Once upon a time in the month of May in Paris...

The recent French elections on Sunday May 6th in which François Hollande became the new president got me thinking a lot about Paris and specifically the month of May 2007 when I lived there. The days of the month and the days of the week in May 2012 are the same as they were in May 2007. So on Sunday May 6th 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president, defeating Ségolène Royal (Hollande's former long term partner - they had 4 kids together). I remember that election really well - the posters of both (see above) plastered all over Paris, the worries from people on the left about Sarkozy's ties with the media, the way TV stations in France can't broadcast anything about the election as the votes are coming in (like they do in Canada and the US) and can only make a dramatic announcement as to who the next president is after 8 pm when the polls have all closed. My friend S., who was living in London at the time, visited me that weekend and we sat in my apt watching Sarkozy's victory parade through Paris, culminating in a big celebration at the Place de la Concorde. Three weeks ago, I clicked through picture after picture on different news websites of Parisians celebrating Hollande's victory (or perhaps more accurately Sarkozy's defeat) at the Place de la Bastille. Then that night as I tried to fall asleep in my apartment in Montreal, all I could think about was that May of 2007, what it felt like, how I felt, etc. etc. It took me a long time to get to sleep that night.

I once read a review of the Kings of Leon's second album Aha Shake Heartbreak which said if the band's first album - Youth and Young Manhood - was the party, then Aha Shake Heartbreak was the hangover. For me, if April 2007 was the party, then May 2007 was definitely the hangover. April was all sunshine, and heat (hottest April on record at that point), tanning in parks, and drinking outside, and just generally being happy. May was grey, and rain (lots and lots of rain, cold November feeling rain) and big thunderstorms (where on coming back into Paris on the commuter train from the airport where I'd been teaching a group of Air France employees I could see how the sky had gotten instantly dark, and when I got off the metro I waited for a bit under a store front and then made a run for my apartment, getting absolutely and completely soaked in the process), and real hangovers. I drank too much while living in Paris, and as a result, endured some pretty bad hangovers.

That said, Paris is my most favourite place in the world to have a hangover. That's because on days (usually Saturdays) that I was hung over, I'd always do the same thing. I'd get up, drink lots and lots of water, put on some clothes, go down the street to the little magazine store owned by some of the only Chinese people I saw owning/working in stores the entire time I lived in Paris, buy at least one (if not two, sometimes they still sold the previous issue) issue of France's People magazine equivalent (or maybe it's a bit more tabloid-ey than People, I was never sure) Paris Match, come back to my apt, shower, get into bed with lots more water and my Paris Match and spend the rest of the day in bed. In one of the Paris Match issues I read in May 2007, I learned all about how Ségolène Royal (who had just lost to Sarkozy) had gone alone for a holiday on the beach in Tunisia (and there were pictures (I still remember clearly) of her in a blue bathing suit and a straw hat standing at the water's edge) to just relax and be alone after the election. It was in that article that I learned how she and François Hollande had broken up in 2006, but did not tell the press until after the 2007 election (see picture below). I also loved reading around then about Nicolas Sarkozy's wife at the time (he is now married to Carla Bruni) Cecilia who is very pretty (see picture below) and who apparently didn't even vote in the 2007 elections when her husband was elected president! Not only did I get to practice my French reading skills, but I got to be up to date on French gossip. It was perfect.

Another interesting thing about that May were the two long weekends in a row. May 1 - May Day - is a holiday in France. It fell on a Tuesday that year and so a lot of French people took a 4 day weekend (so they also took off Monday April 30th) and they called it "le pont" - taking the bridge. I, or the language school I worked for, did not take the "pont" and I had to work that Monday April 30th. But I only had to work until 1 pm and then I spent the rest of the day hanging out, eating crepes, and just generally having a good time. May 8 (which was the following Tuesday) marked the end of WWII in Europe and is also a holiday, and because it was another Tuesday, many people took another "pont." This one my work did take. S. left and went back to London late the afternoon of the 7th. That night I went to my friend husband's birthday party. He was turning 30 on May 8th and just before midnight there was a countdown to 12:00 am and then my friend brought in his cake. She told me later that it was cool his birthday was on a holiday because it meant he could always celebrate the night before and be assured lots of people would come since they wouldn't have to go to work the next day. To me that seemed like a lot of pressure on all his friends to always come to his birthday parties... But I got her overall point. I'm not sure I'd want my birthday to be on a holiday because yes, it's cool you never have to go to work/school on it, but sometimes it's nice to go to work/school/out on your birthday and have everyone celebrate you.

In April of 2007, I taught a 3 week session of pretty much beginner English to a class consisting of almost all women, and one man. One of the students asked me, in front of the whole class, how old I was. I didn't want to say "23" because it seemed so young and was almost definitely younger than all but maybe one or two of the students in the classroom. So I told them I was 28. It did feel a bit odd to just add 5 years to my age but the students seemed satisfied. This spring I actually am 28 (and am very glad I did not miss the intervening 5 years of my life/experience/etc.), and while I miss Paris still so much and still think about it regularly, my life is different now than it was then and I don't think I could have or would have wanted to be in Paris this past spring, even if all the days/weeks of the month matched up with how they were in 2007. Six months of a carefree existence was just the right amount for someone like me; although I do want to spend a multi-month stretch of time there again at some point in my life, taking walks through the city, drinking too much wine, and getting over my hangovers in bed with Paris Match.

I meant to write it on the plane...

...high above my earthly pain but I slept right through the flight and that was all. That line (which started with the title of this post) is from the Sarah Harmer song Uniform Grey. It's from her album You Were Here which came out in 2000, I think, but which I first discovered in the winter/spring of 2001 when I was 17, and which I still love so much. In April of that year I went on a school trip to Washington DC and they took us to a baseball game in Baltimore. During one of the breaks between innings, I walked around the stadium looking out over Baltimore and listening to that Sarah Harmer album on my discman. The sky was a really pretty orangey-pink and I felt happy, which was nice, because that school year (S5), particularly the fall, had been tough.

As promised in my last post, here is one dedicated to planes and cars. It occurred to me just now I should probably put boats in here too in order to cover all forms of transportation. However, I plan on writing some posts (eventually... likely not any time soon) on rivers and lakes and oceans and I'll be sure to cover my love of boats in one of those.

I'll start with planes. I've always loved that Sarah Harmer line because I love writing in my diary on planes. Plane rides, especially long or long-ish ones (so say 3 hours or longer), are such good times to get stuff done - you are literally strapped in a seat with no escape and minimal opportunities to procrastinate. I often plan out what I'll do on a plane ride, factoring in reading my book, writing in my diary, and sometimes if it's a long flight watching a movie. Planes are great places to write because you're in between cities and time zones and exist in this type of suspended reality in which you are are free from many of the other demands that take up our time and can just focus on the writing.

During my four years at Berkeley, I took many red eyes between San Francisco and Toronto. Those were bad in the sense that I usually tried to sleep (airplane seat uncomfortable hurt your neck sleep) and therefore did not have time to write in my diary. But, in their own way, they had their charms - which, admittedly for me, are mostly nostalgia infused charms. I particularly remember the red eyes I took during that fateful fall of 2003 when I was 19 - the first when I went home in November for American Thanksgiving, and then when I went home only three weeks later for winter break. On both flights I had window seats, and as soon as the plane took off I'd keep my eyes glued to the window, watching as we crossed the Bay and then headed over Berkeley. I loved seeing the Berkeley campus and especially the Campanile (all lit up) from the plane. After Berkeley was behind us, I'd plug in my discman ear phones (I got an ipod in June 2004!) and try to fall asleep listening to the Strokes' second record - Room on Fire (that fall was the peak of my Strokes obsession). I usually would manage to fall asleep for a while, and then regain consciousness only to discover the cd had played all the way through or was on the last song of the record. I liked waking up because I could look out the window and see the moon and stars so close. It is especially cool to fly on full moon nights because the moon really does look extra beautiful when full and seen from an airplane. In a high school French class I had to read an Antoine de Saint-Exupéry memoir called Wind, Sand and Stars about his time flying airmail planes over North Africa. His descriptions of seeing the stars and moon from his plane were so beautiful, and I always think of them when flying at night.

During my last year at Berkeley, in my lovely little Hilgard apartment where I could hear the trains so well, my bed was next to a big window which I never covered with curtains. I usually went to sleep around 10 or 10:30 pm and after I’d turned out my light I’d lie in bed and watch the several airplanes that flew overhead, night after night, week after week, all through the ten months I lived there. I was always sure that one of the planes I could see high above was the red eye flight to Toronto which I’d taken so many times. I’d wonder about the people on it as I lay in my bed back on earth, the same way I’d wonder about the people in the houses below me when I was in the sky flying over Berkeley.

I went to Miami Beach for vacation with my parents once where we had a hotel room on the 17^th floor with a balcony that had a view of the ocean. At night my dad and I sat on the balcony and watched the planes appear in the black sky in front of us. (The airport wasn't too far away). We both preferred the ones that swung out over the Atlantic, as opposed to the ones that headed north over the mainland. We wondered which city they were going to – London? Paris? Berlin? Were the people on the plane looking down at the hotel’s bright lights before they left North America far behind them? I watched those planes until I couldn’t see them anymore, like a ship dipping below the horizon. After my dad went back into the room, and the planes became infrequent, I stayed on the balcony, my eyes fixed on the dark ocean, during the daytime so blue, and now a reflection of the night sky.

Now turning to cars: road trips are so fun!! S. and my dad will always be my favourite people with whom to drive! And an honourable mention goes to J. because she loves driving so much. (I also don't have anywhere near as much road trip experience with her as I do with S. or my dad so it's not really fair to compare.) S. and I have taken some awesome road trips. In August 2005 we met in Buffalo, NY and drove across the country to Berkeley. Road trips are such good times/places to talk, because other than listen to music there's not much else to do. In May 2008, we drove from Austin to Los Angeles. That road trip was especially good because I had been counting down the days until S. arrived in Austin (it was May 7) since February. The drive took us through West Texas, New Mexico (a very pretty state) and then Arizona, which I loved! A detour to avoid construction around Phoenix took us off I-10 to Interstate 8- which goes right through the Sonoran desert. The land on both sides of the road was dotted with cacti as far as the eye could see. A really neat experience. In August 2008, my dad and I did that same drive in reverse Los Angeles to Austin (I'd left my car with my brother in LA all summer). It was fun too. But also kind of sad. That summer had been an intense one, and something I'd looked forward to (as I wrote above) all winter and spring and so it was sad to know it was over, and to have to return to a place I didn't really like.

I also have really good memories of driving to Mont Tremblant at Christmastime with my dad. We'd usually take two cars because my brother would sometimes leave early and drive from Tremblant to New York to visit friends for New Years. So my dad and I would drive in one car and my mom and brother in another. It was always so cold and snowy and dark outside, but felt warm and bright inside the car.

In our world which has become increasingly connected and where people seem to be regularly on the move, it's nice that at least (usually) our methods of transportation are pretty cool.