So... there is creativity still...

Shortly after moving to Europe I asked an artist at an exhibition
where creative people lived.  I was told that due to the high cost of
living that everyone had left and live elsewhere.

After this conversation I came to feel that the creative energy that made Paris the center of the world for so many years had been forced out with the gentrification, the commercialization, and the handing over of the city to tourism.

Yet this may not be the entire story. There is still something of that old spirit in Paris. It lives along the edges and in the corners of culture and society. But it's still here.

This little fact makes me happy.

Why haven't I seen this before...?

I recently moaned and groaned about the current state of Parisian restaurants and such.

So wouldn't you know it? I was proven completely wrong the very next week.  A friend who was over from London to care for her Paris apartment suggested we meet at a restaurant near the Luxembourg Gardens.  The food was fabulous.  The prices were "correct."

This caused me to reconsider my moaning and groaning.  I needed to straighten up and fly right!

Indeed, Paris has changed dramatically over the past 40 years from when I first visited.  I find it all to easy to look back instead of looking out to see things as they really are.  Someone I read explained it this way.  Paris has changed from a sweet, naive, rather small feeling village into a city who's impacts (financial, political) are global.  Paris has grown up.

Where people used to lead small, insulated from the broader world kinds of lives (read "Zazi Dans le Metro"), they now lead well connected (cell phones, screen time) stressful existences.  This is why fast food is more common than ever, here.  Fewer people take the time to sit and enjoy a 2 hour lunch.

There used to be various local patois that were completely unique based on which small section of the city you found yourself in.  I experience this, though rarely now, when I visit small bars or restaurants in working class neighborhoods in the eastern portions of Paris.  But in general, the language that is shared is now peppered with English words and phrases, and the various patois have been washed from conversations.

The charm and wit (oh yes, it is here) and wisdom that defines Paris has evolved.  It really hasn't gone away (which I fear in the deepest darkest of nights).  I just have to look at things a little differently.  I have to take my blinkered sight and open it in a slightly different direction.

When we met our friend for lunch I was struck by how quaint and charming the restaurant was.  The wait staff were actually quite friendly and the owner was holding court with friends seated out on the street.  People were laughing and joking and sharing a very good time.  The food, as I said earlier, was fabulous.

As I have also said before, we carefully guard our secrets for fear they will be overrun by "the herd" and trampled like much of the city was during the decades leading up to "the confinement" during the outbreak of CV19.  Looked at in just this way, it reminds me that there are places and experiences to be had that remain uniquely Parisian, uniquely precious, and worth experiencing and living here for.

I have to learn that the past is not necessarily better than the present.  I really do.