The Red Rose Of Paris

I recently had the pleasure of adding a blog feed to my RSS reader: Arnon Grunberg. I loved his post called Eternal...(clarifying punctuation mine...sorry Arnon)

After Delhi, Mumbai, and - to a lesser degree - Varanasi, Manhattan feels like an empty and civilized town. Almost provincial, an eternal Sunday. Not at all unpleasant.

My boss, Lomesh, once described India to me in such a way that I could feel and smell and see the crush of people, hear the constant cacophony of sound. He told me that from his experience, there is no other place quite like India. I can see how Manhattan, the 20-dollar town, when every turn you make, you have to give somebody 20 bucks, the town where everybody's in a rush, where live moves at an astonishing pace, could feel like a Zen monastery after India.

Arnon's brief but deep post reminded me of the fluidity of perception, and in turn, reality. A city in one context, turns into something entirely different in a new context. When this happens, it's like a Zen koan, the awakening thump of the master's stick upon our distracted meditations. It's a gift that life gives us, a way that sometimes pulls the rug of illusion right out from under our feet, and makes us take a second look at beliefs, places, and people we took for granted.

When I had my first management job, when I managed the west coast region for a computer company, and more than 20 employees, I took it all way too seriously, as I'm wont to do. I bought into the illusion that my work, and all of its problems, and all of the people in it, were critically important. Life began, and ended, in my job.

Then, I got on a plane and flew to Paris for the very first time. This was probably 1988 or thereabouts. I'd traveled before. I'd been to Europe before. But on this trip, suddenly, I had a shift of perception. I flew over the ocean to a magical place. All along the way, I practiced my French, badly. As I'm wont to do. I was worried, you see, about that cab ride from the airport to the hotel. I was worried about the cab driver, about my French, about getting lost, about making a fool of myself, about everything.

And so, after much practice, I made my way to the curb-side cab, smiled my best smile, and slid into the back seat. I remember the cab driver's stubble, and his meaty face. And then I delivered my long-practiced line:

"L'hôtel Grand, s'il vous plait." With much faux confidence. With overly-accented aplomb.

Meaty Stubbleman turned almost completely around in his seat, his white wife-beater's T-shirt pulled and puckering across his chest, and with an ironic grin he said: 

"Eh Beeg Oh-tel? You waant eh Beeg Oh-tel?"

I blushed scarlet, realizing my overanxious, anal-retentive French fried bumblings. It was the whole "adjective after the noun thing." Except of course, the rule doesn't apply to proper nouns. To hotel names.

But, he knew exactly what I wanted. He was just giving me a hard time. And he was very, very sweet. He smiled at my blush, and over the top of the front seat of the cab, came a red rose, which he handed to me, as he said, "You waant le Grand Hotel, n'est-ce pas Mademoiselle?"

We became friends for a brief moment in time, this cab driver and I. I pushed the red velvet petals of my rose against my nostrils and smiled as he pointed out monuments and complained about Paris traffic. It was rush hour, and it took a very long time for him to take me to my hotel. I didn't mind. The hot summer air sat thick and still, like a patient sentry, upon the ledges of our open car windows. My driver sweated in his wife-beater, as did I in my prim little travel suit and matching pumps. The fragrance of the rose drifted light and fresh above it all, and the driver's laconic chatter gently moved the sweaty, rosy air between us.

On the sidewalk of Le Grand Hotel, in front of the Paris Opera, in front of the legendary Café de la Paix, I paid my cab driver, and reluctantly watched him drive away. It was then that I realized I had forgotten all about my "important" job, all the people I was trying to please, all the critical problems I was trying to solve. Suddenly, the rug had been yanked from underneath my practical pumps. And I realized that my life, and all its minor complexities, was an insignificant little blip within the monumental, pulsing, historic flow of Paris. 

It paled - my silly life - in comparison to the wilted rose I still held in my hand.