Don’t talk to me of love, I’ve had an earful
And I get tearful when I’ve downed a drink or two
I’m one of your talking wounded.
I’m a hostage. l’m maroonded.
But I’m in Paris with you…
The recent Poet’s Notebook with Jeanne’s drawing of the elfin turrets of Neuchâtel brought a lot of suggestions about where we should go if President Trump’s reelected in 2020. Most were too polite to suggest we leave immediately, but poet Edward Field (at 94, Greenwich Village’s oldest bohemian), made a strong case for the Netherland’s The Hague (den Haag in Dutch): lovely, relaxed, good for people who like to walk around, with frequent stops. The Hague, Edward claims, is perfect for older people like us. We were there once, but just for a day, and enjoyed it. Portugal and New Zealand seemed to be the most popular choices among our responders. More objectively perhaps, the “Expat Insider” just reported that Taiwan was voted the Friendliest Country in the World. Who knew?
But the truth is, if we were moved to move for political reasons, Paris would be the place. Just as the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, warmly invited immigrants (like my grandparents in Ireland and Germany, who landed in Brooklyn), the open-minded bistros of Paris have called to artists, writers and others since I learned to read. I became a fan of Janet Flanner’s “Letters from Paris” in The New Yorker, and the long string of artists — male, female, white, black, gay, straight — who made Paris their home, beckoned from across the sea: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Kay Boyle, James Joyce, Mary Cassatt, James Baldwin, Djuna Barnes, Richard Wright, John Dos Passos, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), Carson McCullers… The list is endless (as are their cafés where we took our students: Deux-Magots, de Flore, Brasserie Lipp, Closerie des Lilas, La Coupole, Lapin Agile, Hemingway’s Bar at the Ritz, Harry’s New York Bar…). And always, the first place we visit, after a cup of coffee, is Shakespeare & Company on the Left Bank, the bookstore and gathering spot for English-speaking expats, where we often meet and make friends. Paris feels like an artist’s resort.
The recent passing of John McCain, that prototypical American figure, oddly enough made me think of Paris. President Trump’s petty reaction to his death made our skin crawl. No generosity; no dignity. The waiters in any French café, white napkins folded over their forearms, are more dignified than Trump. I wasn’t a fan of McCain — he supported the Vietnam war and chose Sarah Palin for his vice president — but he had a spine, and he believed in America and its Constitution. Like the French idol, Charles de Gaulle, McCain was a fervent right-winger who loved and understood the basic democratic heart of his country. De Gaulle, representing the defeated French after World War II, and not a partner with the three victors at Yalta (Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill), nevertheless through the force of his personality led them to include France in the eventual settlement. Unlike Trump, the conservative de Gaulle supported and restored the real greatness of his country: its fervent belief in liberté, égalité, et fraternité, “fraternity” meaning brotherhood, or in today’s de-sexed parlance, community.
De Gaulle and McCain recognized that from the time of the American Revolution, their countries have stood together, even though blind and bickering at times, as beacons to the world, holding up with Lady Liberty the torch of democracy.
All these reasons make sense, but in the end, I suppose our choice, if we have to make one, won’t be entirely rational. The poem quoted today, by the English poet James Fenton is, like Paris, both charming and convincing.
,,,Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There’s that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I’m in Paris with you…
—both quotes from “In Paris With You” by James Fenton
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 6, 2018.
