{"id":19591,"date":"2021-07-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sasee.wpenginepowered.com\/?post_type=essay&p=19591"},"modified":"2024-03-26T15:08:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:08:32","slug":"a-french-awakening","status":"publish","type":"essay","link":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/essay\/a-french-awakening\/","title":{"rendered":"A French Awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was 17, I fell in love with all things French. During the summer of 1972, my headquarters for a study abroad program was Orleans, France, an idyllic backdrop for amor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orleans was like nothing I had ever seen before; exotic, fruitful, and mysterious. It was the perfect place for young explorers to spend hours getting lost in the magic. My school friends and I would eat strawberry cream-filled crepes en plein air. We inhaled French perfume in the grand plaza. JaReviens by Worth became my favorite scent. To this day, nothing smells as sweet. We obsessed over the statues of Jeanne D\u2019Arc, the enigmatic French girl who led a revolution at age 14. She was my namesake and I was proud to call her one of my own. We rented rowboats with parasols and spent lazy afternoons patrolling the river for a breeze. We ate pastries in a caf\u00e9\u2019s overlooking le petit jardin. Everything sounded better in French, especially music, which we listened to endlessly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At night, we\u2019d visit small cabarets and drink wine from a glass. We\u2019d dance till curfew with French boys when they sang, \u201cVou le vou couche avec moi ce soir?\u201d Everyone was happy. Some of my friends were in the midst of a summer romance, chock full of stolen kisses and broken promises. But I wasn\u2019t having a fling with a mortal, I was having a madcap liaison with a country. France was the man for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France and I go way back. As a child, my mother had given me the book, Jean Marie, about a young French girl who lived on a farm. My middle name is Mary, so I believed that Jean Marie was my French twin. But it wasn\u2019t until high school before I picked up French again. I added a beginning French class to my already course-laden school schedule. Six days after my first lesson, I was ready to hop on a plane and find my homeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was an introverted child so this enchantment with France came as a shock. Before I knew what was happening, I\u2019m giving flight to my dreams. The plan was for me to attend a six-week Study Abroad Program and travel to France and Italy, and lodge in universities and hostels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we travel, we keep lots of things to help us remember; photos, trinkets, journals. But nothing I have kept is more telling than a portrait I had drawn in Montmartre, Paris. Montmartre, my favorite spot in France, is an artist\u2019s nirvana located behind Sacre\u2019 Coeur. When we arrived in Paris, I realized that Orleans had been an aperitif. Paris was the entr\u00e9e with delicious side dishes like the outrageous can-can dancers at The Eiffel Tower and the mesmerizing Water Lillie\u2019s exhibit at The Louvre. Monet made me feel as though I could climb inside the floor-length mural and turn off the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Sacre\u2019 Couer, the massive white cathedral that sits atop a hill, was as close to heaven as I\u2019d ever find on earth. I dashed up the steep 300 steps, two at a time as if I were meeting an admirer who doesn\u2019t like to be kept waiting. My friends were climbing the steps one at a time, with frequent pauses for elaborate photo shoots. Slow and easy was not the way I wanted to experience Paris. When I got to the top, I stood under the gorgeous basilica. A soft whisper in my ear murmured, \u201cCome this way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montmartre was like Disney World for art lovers. Although I\u2019m not an artist and I hadn\u2019t yet discovered I could paint with words, Montmartre was much more than a colony for art enthusiasts. It was the world\u2019s largest color palate. I touched, gaped, stared, and marveled until I stumbled. I knew I couldn\u2019t leave Montmartre without a tangible reminder of the aura that enveloped the city like a halo. I paraded around the artist\u2019s stalls. I thought I needed a painting. Flowers, fruits, landscapes, and French locales all seemed like good choices. But then I saw what I wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m wearing a halter top and my hair is long, parted in the middle. It\u2019s hot and my skin is dewy. I\u2019m nervous as I approach the artist. \u201cPortrait?\u201d I ask. The artist motions for me to sit on the stool. Then he stands up and hovers next to the easel. I\u2019m thrilled. A girl from Long Island is having a portrait drawn by a real French artist, one with smudgy fingers and a five o\u2019clock shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He paints me slowly, one stroke at a time. He spends a long time on my eyes and hair. Then he moves down to my neck. Even though Montmartre is a large tourist attraction and thousands of people are milling around, I\u2019m aware of his close proximity to my skin. He doesn\u2019t say much, this Frenchman, but whatever he says is uttered in a soothing Parisian accent. I stare transfixed as his fingers shade the top of my shoulders, and then as they outline the V-neck of my shirt. I think he\u2019s going to move further down and shadow in my cleavage, but he stops. That\u2019s as far he\u2019s going to go. But even though his fingers never touch my skin, it\u2019s as if my body and the illustration are the same canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTres belle, n\u2019est-ce pas?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When most people look at the portrait, they focus on the arresting smile. But don\u2019t let the lips fool you. Look into the eyes. You\u2019ll see flickers of light that dance around the iris like bright spots of joy. The pupils are large and dilated. If you pay close attention, you can watch a shy girl become a woman, right in front of you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was 17, I fell in love with all things French. During the summer of 1972, my headquarters for a study abroad program was Orleans, France, an idyllic backdrop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46],"essay-category":[],"class_list":["post-19591","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","essay_type-features"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/19591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/19591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=19591"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=19591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}