I landed for a stopover in Paris, abuzz with energy and ready for fresh air after the stifling atmosphere of the airplane. Here I was...in Paris. I'd never been to Paris. My only reference for the city came from the movies. Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier. Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider...co-starring a darling stick of butter.
I bought a train ticket to get from the airport to the city center. I stood on the Metro platform beaming like a village idiot, turning this way and that. A wave of confidence rushed up from my toes and any doubts about taking the trip melted.
Apparently, my happy glow read as "friendly and local," because — not once, but twice — French-speakers approached me for directions.
They think I'm French...as hot as a fresh croissant. French.
I grinned and quickly spun my brain-dial to open a vault of ancient high-school French.
Ma Français est pas mal, I apologized with a perky forgive-me-I'm-new-in-town smile.
My inquisitor's twinge of disappointment dissolved into an expression of having stepped into something truly unpleasant, and I was sorry not to have been able to help. My accent must have been off.
Another opportunity arrived when a college-type girl approached me for information. Again I piped, Ma Français est pas mal.
Same reaction, only more so. She rolled her eyes, walked away and searched for help elsewhere. Damn, I tried. Give me a point or two for that.
I shuffled, looked up and down the track — and froze after translating what I'd said.
Merde.
Intention: My French is very bad.
Translation: My French is not bad.
Delivered with a cute shrug of my not-so-French shoulders. Not a great start.
Ducking into the train car, with a quick glance to make sure my questioners weren't in the vicinity, I took solace in the fact that I was anonymous and a dread American.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 2)
Sitting on the bed in my lovely Los Angeles apartment, on hiatus from a decent job as an acting coach on a television series, I relished my independent life with my choices and responsibilities mine alone. Then why did it bug me that William cringed at the idea of marriage? That should thrill me, not kill me.
And I put up a darn good disguise. I was two-faced about the issue. Before William left for Europe, we had a dinner conversation where I mentioned that our crosstown commute wasn't so bad. We were both ensconced in our homes and I saw no reason why a twenty-mile drive should interfere with that.
You mean we're never going to live together? William asked, forking a mouthful of food.
This question and his dismay surprised me. And secretly delighted me. Secretly being the operative word.
Why would we? This is fine...isn't it?
Forever? William frowned.
Sure.
I answered in a light and breezy voice because I like coming off as a "don't need anyone" kind of gal. I like this portrait of myself because the idea of dependency makes me cringe. I left my childhood home at seventeen and never entertained the concept of looking back, let alone moving back. I like long highways into distant horizons. I like getting in my car and driving for ten hours. Yup, forever would be just fine.
This was a complete lie, but even I didn't know that on this evening.
That's crazy.
Look, William, I've been down this road and obviously I'm not great at it. Furthermore, I have zero interest in living together to save gasoline.
What do you mean?
What do you mean, "What do you mean?"?
At this point our forks and knives were carefully placed next to our plates and the candles burned lower.
What do you mean? Pretty simple question. And he looked straight at me.
This chicken is going to be ice in a minute, I answered, and ducked his look.
Sarah Vaughan, crooning away from inside the CD player, acted like a real dolt and kept right on singing like nothing was amiss.
Okay, here's the thing, sounding like a lawyer making a case. I like my apartment. True, we've established I love you and you love me...but I couldn't just live together and not be married.
What?
It's not a moral thing. It's a dignity thing. I don't want to go into decade after decade as someone's girlfriend...I just don't. And frankly, no one has come up with a better title than wife. We all know what "partner" means, so that doesn't work. Anyway, that's what I mean.
Oh, and he started eating again. The chicken's good.
No it's not. It's wrecked.
And I put up a darn good disguise. I was two-faced about the issue. Before William left for Europe, we had a dinner conversation where I mentioned that our crosstown commute wasn't so bad. We were both ensconced in our homes and I saw no reason why a twenty-mile drive should interfere with that.
You mean we're never going to live together? William asked, forking a mouthful of food.
This question and his dismay surprised me. And secretly delighted me. Secretly being the operative word.
Why would we? This is fine...isn't it?
Forever? William frowned.
Sure.
I answered in a light and breezy voice because I like coming off as a "don't need anyone" kind of gal. I like this portrait of myself because the idea of dependency makes me cringe. I left my childhood home at seventeen and never entertained the concept of looking back, let alone moving back. I like long highways into distant horizons. I like getting in my car and driving for ten hours. Yup, forever would be just fine.
This was a complete lie, but even I didn't know that on this evening.
That's crazy.
Look, William, I've been down this road and obviously I'm not great at it. Furthermore, I have zero interest in living together to save gasoline.
What do you mean?
What do you mean, "What do you mean?"?
At this point our forks and knives were carefully placed next to our plates and the candles burned lower.
What do you mean? Pretty simple question. And he looked straight at me.
This chicken is going to be ice in a minute, I answered, and ducked his look.
Sarah Vaughan, crooning away from inside the CD player, acted like a real dolt and kept right on singing like nothing was amiss.
Okay, here's the thing, sounding like a lawyer making a case. I like my apartment. True, we've established I love you and you love me...but I couldn't just live together and not be married.
What?
It's not a moral thing. It's a dignity thing. I don't want to go into decade after decade as someone's girlfriend...I just don't. And frankly, no one has come up with a better title than wife. We all know what "partner" means, so that doesn't work. Anyway, that's what I mean.
Oh, and he started eating again. The chicken's good.
No it's not. It's wrecked.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 1)
Tomorrow I fly to Germany. A fantasy come true and yet....
It was not without trepidation. I hadn't been to Europe in fourteen years and had entirely misplaced the travel confidence I wore so well in that long-ago trip to Italy.
A nervy fear of monetary exchange and foreign communication had my pulse racing. I didn’t want to stick out as an American rube on foreign soil. Consoled with the thought that travel is anonymous, I surmised it was unlikely I would befriend anyone. So perhaps bumbling once or twice and moving on could work. I argued back and forth with myself, as if there were any serious doubt that I would accept an airline ticket to Germany.
In my apartment, I practiced counting, adding, multiplying and dividing Deutschmarks. Germany, like other countries in 2000, flirted with the Euro but was still using its own currency. I studied German and French phrasebooks. The plan: Start with hello, goodbye, please and thank you. Then move on to rudimentary sentences, and after that resort to drawing pictures or acting out as if in a game of charades.
As much as I wanted to go, I delayed the packing process. Pacing my bedroom and eyeing my empty bag didn't help. Packing for a weekend, let alone a month, frustrated me. I opened and shut drawers, stared in the closet and decided the antidote to my procrastination was to pack minimally.
I came up with a uniform. By eliminating choice, I'd never have to wonder what to wear and one bag would do. I decided on two pairs of corduroy pants, one black, one beige. Two pairs of walking shoes bought at a place called something like The Walking Shoe Store. A black cardigan, two white cotton turtlenecks, two white T-shirts, a gray sweater and a beige sweater. Socks, underwear and a bottle of Woolite. I could hand-wash along the way.
My flight path was Los Angeles to Paris, for a seven-hour layover before continuing on to Berlin. However, a bumpier flight path concerned me. I sat down on the bed next to my packed bag. Spencer dozed, a breeze rustled through branches outside the bedroom window of my apartment and I knew that as ready as I was, I wasn't.
This trip and my racing heart had less to do with concerns of language and money exchange than the precipice I was teetering above. My life was about to be altered. I didn't know the details, but something was afoot. My heart knew this well before my head caught on.
William owned a California cottage twenty miles across town, on the Westside of Los Angeles, and I lived on the east side in an old-fashioned, light-filled apartment with a cat and my stuff.
Two years into this and I was gettin' itchy. Still in love with the man, still laughing and carousing but...scratchy and fussy. I wanted to wriggle out of it. I'd never, ever made it longer than three and a half years in any marriage or romantic relationship. The time frame was natural for me: three and a half years and not a minute more.
Yet here I was, about to embark on a trip across the world to find him. William was already in Berlin. He'd been working there for a month. Up to this point in our two-year love affair, we'd only ventured away on one weekend, to Santa Barbara. That was the sum total of our travel together, and anyone who has ever journeyed with anyone — relative, friend, lover or "it could be somethin' " — knows this:
You find out a lot, fast, on foreign territory.
It was not without trepidation. I hadn't been to Europe in fourteen years and had entirely misplaced the travel confidence I wore so well in that long-ago trip to Italy.
A nervy fear of monetary exchange and foreign communication had my pulse racing. I didn’t want to stick out as an American rube on foreign soil. Consoled with the thought that travel is anonymous, I surmised it was unlikely I would befriend anyone. So perhaps bumbling once or twice and moving on could work. I argued back and forth with myself, as if there were any serious doubt that I would accept an airline ticket to Germany.
In my apartment, I practiced counting, adding, multiplying and dividing Deutschmarks. Germany, like other countries in 2000, flirted with the Euro but was still using its own currency. I studied German and French phrasebooks. The plan: Start with hello, goodbye, please and thank you. Then move on to rudimentary sentences, and after that resort to drawing pictures or acting out as if in a game of charades.
As much as I wanted to go, I delayed the packing process. Pacing my bedroom and eyeing my empty bag didn't help. Packing for a weekend, let alone a month, frustrated me. I opened and shut drawers, stared in the closet and decided the antidote to my procrastination was to pack minimally.
I came up with a uniform. By eliminating choice, I'd never have to wonder what to wear and one bag would do. I decided on two pairs of corduroy pants, one black, one beige. Two pairs of walking shoes bought at a place called something like The Walking Shoe Store. A black cardigan, two white cotton turtlenecks, two white T-shirts, a gray sweater and a beige sweater. Socks, underwear and a bottle of Woolite. I could hand-wash along the way.
My flight path was Los Angeles to Paris, for a seven-hour layover before continuing on to Berlin. However, a bumpier flight path concerned me. I sat down on the bed next to my packed bag. Spencer dozed, a breeze rustled through branches outside the bedroom window of my apartment and I knew that as ready as I was, I wasn't.
This trip and my racing heart had less to do with concerns of language and money exchange than the precipice I was teetering above. My life was about to be altered. I didn't know the details, but something was afoot. My heart knew this well before my head caught on.
William owned a California cottage twenty miles across town, on the Westside of Los Angeles, and I lived on the east side in an old-fashioned, light-filled apartment with a cat and my stuff.
Two years into this and I was gettin' itchy. Still in love with the man, still laughing and carousing but...scratchy and fussy. I wanted to wriggle out of it. I'd never, ever made it longer than three and a half years in any marriage or romantic relationship. The time frame was natural for me: three and a half years and not a minute more.
Yet here I was, about to embark on a trip across the world to find him. William was already in Berlin. He'd been working there for a month. Up to this point in our two-year love affair, we'd only ventured away on one weekend, to Santa Barbara. That was the sum total of our travel together, and anyone who has ever journeyed with anyone — relative, friend, lover or "it could be somethin' " — knows this:
You find out a lot, fast, on foreign territory.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
LOS ANGELES: October, 1998 (Part 8)
Two years into our relationship and William was about to travel across the Atlantic on a job. His career as an assistant editor continued apace. It's a good job and many assistant editors spend their entire careers in the position.
Assistant editors aren't assistants in the sense of picking up dry cleaning and making coffee. They carry very specific technical responsibilities in the filmmaking world, and the position is not an automatic precursor to becoming a film editor. William, however, dreamed of cutting movies. He wanted to move up.
How long will you be gone?
Mmmm...three months, looks like.
Huh.
I want you to come.
Well, I do have a hiatus, but....
What did I want him to do? Beg?
Maybe I did.
I'll buy you the airline ticket. The apartment over there is free.
Yeah.
Come, because I'll miss you too much if you don't.
Okay.
My lackluster response hid my thrill.
Assistant editors aren't assistants in the sense of picking up dry cleaning and making coffee. They carry very specific technical responsibilities in the filmmaking world, and the position is not an automatic precursor to becoming a film editor. William, however, dreamed of cutting movies. He wanted to move up.
How long will you be gone?
Mmmm...three months, looks like.
Huh.
I want you to come.
Well, I do have a hiatus, but....
What did I want him to do? Beg?
Maybe I did.
I'll buy you the airline ticket. The apartment over there is free.
Yeah.
Come, because I'll miss you too much if you don't.
Okay.
My lackluster response hid my thrill.
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