Thinking About Paris

   It's summer in Texas. Which roughly means, get out of town if you can't stand the heat...it is HOT now. And I am not leaving...not because I want to stay...I'd jump at the chance if I could afford it but now is not the time. So, because I can't go, I will revel in what I love about Texas, the heat, the mosquitoes (HA!), the sticker burrs, the craggy rocks, the plants which do survive, the political incorrectness, all the general surliness that we Texans wear like a badge of honor, but mostly because we don't have a choice. We can't get away, and each year we survive gives us another notch in our belt. We are so tough.

A billet I found recently in an old journal, from my second trip to Paris

   This year though, I am thinking about Paris. My memories have taken on a certain mythical quality so if I get some details wrong, no matter. The feeling of Paris is good for a moment of escape. I have been to Paris twice but my most fantastical memory is of the time I went when I was 19. I traveled with a wonderful young couple, helping to care for their 3 year old boy. I had been their regular babysitter in Houston. The boy's father's family had an apartment in Paris--and a country house in Chaumont. Not just any apartment. It was in a very old, historic neighborhood, close to the Centre  Pompidou. This apartment was full of antiques and beautiful works of art...I was thrilled--and yet, in my youth--I think back on my brain at that time... I expected the rest of my life to be like that apartment...full of beauty, art, culture, fabulous food and happy family. I don't think at the time I was able to appreciate the scope of what I was exposed to. When I arrived, at evening time in Paris, my body still on Texas time, the table was set with a special homecoming meal. The patriarch of the family was of Russian descent so there was caviar and vodka to start ...which is what I remember most,  I don't remember the main course...I do know that every meal I ate with that family influences all the meals I serve to this day. I learned to make a dijon vinegette, a reliable chocolate mousse, a cold yogurt/creme fraiche cucumber walnut soup. At the country house we hunted for mushrooms, went to buy wine at a chateau...I had my first kir royale and plenty of wine.

But the memory which seems the most mythical is of a sweet romance I had with my young charge's uncle. Did we really climb from the window balcony of that Paris apartment, onto ancient rooftops and wander at sunset from roof to roof? My young eyes only incidentally took in what must have been some incredible view: the Seine in the distance, perhaps the Eiffel Tower in view? I was smitten. I remember a walk to get ice cream on my first day there, on tight streets;  he yanked me out harm's way as cars zoomed past. I remember a funky museum of ancient functional tools, signs, and French cultural relics. Churches, chateaux, a sauna--where he handed me a washcloth instead of a towel (to cover myself). Usually I had my little charge, his nephew, with us. We took him on bike rides, sight seeing, picnics.

Me, summer of 1981 in Paris. I don't really recognize that young woman.

   Memory, now, is a funny thing, like this picture, it's pretty foggy and sometimes I barely believe that these things happened to me. And really, I was so different then. But Paris, that summer, before I transferred to the University of Texas in Austin, holds such sharply bright crystal clear moments of memory, which surprise me, and make me hold my breath a moment so that time stands still just long enough for me to see the apartment on the Rue des Lombardes, and connect to the girl I was.

And I remember this: Precious, The Pretenders, 1980

How to Stay Centered, The Value in Losing

detail

  Recently, as an artist, I have had a string of small disappointments. Small things, individually, but each a blow to my ego, and each, perceived by me as a lost chance at the hoped for little bump which had the potential to, I don't know, get me noticed, secure gallery representation, translate into a real living instead of years of what could be perceived as a vanity project. But the last disappointment just knocked me off my game completely. Again it was nothing big, just a publication I didn't get into. Maybe just the last straw. And so, the ability to behave like a good loser has become a special added challenge.

 This is not a post which will bestow answers. This is all about the questions. How to stay centered as a person, an artist, and, as a parent--I have to set a good example. What a burden! But how does one best exemplify being a good loser? Especially, losing at something one loves? Something one has chosen? You have to reexamine what it was you wanted. OK. I have to de-legitimise what I formerly found worthy? Because it feels like that--and that the alternative is to take the judgement to heart. My best self goes into hiding. There is a lot of talking to oneself.

 Mostly I'm talking reaction. I know I have control over my reaction. What a bore--to not get angry! I know that's best. I only have to think back to my mother's reactions to saddening disappointments to know how one is supposed to react: stoically, maybe a few tears, but you didn't blame anyone and you would, of course, shortly, carry on, because who knew what you might have to face next? You'd better be ready!

I think there might be a spoiled kid in me that never had a chance to be.

So carrying on may mean, at least for now, not putting so much stock in opinions other than my own. Maybe going more interior. Searching again for the strength within...my center.

And maybe I need to remind myself that the successes I have had are not negated by these multiple  rejections. They exist separately. I should be thankful for all of the judgements made in my favor. That's what my best self should do. I do get to choose the occasions to which I should attach value. There is, in this, a danger that believing in the positive reinforcements exclusive of the negatives can produce an ego without a critic. Not helpful.

That is counter to the latest mantra...something about putting yourself outside your comfort zone, etc.

Stretching one's boundaries, etc. Stretching is strengthening. It must be a balance thing, a yin/yang thing. Stretching and expanding boundaries while maintaining a strong center. Really though, at my age, getting mad still feels good and if there is a way to tap into that energy I don't want to bury it.

Searching still. But in the meanwhile. Here (below) is My Problem in Yellow or, as I sometimes call it: If I Don't Sell a Painting Soon I'm Going to Have to Get a Real Job