Exploration, Escapism, and the Paris culture-trail.

Now settled into life in Paris 15eme, but with the gradual fading of Monday-morning excitement, and the appeal of a familiar and slow-paced summer at home growing with every hot and crowded metro journey, it could be said that this traveller is experiencing some French-fatigue.  At the same time, in Paris the guidebook-in-hand-clan is ever growing. Queues, cameras, tour-guides with clipboards and the streets resounding with a cacophony of languages anything other than the local. The tourists have arrived. En masse. And if you can’t beat them, why not join them. This has been my line of thought over the past couple of weeks, as instead of counting down the days and moaning about my job, its more enjoyable working out Ellen-suited ways to “make the most” of my time left on French soil.  Profitons-en!

Although not feeling any desire or need to embark on a sightseeing whirlwind, I have had fun with my own itinerary of cultural exploration Paris-style. A surprising discovery of mine has been that art museums actually are enjoyable. Formerly one who would head straight for the café, last weekend I decided to give it another go and visited the Musée de l’Orangerie, small but impressive, and housing the Nymphéas by Claude Monet, 8 paintings made for this space. In no way a connoisseur, I learnt what “impressionism” meant, and that I actually quite liked the landscapes and colours. Interestingly enough, Monet’s intention was to encourage calm reflexion, offering with his painting “the refuge of peaceful meditation”, somewhat fitting for my current all-frenched-out state of mind. Having enjoyed my artistic-debut, this weekend took me to the Musée d’Orsay, and a slightly different exhibition on gothic romanticism. Cue works inspired by Paradise Lost, nightmarish scenes, and an insight into the somewhat disturbed minds of French artists and intellectuals post-revolution.  A contrast to the previous discovery, but the same (free) pleasure from whiling away a couple of hours mingling with the artsy-bourgeois (and tourists) and learning a thing or two along the way. I have not yet made it to the Louvre; we’re building up to that one.

It goes without saying by now that I am one for a brief escape from the stress of the day-to-day with a story or several, and as the theatre-scene is not something to be skimmed over, I thought I’d brave the slightly impossible choice and find a performance to lose myself in. First stop was a slightly off-the-tourist-track event, located in a hidden theatre in the 20^th arrondissement: L’habitude de la liberté – a marathon literary reading in which 72 female writers read/performed extracts from their books/plays over a period of 24 hours. Admittedly not committed enough to camp out the for the entirety of the spectacle, I did however sit in on 6 mini-performances, feeling a little out of place amidst trendy Parisian feminists and arty-types, but enjoying the short stories (that left me wanting to read/watch the next scene!). Inspired to treat myself to more theatrical moments, a student-friendly price brought me last night to Inventaires, a play in which 3 women each recounted the events of their lives using an object as the stimulus for their story. A simple piece, with the focus all on the performance of the actresses, in one of those small spaces where you feel more like you’re in someone’s living room than at the theatre. The intimate setting and powerful delivery of harsh truths and poignant realities left me completely absorbed, immersed in the significance and very sounds of each word and phrase uttered with complete precision and intended effect. Stories told and acted make you even more susceptible to complete immersion, leaving you refreshed if not a little disorientated when the lights come up and you re-join reality and the metro home.

One thing this year has taught me is how refreshing it is to become immersed in something different, provoking reflection, or simply indulging sheer escapism.  Be it anxiety, homesickness, or the “I’ve had enough now” phenomenon, putting aside unsettled thoughts to fix your energy on something stimulating and distanced from the reality is both beneficial, and enjoyable. Be that art, theatre, or the classic good-read, sometimes a little bit of culture takes you a long way.