Better late than never?

I went to Paris hoping to get drunk and write something brilliant. It never quite worked out.

I came up with this basic idea a few days in, and tried to write shortly before leaving. Turns out I hate to be watched when I write; one thing led to another, and a bit of a blow-up followed. I think the recovery reaffirmed the power of the metaphor.

Three weeks later, here I am on my couch, a tumbler in hand, watching water melt off ice cubes into vodka and bubbles form on a slice of lime. It is as if I have never left. But I am so much the better for it.

**

Paris lives in fantasy far grander than in reality. Like an ex-girlfriend, an imagined next girlfriend, or the one that got away, it is much more satisfying in anticipation or in reflection than in existence. Its purpose, ultimately, is to remind you of how good things are.

**

Popular culture sets high expectations. Goddard, Nin, Hemingway, Casablanca — it is a city that demands recognition for romance and beauty and culture. But is it a city that earns it? The cafe culture is darling, but one cannot help to be frustrated with a country where even the restaurants close for lunch. The Eiffel tower is world-famous, but truth be told the Parisians who shit on it more than a century ago were right.

I have insisted for years that France is what America will be like when she loses her empire. They had the world, and lost it. Having your lingua as the world’s franca is not something you get over quickly. One hundred years from now, when tourists come here and speak Chinese, the cab drivers in Brooklyn will undoubtedly pretend not to understand.

And Paris is a city with a monument to the conquest of Europe at its center. Imagine the reaction if the Germans built something like the Arc de Triomphe in memory of the Wehrmacht. This is a country responsible for Vietnam, for Algeria, and they put their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the center of their capital. The French are really more martial than us. No wonder they just smirk when we invade a country for no reason and talk about “freedom fries” to mock their good sense.

**

None of this is to take away from Paris. It was a beautiful city, and I had a beautiful time. But it’s a bit like the East Coast — once you’re there, where else do you go? If you’re from there, you’re not about to pack your bags and move to Omaha. When I was 16, I judged people who described a year abroad as the best year of their life. If I peak at 16, I thought, what’s the damn point?

Last month, I drove a stick shift through the hills of the Loire Valley, and I killed the bastard in the middle of a roundabout with a semi bearing down on me (it was tiny and had a yield sign, but it was still nerveracking). I tasted wine and ate raw beef and lamb and pate and foie gras and escargot and probably didn’t appreciate any of it as much as I should have, if I were older or wiser or French.

I went to Versailles. And ate at McDonalds. I appreciated the hell out of that. I think that’s part of the complexity of Paris, and of France. If you take it too seriously, you’re an idiot. If you don’t take it seriously enough, you’re an idiot. The balance is hard to strike. The key is that Paris is the romance that remains unrealized for a reason.

Look, there are plenty of Western cities with a sizable minority population, but only one has recently had dudes burning buses in the suburbs. Paris, like New York, has its crack stacks (a better comparison is Daley’s Chicago, as effectively as they are segregated). This is not on the honeymoon tour of the Seine. But it’s there.

These are the things you forget about in your ex, or never imagine in the girl of your dreams. They are always there, but you only see them after a few bad decisions. They are the things that make you realize that this is all a mistake, that the grass is not really greener, that you love the one you are with for a very good reason.

**

“We’ll always have Paris,” says Bogart to Bergman, summing all of this up. Ilsa fell for Rick because she thought her true love was gone. They had a wonderful time together in Paris, until the war ruined it all, and ultimately it was but a dream.

Yes, they’ll always have Paris, but Ilsa is the one leaving with her lover. Rick is left alone with reality. It’s heartbreaking, until he takes it all in. What is he left with? The beginning of a beautiful friendship.

“I love my country so much, man,” sings Mike Doughty, “like an exasperating friend.”