I am here in Paris without my passport. That’s right, the chronic loser of things has done it again, only this time with the single most important item on my person. How did this happen? Well, maybe it’s necessary to start from the beginning. Or, from the ending.
The week before leaving on this three week European adventure, I was delivered some blustery news. Sparing details, my parents are splitting after 37 years of marriage. Although I’ve cycled through most of the feelings I’d be expected to have under the circumstances, the predominant one is anger. No, rage. I am here on this trip primarily to write, to finish a draft of a novel that is heavily autobiographical. I have been writing, but my writing has been hijacked by rage.
Sitting down to a Thai dinner the night before I left San Francisco, a friend was describing a famous house in San Jose. An architectural wonder whose inhabitant was a brilliant, though certifiable, engineer. Convinced that there were demons out to get her, she designed a labyrinthine house made up of hundreds of tiny rooms. Whenever she suspected a demon was getting too close to finding her, she built another room. The rooms are outfitted with windows, each of them positioned in such a way as to allow her to see strategically into nether parts of the house from within whichever room she occupies. My friend and her girlfriend had toured the house, and although they described it as not that big from the outside, they said that the walking tour of the interior has you covering a full mile by its end. This was all fascinating, but the most fascinating part was this: way before the invention of central heating, the crazy engineer woman designed an underground furnace filled with coal that linked up to a column through the center of the house – a sort of wind tunnel, radiating heat in a controlled way evenly throughout all the rooms. It was the first central heating system ever designed. What struck me hit in a place too deep to understand logically until now.
Although the anger that has erupted in me post news has made me volatile and even mean, it has felt good. And it comes with a slight surprise that none of it is new. In fact, it has always been there, tamped down in me my whole life. The truth is that although I told myself that all was forgiven, I’ve stored up anger toward my father for decades. It has been like that underground furnace, providing me with a source of controlled energy that, despite its dirtiness, has kept me feeling strong on many levels, kept me feeling comfortable in all my rooms. It’s strange, but not drinking for (almost) ten years has tempered much of that heat, stripped me of so much of a necessary hardness over all of my soft parts so that I am too vulnerable. Yet vulnerability is relative (as is all measured things) and my secret and genius furnace has held it to a manageable degree. With this news (coming originally from my father, himself), there has been an eruption. The coal is burning too hot and soot is coughing up through the vent, blowing everywhere through the wind tunnel. And although I’m aware that there will be a huge cleanup job ahead, right now I’m just reveling in the intense heat (perpetual freeze baby that I am).
Now, I’m away on this trip. I landed only yesterday morning in Paris, and although I was at first impressed with myself for packing so light on a three week voyage, my backpack (hiker’s variety) and overstuffed messenger bag felt sadistically massive on my long peregrination from the airport to this little Parisian studio where I now sit (among a ruinous mess, having turned it inside out looking unsuccessfully for my passport). Asking for help in navigating foreign mass transit systems is nay an easy task when you don’t know the language. “Parlez-vous anglais?” was my mantra to every half-friendly looking face I saw on the initial train platform at the airport until the fifth or sixth one answered, “a little.” Through a painful series of Frenglish phrases, mimes, and grunts, I was able to communicate to her that I was looking for the Metro, line 5. She told me which stop to take from the incoming train in order to transfer to my desired, final train.
Much later, on that subway with the heft of these items hanging from my body, travel weary and gray weather worn, standing by the door bracing myself with a pole, a man walks in from the umpteenth stop that is not my stop, unfolds a stool right in front of me deftly with a single hand, sits on it, and uncovers an accordion with an equally as deft one-handed unzipping maneuver and voila. In my mind, I expect it to be loud and so I think, in my currently customary grumpy, soot-sheethed fashion, please don’t play that thing right here. My messenger bag, like a hundred-pound albatross on my neck, protrudes out in front of me, touching his back. He begins to play and it’s surprisingly pleasant and decidedly French. He plays The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel, but with a snappier beat, like a carnival variation.
And this becomes the soundtrack as the credits role on a 37-year marriage with which I have been so intimately involved these past 33. I see my name gleaming white on black beside all the roles I’ve played over the years, including Shooters number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, Judge, Jury Members number 3 and 9, Lawyer, Torch Carrier, Victim, Peacemaker, Bozo With Stick Tied Handkerchief, etc.
So as secretly good as it’s felt to uncork the rage of a lifetime on my father and run around waving my guns, I can’t escape my own unmistakable complicity. But still, I’m not to the place where I reckon with that just yet. I am in the place where the coal dust is flying, sparking and all, blackening the walls and floors and ceilings. When it all settles and it’s time to clean the mess, it will be insurmountable. It won’t just be clearing away the ash. It will be digging out that seemingly bottomless pit of coal. I am the president of this country that is me, and I am going to have to look into alternative “clean” energy sources. I’ll have to raise the deficit with a major bailout to get things started, and still a lot of damage will have been done. I will not be popular in my country.
Something tells me that the way out is through. And the through seems to be this novel I’m writing, though I know not exactly why or how. All I know is that I’m prone to go back, revisit old experiences, and deliver them through words with grace. To do that, I’ve brought myself here. And for as much as I’d (perhaps) hoped otherwise, this sky is no different. This sky won’t change the subject.
Last night, my first night here, I found myself locked into this studio apartment. The barrier being a door separating a small courtyard outside my flat from the stairwell leading to the street, to freedom. Someone had locked it after I entered (when it was unlocked) and fell asleep for a while. It’s an old building, as are most in this city, and extremely charming except for the old fashioned, skeleton style key I’m left that unlocks this crucial door. I tried and tried, wriggling the metal teeth of the huge key around in the keyhole in absolute vain for over an hour this morning. This after discovering last night that I was locked in and trying a few times then, too, before giving up, hoping I would find it unlocked again in the morning. But no. After the frantic, repeated failed attempts, I freaked out and tried desperately to contact my host, the woman renting me this place, via Skype but she wasn’t answering her phone. I sent her crazy emails. I’m embarrassed to admit that I sent her several in succession, as though that would get the door unlocked any quicker.
Finally, near tears, I took the key in my hand and walked slowly toward my barrier. There has to be a way that this works, I told myself. And just like magic, I slid the teeth at the end of the bar just inside the keyhole and turned it slowly, whereupon it unlocked.
So maybe it’s metaphysically appropriate that I’ve lost my identification in a foreign land. Because really, who am I? Perhaps, as the rolling credits indicate, there are many answers to that question. Maybe, there are many barriers to pass through before the truth of it is revealed. But first, the US Embassy awaits my presence in the morning, where nice people will once again save my airhead ass.
To be continued…
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