!

to be continued..........

2018©Mark H. Pillsbury

The Law Student in Paris (Part II)

Part II from Paris:

Cafe Society ©Mark H. Pillsbury (2015)

I’ve often remembered how complicated this relationship appeared on its face; but at that age, at that time, it fit like a glove. Without similar backgrounds or cultures, common-ground came from far more intrinsic personality patterns, where they fell on the arc of our lives. 

His English proficiency allowed us to communicate, but our rapport grew slowly, partly because of our separate styles. Gabriel leaned shyly toward introversion, but his eyes sparkled, connecting with mine when we met.

My strong, gregarious “American” persona, smooth as my tanned legs, pressured his French manhood, yet as artists we were noncompetitive; drawn together by his earnest skillfulness, far more interesting than mine. 

He loved to debate politics, or the legal system. I assumed my sophisticated, cerebral “aura” caught his fancy, but he told me later that he first noticed me wearing a simple red Hermes scarf tying up my long, wavy brown hair.

Even though both of us were “breaking-out” of entrenched patterns; we went about it differently. Trading my logical conformity and linear thinking with sublimity, artistry, and creativity, became more art than science. On the other hand, Gabriel escaped deep-rooted archetypes of chaos and disorder through focus and concentration on life’s blueprint, which he found in nature’s precise mathematical models. As representatives of yin and yang, I believe we came together at the starting point of these changes; like two halves chasing each other, seeking balance. ##

[*This is a work of fiction, all references are coincidental and photographs are used under the "Fair Use" doctrine]