Sharon Harrigan

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Fire Fighter Fashion

My husband James and I cycled next to each other on stationary bikes at our local Paris gym. “Have you noticed all the fire fighters?” he asked.

I shook my head. How had I missed that?

“The scene in the locker room was like something out of a gay porn film,” he said. “Firefighters stripping out of their rescue gear.”

Thirty minutes later, I caught sight of them hovered around the bicep curl and hip extensor machines. They were dressed in identical gym uniforms of clingy shirts outlining every chest muscle and minimal shorts emblazoned with the logo “Sapeurs Pompiers Paris.” Parisian fire fighters. I dare you to to come up with three hotter words.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that their outfits were not only athletic and practical. They were elegant, stylish, and color-coordinated. Classic heroic chic.

James and I heaved and grunted, getting more stinky and sweaty, as usual. The fire fighters seemed to enjoy everyone’s stares. I can’t have been the only person imagining what would happen if I “accidentally” dropped a weight on my foot, necessitating an urgent rescue from half a dozen men trained in mouth-to-mouth rescusitation. Men who, because their job is to save lives, are strong and competent. Men who, because they’re Parisian, are impeccably groomed and dressed. Where else, but in this belle ville, can you get that combination?

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No Tantrums on Air France

My friend (whom I’ll call G) has lived in Paris most of her life, except for a recent six-year sojourn in Houston. Over the Christmas break, she and her children returned to Texas for two weeks, and her four-year-old (whom I’ll call S) returned to American ways. S knows that no matter how democratic America says it is, the children there rule like kings and queens.

A combination of jet-lag, fatigue, restlessness, (and perhaps French baguette-withdrawal symptoms) caused S to throw some tantrums during their vacation. Time-outs are hard to manage in the middle of Wal-Mart or Starbucks, and corporal punishment is as socially unacceptable in the U.S. as loud noise in cafes would be in France. So S sometimes got away with things in the Wild West.

Once they boarded their plane, though, the rules changed. S started to whimper over a petty grievance, the wrong color cup or a broken cracker. G could see he was gearing up for a scene. “No more tantrums,” she told him. “We’re on Air France.” So what? he said with his face.

“We’re in France now,” she explained, even though they would spend the next ten hours in limbo between countries. “That means I can spank you and nobody will tell me not to.” S quieted, his foot-stomping, nay-saying machine turned off just by the threat of discipline, a la francaise.

Tantrums are so infrequent in France there isn’t even a specific word for them. People use the word crise, which means crisis.

The French are more physical, in general. Friends, male or female, kiss each other hello and goodbye. Children push and shove and grab and kick, and their parents don’t tell them not to, according to my daughter. If you ask whether children are better behaved here, she will say, “To adults maybe, but not to each other.”

Even though I live in France, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to hit a child. I’m still squeamish about kissing people, too. But I like the idea of quiet cafes. I’m even more tempted by the prospect of a silent flight, all children “sage comme des images,” still as pictures. Next time, I’m flying Air Frace.

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Drunch, Slunch, and Other Fake American Trends in France

Drunch, anyone? Slunch? Don’t know what I’m talking about? Me neither. But the newsletter for my Paris supermarket, Monoprix, thinks these are all the rage in the U.S.

The site gives recipes for mini hamburgers, carrot fries, cranberry-banana smoothies, and brownie/cookie parfaits. “No more depressing, gray Sunday afternoons,” I read on the site, looking out my window at the overcast skies that are as Parisian as poodles. If you want to “drunch” in Paris, a l’americaine, you can go to le Mini-Palais at the between-meals hour of 6 PM.

Want to immerse yourself in American culture? the site asks, leading us to a link of all things Yankee (from the French point of view): http://www.cuisineamericaine-cultureusa.com/

From there you can find out about: “The American Burger.” “Bagels: The Real Recipe for These New York Little Breads” (though how real can a bagel be that isn’t boiled?). “A Typical Day in an American School” (which explains, “although their subjects are somewhat similar to ours, their way of studying them is very different”). “How to Understand American Football and Play It in France.” And “The Ten Best Superbowl Commercials” (which I watched for the first time, thinking, that’s the culture we Americans are exporting? Advertisements of junk food?)

The (sometimes ambivalent, sometimes weird, sometimes earnest) love affair that the French have with America is funny to see from this side of the ocean. I feel like I’m watching my best friend dress for a date. She’s putting on a ridiculous get up, and I can’t stop her from making a fool of herself. But hey, I’m not the one she’s dating. Let’s hope at least they have enough of a sense of humor to make their rendez-vous a drunch.

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On Being an American-in-Paris-in-Italy

We recently traveled to northeastern Italy for a week. It was the first time Ella, my nine-year-old daughter, had left France since August. What struck her the most? “Not being able to speak the language. It was disorienting.”

When Italians asked where she was from, she said, “France.” When she observed Italian cities, food, and clothes, her point of comparison was Paris. “Italian architecture is a lot older than in Paris,” she said, “because Paris is all Haussman,” the architect Napoleon III hired to transform narrow, winding streets into grand, open boulevards. She’s right: Italy makes France look young. Ferrara, for instance, is divided into Renaissance and Medieval neighborhoods, and the apartment we rented was in a subdivided 15th century palazzo.

What else was different? “People spoke a lot louder,” according to Ella. Not louder than in the U.S., but louder than in Paris. I have been reprimanded twice by Parisians at cafes for making too much noise. Anybody who has witnessed my feeble attempts at squeezing two words into a dinner party conversation knows how surprised I was to be shushed. I have the voice of a mouse. Americans are always saying, “What did you say?”

Bologna, where I had the best steak in my entire life, is the culinary capital of Italy, according to my guide book, and the food made a big impression on Ella. “The cuisine is a lot simpler in Italy,” she said. “You can almost always tell what a dish is made of, unlike in Paris,” where that green puree on your plate might get its color from frog legs or avocado. Ella was surprised that the bread was so bad. Even at the restaurant that served the platonic ideal of steak, the bread was not up to Parisian standards.

Nor were the clothes. “People dressed more casually,” she noticed. It’s not that they sported shorts and flip flops. But they lacked the crisp, tailored look we’ve become so accustomed to.

Except for a day trip to Venice, we stayed away from tourist centers, so language was an issue more than it ever was in Paris, even when we first arrived. When I bought bus tickets at a tabacchi in Ferrara, I had to muddle my way through Italian by speaking French but changing the accent to the penultimate syllable and pronouncing all the letters the French keep silent. I resorted to using my hands. And speaking very loudly. When at a total loss, it seemed like a good idea to just keep saying prego. The coat check attendant at the Este castle, hearing us speak English to each other, asked if we were from Germany. “No,” Ella said, “France.” That must have really confused her.

A wine seller, noticing Ella ogling the ceramic tags decorating his wine bottles (and observing, probably, that our bonjourno sounded like bonjour), starting speaking to Ella in French. “Un cadeau pour toi,” he said, handing her a flowered tag. “A gift for you.” The two of them chatted away en francais as my husband and I loaded up on Prosecco.

Apparently, I spoke French without knowing. When we arrived at the Venice Airport, I called our landlady in Ferrara to alert her. Our e-mail correspondence had been in English, so I thought I was speaking to her in my native tongue. But after I hung up my husband asked, “Why were you speaking French?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You said oui and non, Madame and a bientot.”

So maybe Ella was right. Maybe we’re from France. Now if I could just figure out when I’m being served frog leg broth and when I’m being given infusion of avocado, all will be bien. As long as I keep my voice down.

 

 

 

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March for Gay Marriage in Paris

We gathered today at Denfert Rochereau, the protest march capital of Paris, which also happens to be our neighborhood, waiting for la Manifestation en faveur du mariage pour tous (the Pro-Gay Marriage March) to begin. My nine-year-old daughter carried her sign high above her head, its stars and swirls spelling “Enfants, nous soutenons le mariage pour tous” (Children Support Marriage for All). I carried mine, too, substituting Straight People for Children. My husband James came, too, even though he was sick.

The crowds were heartening (from 125,000 to 400,00, according to the French newspaper Le Monde). A few weeks earlier an Anti-Gay Marriage protest march had drawn from 340,000 to 800,000. Church buses from all over France had been parked near the huge lion statue at Denfert Rochereau, and provincial parishioners had spilled out onto the city streets.

So we thought it was important to show support for the other side. The Socialist government will soon introduce a bill to legalize marriage for gay people, and we wanted everyone to see that even heterosexual families care about this issue.

But I was unprepared for our reception. Many people asked to photograph us with our signs (my daughter, especially, but James and me, too). Others just said “thank you” to us as they walked by. Two women asked if they could hug us. “Yes, of course,” we said. “Merci, merci d’etre ici” (Thank you, thank you for being here), they said. I could see James get choked up, struggling to hold back the tears almost as much as I was. It was one of the most moving experiences I’ve had here.