By Vanessa Tirok
“Summertime… and the living is easy,” the jazz man sings through his trumpet. The metallic mimicry of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice spills out onto Boulevard Saint Michel. It’s 930 pm. The sun is just beginning to make its way down and the record-breaking heat has, by now, mellowed. A light breeze carries the tune into the bedroom, with the window left wide open because air conditioning is nonexistent in this land.
Around this time every summer evening, the jazz bar on the corner of the street comes to life. I can’t afford to sit at one of the outdoor tables and spend another ten or so euros on the menu’s cheapest drink, or tip the musicians when they come around with their hats full of change and their pressuring smiles. I can barely afford to exist in this city. In fact, I’ve been living off of 3-euro jambon et fromage paninis for the past few days, sold by the hairy dude on the stony road near the Seine who doesn’t wear gloves. But ever since I popped my jaw biting into a baguette, I’ve become panini-averse. And so tonight I decide that I don’t want to injure my temporomandibular joint, or wallet, trying to eat French food (why do the French prefer hard bread? Is this why they’re so skinny? Do they just give up mid-sandwich?). Instead, tonight, I make plans to sit by the window and enjoy the show from afar, and eat those blueberries I bought earlier today.
I can’t recall why I chose to buy this bucket of blueberries. These were ridiculously priced, I could’ve bought maybe three crepes from the hairy dude for the same value. I begin to think that this was not the best financial decision. But I remember the lady at the market saying they were “produits locaux,” and I imagined a little farm in a village outside of the city with blueberries, strawberries, apricots glistening under the sun. I imagined that the farm is family-owned, and after a successful day’s harvest, the farmer man, pit stains and all, takes his child into his arms, the farm dog does laps around them and the mother smiles in the distance. The image swirls in my mind like a Van Gogh painting, and this is the selling point for me.
Maybe I’m just really hungry, but these are actually the best blueberries I’ve ever had in my life. These are fucking amazing. Up until this point, I had never had a blueberry that didn’t assault my tongue with tartness. Each little blue orb bursts into my mouth and I feel nothing but sweetness and love. Natural, locally-grown candy. I like to roll the skins between my tongue and palette until all flavor is lost. I eat one after the other after the other and the eating becomes a habitual motion, and the berries a sugary side dish to the jazz man’s trumpet solo.
The old jazz man and his old-timer jazz band. I can no longer tell which part of the song he’s in anymore. He’s strayed away from the traditional melody, so now he’s either improvising or he’s forgotten how the song goes. No, he’s definitely improvising. Look at how he shuts his eyes, how his brows furrow, how he barely pauses when breathing life into brass. He’s fully claimed this song as his own, to hell with Louis. The corner has now turned into his own song bubble; the passerbys that get caught in it slow down their pace and stop, not wanting to disrupt the musical forcefield. This man knows the trumpet like the back of his bony hands. He doesn’t notice the tiny crowd he’s conjured, but I do. And I follow his suit. I shut my own eyes and try to allow the music to take over me. But instead, I get only thoughts.
I should live here. I need to find a way to move here as soon as possible. I need to be here. Maybe I’ll teach English. Maybe I can work at Shakespeare and Company. I wonder if they still let budding writers live in the attic and work in the bookstore during the day. How bohemian, how fucking cool would that be? Maybe I’ll find love here. A Jean-Baptiste. A Julien. Timothée. I am living in the same quarter that Baldwin wrote about in his essays. Picasso lived only a few streets away from my dorm, in the building right across from my favorite K-pot spot. Hemingway, Dali, who else? This is the land of artistic legends, of cultural capital, and somehow I’m here.
What kind of life is this?– that I get to sit around eating blueberries while listening to live jazz from my dorm in Paris? I mean, this is amazing. This is a dream come true. I really am grateful. Yeah, I’m broke, but I feel rich just being here. Like when I’m eating gelato with Sadie and Diana in front of Notre Dame, talking about our lives til it gets dark. Or when we’re walking about on uneven cobblestone roads and stumble upon a gorgeous cathedral, of which this city seems to have an endless supply. Or when I’m reading French novels under the shade of a tree at Luxembourg Gardens, not really understanding what’s going on plot-wise.
But on the other hand, I feel like this is all just… silly. I’m only briefly cosplaying this cosmopolitan life that will eventually wrap itself up the moment my study abroad program ends. Life is not about apéro and flirting with pretty French men, or metro rides to Montmartre. In a matter of time, I will soon be back home. In Jersey. Where real life is. This is not real life, or at least life as I know it.
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