Ernest Hemingway at Passage Landrieu 7

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Hemingway to a friend 1950

Hemingway was right, he managed to capture Paris in two words “Moveable Feast”, for Paris is a moveable feast, it does stay with you wherever you go. I had come to Paris a couple of times before as a child, each time exploring more as I went along. I knew I wanted to live here, and I got the opportunity to do so. Having done most of my reading this week on Hemingway’s Moveable Feast, and Gertrude Stein’s Paris, France I wanted to write about my first day in Paris. For the topics discussed within the readings coincide very much with the views I shared about this city on the very first day.

“Life is tradition and human nature”- A Moveable Feast

I remember like it was yesterday, that sunny day where the movers were moving my boxes up the winding red-carpeted patterned stairs to my brand new studio apartment. A little blue door opened to a bright and white studio, with views of the Eiffel tower, and a garden rooftop, where Parisian women laid in the summer’s sun and their enfant’s splashing around in the blue sparkling pool. It seemed so unreal, having come to Paris ever since I was a young girl, to actually be standing on the hard wooden floors in the 7^th arrondisement down a little passage of coble stones lit by light poles that shone down on the little ateliers. As I heard the car pull away I opened up my windows on that very warm summers day, the white curtains moving with the rhythm of the cool breeze. I sat down on my cream couch took a breathe and had to calm myself for I was so exited, I was finally in the city where art, and literature and performance took life. Where the arts were the soul of streets, where the history hid behind the doors and where the city became alive at night. I was able to encounter the places that Picasso had gone to, explore the world of Montparnasse where Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Stein, and Hemingway discussed the new century ways. I could go to the gardens where Claude Monet painted, explore the surrealist world of Marcel Duchamp at the Pompidou.

Studying these artists and reading about them, and writing’s by them, I had a sense of what their views of Paris were, or how Paris had inspired them. However it was my turn as an art student to explore the realm of Paris. Explore the secrets that were to be unraveled as I ventured further into my personal discovery of the arts.

“Going down the stairs when I had worked well, and that needed luck as well as discipline, was a wonderful feeling and I was free then to walk anywhere in Paris.”- A Moveable Feast

Having finished packing, and with a sense of a good day’s of work, I felt like Hemingway after a day of accomplished writing. I was free to walk the streets of Paris, free as can be. It’s a gift to be able to do such a thing, Paris is a place for foreigners to all live and create together. It is a place where people have come to grasp what reality is all about. There’s an ideology of Paris as a City, one where reality becomes your life in an almost fictional way.

“Familiarity does not breed contempt, anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful, and that is all as it should be.”(Paris, France). 

A day in Paris will likely be interesting and show beauty in some shape or form. It is a picturesque city, as it has stayed true to tradition. Miss Stein talked to Hemingway about this city and its truths and secrets, how one must understand their reality, understand tradition, or understand the unknown.

I was ready to see the unknown, see this city where I had only childlike memories.  I was ready to embrace the attitude of the French, that attitude described in the excerpt of Paris, France by Gertrude Stein. That idea where “French people really do not believe that anything is important except daily living and the ground that gives it to them and defending themselves from the enemy”(Paris, France). I wanted to experience this experience, this idea of being a "promadeur", that calmness and contempt you can achieve by merely walking in the street that embraces you with beauty.

Later that night upon arriving in Paris I was getting ready to go out to a studio party in the Latin Quarters. I could already hear the night come to life, the streets gathering flocks of people in front of the ateliers, the neighbours putting on their music, wine glasses clinking. Walking down the winding stairs, where the floorboards creaked and fit unevenly on the base of my feet. I skipped out onto the summer night lit street, and made by way to Ecole Militaire metro station. People laughing from the window tops, couple kissing through the windows of the restaurants, old couples holding hands with the other holding on to their curved walking sticks. Walking into the metro, conversation sparking from left to right, as I held my Chablis wine bottle, I stood their taking in the liveliness of it all. I realized just how right Hemingway was about this idea of the romance of it all. He was right about this idea of life belonging to me and that all of Paris belonged to me, and that I belonged to my sketchbook and my paintbrushes, to my pen and paper.

As the metro went out and over into the real world, the views of Paris took my breathe away. The Eiffel tower began to sparkle, through the windows of the aged buildings where friends, lovers and family gathered. Suddenly “La Vie en Rose” began to play by a musician on the metro, his accordion large and vast began to inhale and exhale air, each crease producing a rich sound. I looked out over this magical city and caught myself in the reflection of the window, and couldn’t help but smile. I remember it being the first time I was truly happy, first time I felt perfectly content being alone in a new and wonderful place. It was a moment where excitement, nervousness, and anticipation conjured all together to create this ecsatic feeling of wonderment.

Walking down the alley of bars where drunkards laughed loudly, where men with the wandering eyes perused the enchanting femmes and where the women cheekily admired with teasing eyes the French men.  Miss Stein attempted to educate Hemingway on the ways of the French, on their sexual openness. She had tried to show Hemingway the world of the homosexuals, of the prostitutes and of the love making the French people yearned and desired. As I continued down the vibrant street I began to hear English-speaking foreigners, up on the 5^th floor. I typed in the code into the worn out box and took the bijoux size elevator to the top floor. As I passed floor to floor I began to have that feeling of excitement and anticipating begin to bubble up inside of me. For I was meeting artists and writers with performers and musicians all in one place. I finally felt like I fitted in somewhere, like I belonged somewhere. I knocked on the door and my friend X let me in; everybody was standing, for the studio was too small for people to sit. As said in Alice B Toklas autobiography people stood at all times, it was almost a way of life.

Parties overflowing with passionate and talented artistic youths lead to the most fascinating conversations I have ever shared with others. They understood my views; they challenged my views, they learned from my views, as I learned from theirs. We discussed some of our favourite artists such as Salvador Dali, George Bataille, Henri Cartier Bresson, Irving Penn, Walker Evans, and Man Ray to name a few. Crossing and daring each other to venture further into territories we never had discussed before, or imagined contemplating. As the summer sun began to set, the atmosphere became more tender and calm; the musicians began to play acoustic songs they had written. Cigarettes were being lit, the dance like smoke flirted with our visions, I stood there, listening to the acoustic strings bouncing off one another in vibrancy. With my glass empty and my head buzzing from the conversations just shared and the tingling sensations my wine saturated body was feeling, I decided to leave this dreamy night.

I kissed the people goodbye, one cheek two cheeks and descended the old Parisian building stairs. Skipping back onto the street where the dark night with its secrets and truths retired for the night. Lead by the streetlights and candle lit restaurants where lovers kissed, where friends waved au revoir. I found myself a taxi that took me back to my little narrow street down passage Landrieu number 7. Thanking him, I went back up the winding narrow crooked staircase, placed my large key into the hole and opened my door to an embracing studio. As I lay down to sleep in my white bed, with my mind still enchanted by the conversations and beauty the night had to offer. I smiled once more, for I had made it to the city of art, for I had finally arrived home.