Kiss My France

Roissy-en-France is overrun.
It is a small town very near to Paris, but you wouldn't even know it was here, the population is so low.
Except, that is, for the rabbits.
This town is overrun with rabbits. Fuzzy, furry little guys who bounce along the ancient rues and alleys. I have no idea where they come from or how there came to be so many.
You almost never see one creamed on the side of the road, and no one talks about them. I thought maybe that they were old news or something, and that was why people never bring them up. But if you ask someone about them, all they do is smile.
I have never gotten an answer when I have asked about these fricking rabbits.
How did they all get here? How are there so many?
What are they doing here?
What in God's name are they all doing here?

***

"Check the bag again."
"I'm telling you, they're not in there."
"Just check the bag, ok?"
"Oh! You were right! They're in the bag. I pay too much for cigarettes to lose them like that."
A very balmy August night. I am on a train platform at Saint Denis Stade de France with a Spanish guy named Esteban. He was looking for an apartment in a town called Saint Denis, and we had gone out there to see what we could find.
As it turns out, Saint Denis is pretty skeezy. It has a beautiful old cathedral where all the kings of France are buried, but other than that, it is pretty gross.
We stopped for a Leffe beer (only 4€ in St. Denis) and a pizza with spiced oil, my favorite. Esteban bought cigarettes, and we headed back home.
We were late though and were hoping that we had not missed the last train.
It was on that platform, in the warm and humid August air (which seems like ages ago) that I decided that me and Esteban were not going to be friends for long. He didn't need a friend; he needed a personal assistant and a mother, rolled up into one. Not my thing, I will tell you that right now.
But deciding that even if I hung out with no one else, I was not going to waste my time with someone I didn't click with marked a change for me.
When I was 19 and in Athens, I made friends with anyone I could, just so I wouldn't be alone, even if I didn't like them.
I worried that my time in France might be the same. I was coming here alone, and I am a really social person.
Ditching Esteban meant that something had changed. I am good on my own, and it was the real start of my trip here.
It was good.
Oh, and we made the train.

***

I am wandering the streets of Reims, angry and drunk. Where the hell is that hotel?!
Les Bleus had just lost the Rugby World Cup, and I had been dousing my sorrows in heavy French ales.
Forty minutes later, I came across my hotel and got into bed.
The next day I woke up with a headache that would have killed a bear.
I stared at the ceiling and decided to stop breathing until I felt better or just died.
I was pissed that there were people in the hall calling after each other; I was angry that those French guys at the bar the night before had given me so much beer, even after I said no, and I didn't want to get up and get going because I felt like I had been run over.
Eventually pulling myself out of bed, I got to the window to squint at one of the most beautiful mornings I have ever seen.
The sky was drenched in blue and the breeze was cool and velvet.
I needed to shut up and get my butt in gear.
I don't know why I blamed so many people for things that I had done to myself.
It was like I was a victim of everything.
I decided to stop that, there and then.
It was after 11am in a hotel; why was I expecting people to be quiet for me?
Those French guys hadn't forced that beer on me.
I had chosen to come to Champagne.
I had to get over myself, and so I did. It made a huge difference in how I run my life.
And everyday has been better for it.

***

My legs ache, and my ankle hurts still. I had decided to take a walk in Paris. I didn't know where, but I went.
They say that the best way to get to know Paris is just to get lost wandering the streets.
I have done that more times than I care to mention. It doesn't matter if I have been to the area I am in a hundred times, I can still get lost and find something wonderful.
This particular day, there was a nip in the air as it was getting pretty late in the year and pretty cold.
I walked down the quai and along the river. At times, the sidewalk dipped so low that the river could have lapped over onto my shoes.
Some parts of the quai smell like piss. Some parts are really well kept up and well lit.
Sometimes there are groups of kids sitting around smoking and talking.
Sometimes it seems like there is no one around for miles.
I love Paris, but I have never felt more Parisian. Maybe it was because I wasn't chasing after anything. I was just there. I knew where I was, and I felt at home.
I just sat down and listened to the bells from the cathedrals and rested my legs.
I love it here; I just love it here.

***

I love grapes.
I don't eat fruit very much, but I love grapes.
I love how they can take on the flavor of everything around them. How does wine taste like chocolate and smoke with a hint of ceder and earth? How do those things get into grapes?
How does a half of a degree totally change the quality of a wine?
These are amazing little beings, grapes are.
So, to pick them off the vine and eat them by the hand full in the champagne fields was an amazing experience. I knew where these grapes would go, and I was overcome with a sense of history and pride. Champagne is part of something I do. I cook, and it is the holiest of holies in terms of celebratory drinks.
On that hill in the tiny town of Pierry, I felt a connection to the hundreds of years that these exact vines have been making the greatest champagne in the world.
I walked for a long time, uphill and downhill. It was getting warm, so I took off my pull over and let the wind ripple through my undershirt. It was cool on the sweat on my chest and it chased off the suns heat.
I sat down on top of one hill in particular and wrote a letter to my wife.
I don't remember the last time I actually put pen to paper and wrote to someone.
It felt right.
An hour later, I folded the letter, picked a leaf to put inside, kissed the ground, and walked back to town.

***

It had been an almost unendurable night at the restaurant. The ticket machine did not stop printing tickets. It just poured them out.
There was no way anyone could have handled all the orders we got.
We were swamped, and I don't even remember how we were doing things. The kitchen was a mess, and servers were running up to grab plates as we were setting them down.
It was madness and overwhelm.
In the middle of it all, an old man in the restaurant stood up and raised his glass. I remember seeing him do it. I don't know what pulled my attention.
He waited for quiet and started to sing the Marseillaise, the French national anthem.
Everyone in the restaurant started to sing along. People put down their food and drinks. Men stood up.
We cooks just stopped.
I have sang the American national anthem plenty of times. You put your hand on your chest and "the rockets red, bla bla bla..." play ball.
But this, I had no idea why he was singing.
But there was no other option that to sing along with him, as the guests and the servers, the cooks and even the busboys sang along.
It was riveting. Incredible national pride.
When it was over the man sat down, and slowly dinner resumed. I had not noticed that the ticket machine had stopped until it started printing again.
We returned to warp speed.
When the night was finished, I walked out to the hill that I go to for quiet sometimes. I could see my breath, it was so cold.
I dont know when I became a cook, because I know for damned sure it wasn't when I came here. I felt like screaming or crying or something just to shake off the stress from the night.
In the distance, the Eiffel Tower glittered.
That's why I came here.

***

"Can you make some onion frizzles?"
"Um, sure. Wait. No. What are onion frizzles?"
"Just move. I'll do it."
That is how my first day in the kitchen started.
Onion frizzles are onions sliced super thin, so you have tons of the little rings that make up an onion. You dredge them in flour, deep fry them and salt and pepper them.
Easy and quick.
I couldn't do it.
Can you make a chicken consommé that is so clear you can see a dime at the bottom of the soup, and then garnish it with a nutmeg custard cut in the shape of a fleur de lis? Yeah, no problem.
Can you fry an onion? No.
This kitchen busted my butt back down to basics. I don't even know why they kept me around, I was so inept. I didn't speak the language well; I couldn't make their dishes. I didn't know where anything was or who anyone was.
What good was I?
Five months later and I am instructing the new guys on where things are and who people are. My role has totally changed. People complain to me about how stupid the stagiares are, forgetting (I hope) that I am a stagiare.
I have a place here. I noticed the schedule for next week does not have my name on it, and my first instinct is to make sure the shift has adequate coverage.
They will be fine here, of course, but I cant imagine that this is not a school. That I am the only one leaving, and after all it took to really get here.

***

My wife is in my arms for the last time before she gets on her plane.
She will be back in two months, but I don't think I can wait that long.
At some point, I will have to let go, and so like a band aid, I let go, kiss her and walk away. No point in making it worse.
I sat outside of the airport, hoping she would make it home ok, and letting the new autumn mist wet my head.
I don't know how I am supposed to work that night. On the other hand, maybe it is better that I am at work to take my mind off of her leaving.
The hotel shuttle comes, and I am greeted as I always am: "Marc! Ca va? (How's it going?)"
"Oh, ca va (Oh, its going)."

***

I cant believe I am leaving this place.
I had a dream one night that I was home, and someone asked me how the trip was and I couldn't remember anything.
I am so glad that is not the case.
I have a million memories. I have lived a million little lives here.
I have a memory for every rabbit in Roissy, and so when I come back (as I surely will), those rabbits will be here as a reminder of everything I did when I was here.
Of every place I went when I was here.
Of the man I learned to be, when I was here.

It took so much for me to pull myself together and to be brave everyday to be here. I had to make a whole new life, and I am sad to let it go.
I don't know if you can understand what it takes to forget all of your old habits and customs and places you go and the language you use and your place in your world, and to learn a whole new life. Everyday I learned in the kitchen. Everyday I struggled with my French. Everyday I missed everyone I know.
From changing hotels weekly to being swamped in the kitchen by hungry Koreans to working on a twisted ankle to the friendships that I have made to places I will have to leave behind. It took so much, it is hard to let it all go.

Someone asked me if, before I leave, I did everything I wanted to do while I was in France, and of course the answer is no.
There are lifetimes of places to get lost here.
That's why people come back...
and that is why it is ok for me to go.


Thank you so much for reading.




Hippity, hippity hop.