Bye Bye Baba

My month is up at 166 Magenta Blvd, in the 10th Arrondissment on the corner by Metro Barbes- Rochechuart. A long 19th century flat with fireplaces and broad, gothic mirrors in every room, and a balcony that runs along the outside of the entire floor, over looking the discount shoe shops, Lebanese Patisseries, and a multi-culti crowd of ladies in their wrap- around green sarong dresses, and boney black-clad parisian women, mounted on their bikes clanging at people to get out of the bike lanes that run alongside the broad boulevard sidewalks. The Sacre Coeur, OZ-ish and white, peers over the city on the shoulder of Montmartre. I'm missing this place already; the creaky wooden floors with a few slats popping loose. Baba; the calico striped dog-cat who sleeps on my chest, a purring accordion, as I watch Fashion TV runway shows; who ignores her dried catfood and begs for yogurt, milk, and cheese. Each night, Baba and I sleep together in white down comforters, I find her nestled in the cave of my elbows and blanket, a paw thumbs out from the warm mass. I now understand the simple decadence of the relationship between a lady and her cat. How, poor in Paris, I am the old cat lady retiring to the comfort of tea with Baba, preferring the reliable repore over expensive drinks and empty conversation in art-deco bars. When I do go out to the bars, I find myself dreaming of the retreat, the room I've earned, the rest I seek; lullabyed by Baba's throaty, grainy whispers.
And my other roommates have been exceptional as well. Maurice, quizzes me on French vocabulary, Star Wars plot lines, and takes me to pop rock concerts at abandoned metro stations (the Flech D'OR "Golden Arrow"). He's a German Francophile, a dapper dresser with a fifties coif that he may hair clip to one side, a love of rock n' roll and American culture, and his dark-eyed lean-legged girlfriend, Sonya. Christophe, invites me to plays written by his friends, shares aperitifs and cheese with me ("this cheese is very famous, you have to try it....is it okay to say, in English, that a cheese is famous?"), works for an environmental agency writing articles about farmer's unions, and sets the table for breakfast where we remember Phil Collins lyrics and bond over our shared religious practice: coffee. Siegfried's room is next door to mine, and I often hear his musical composition and recording sessions. A contestant on France's "American Idol", he writes songs for other artists, avidly watches independent films, and debates with me about the Dangerous Michael Jackson being darker, brooding, and therefore superior to the poppy, disco funk Off the Wall Michael Jackson.
Each man is an artist, a musician, an opinionated humorist and a sweetheart.
I made an "American" brunch for Maurice, Sonya, and Christophe yesterday, since Seigfried was at a work conference in Russia, and it was my last full day with them alone in the flat before Melanie's return. I have been subletting the room and the cat and this life from Melanie, a research librarian who has been doing volunteer work at libraries in India for the past month. She and I share an addictive love of Lillies, soul music, and record players. Living here has been like being her and me. I have felt so at home in this place, I wanted them to see how I was when I was at home in the Bay area. So brunch was vanilla cinnamon brioche French Toast ( although, here, it's just Toast), with banana, apricot, or strawberry confit, creme fraiche, nutella, eggs, bacon and mimosas. The recipe, pronunciation and timing of the mimosas caused the greatest amount of confusion( " When do we drink these? As an aperitif before the meal? After the meal? Is it a Spanish word? How do you say it again?"). After everyone requested fifths on the French toast, Maurice celebrated the familiar heaviness of the meal, remarking how Americans and Germans have a similar affinity for meals with heft, grease, weight, and cream.
Baba came to beg for milk and creme fraiche at the table. After arranging peaches, orange juice, and champagne in glasses, Christophe poured everyone more coffee, and Maurice quizzed me on American dating practices and J. Geils Band lyrics before breaking out MJ's "Blame it on the Boogie" on vinyl. "Michael at his best; his voice is so pure, high, and solid." Siegfried, a Stranger in Moscow, was in no position to disagree.

The Can Can

" As soon as you step out your door in this city, that's money spent." Erika is telling me about Paris, in her categorically disordered apartment near Gare de Lyon..It is appropriately zen, she confirms, as the table in her living room is angled with a floral arrangement and clumps of keys hang together on one section of wall. There is clearly a calm order to the vast space, a rarity, a museum of collections from her life with her deceased filmmaker husband, Robert, and gifts from artists in her circle, authors and hippie gurus. "Everything in this space is either gifted, loaned, or second hand." Erika has adopted me, introduced me to her women's dream circle. Last weekend I met an author, Ione, from New York, who comes from generations of African Americans who were never enslaved. Her mother was a travelling actress and author, her grandmother a showgirl, her great aunt, a doctor. We discussed our dreams and how they translate into our real lives. I told the group of 16 women, musicians, authors, therapists that I feel now in my life is the time when I am sleeping hard and dreamless, but nearly everything I write down about the way I want my life to be in Paris has transpired. That I feel my life being my dreamlife...a dreamlife out of cans: canned tuna lunches, canned white beans and green peas, canned lunch and dinner with grapes for breakfast...a dreamlife with grist...
Actually, Erika, her earnest blue eyes, and braided gray hair illuminated in early afternoon window beams reminded me to use Grist, the roughness of teachers and students at Lecoq, to my advantage, when I came to her apartment for tea, harping about how a teacher showed up to class drunk. I could smell it on him, and he was curt, harsh, and long-winded. " I'm not going up there with the mask while he is that way! I feel vulnerable. Truthfully, doing the neutral mask work is impossible, unsolveable. Alone, in a green tiled studio in front of 25 classmates, I must believe I am in the sea, being taken with the current, but not appearing as a victim, with the superhero WILL to survive pushing through my body and mask. Then launched to the beach, my feet showing the resistance in the sand. Then I see the forest and traverse it, before coming to a mountain, scaling the mountain, observing the valley below, letting gravity pull me down the mountainside to a river valley. Cross the river to a plain to watch the sunset. We all have yet to do this task correctly. To show the changes in terrain, the moments when our eyes see the mountain and our body chooses to climb it. Each actor has a different challenge. And wearing the mask demands that you push it, that you become, as our teacher Paola says, a Gorilla Superhero...King Kong in the mask. Your arms and legs splayed, your head up to the horizon. The head chest pelvis forward ready fearless primitive animal. Yea..I got it..In my mind I see it, but the body doesn't translate what my mind knows, as Paola points out how small my movements are, how I am thinking too much. "You are lost in the space". I have been stopped at the beginning of my journey.."You don't see the space"...."Your underwear is showing" ... " Your pelvis is too far back, and your body looks split" ..." You need to be bigger" .... Some days I don't go up because I know I can't solve the mask, I can't breathe in the mask, I have anxiety.
After meeting with Erika and the dreamers last Sunday, I went to the mask work with more daring and openness. This is an invisible imaginary world and I make it! I was the first to go, which I never am. As the first you always get the most time with the teacher in front of the class, and the harshest critique, most often. This week the sea was stormy. I began undulating as I was pushed, sucked back and striving for the shore..Eyes to the horizon, the mask must live! Part of me was waiting for Paola to stop me. I was exhausted in the mask..heaving. Finally thrown up on shore, sucked back again, struggling to get up and see the forest...
"That's it?" Paola asked.
"I don't think you're finished"
" No, no of course not, you're right"
Paola had me go again, clapping at me to hurry, planting my legs wider, making the storm more extreme in the ocean, urging me to push my pelvis forward. "Tres jolie!" she shouted as I spun in my waves. It's too pretty! No, the waves are cruel and unpredicatable, you don't decide where they go, how you move. More resistance! Fight! Now! See your way out! Get to the shore! Stand planted firm big, tilt your head down and your eyes to the horizon; Push the mask. Oui oui! Oookaay. MERCI!
I saw Paola through the eyeholes...see me..her grist prompting me forard, not letting me get away with anything, not letting me hide...dream.life.bigger.



The mask stifles your breathing