Let Me Eat Cake

I have had a slight obsession with Europe since I can remember. It started with silverware.

As a kid I cut my dinner meat with the knife in my right hand and the fork in my left, continuing on to eat meaty morsels from the tines of the fork in my left hand. My dad would jump on me for not switching my fork to the right hand by telling me I ate like Aunt Lynne. Aunt Lynne was my First Class Flight Attendant aunt who lived in Europe multiple times a week. She was chic and different and smelled divine and I knew her eyes had seen things worth seeing. I tucked the knowledge I instinctively ate like a European into my childhood heart and set Europe on my horizon.

In years to come I noticed things from Europe seemed to have better fonts, streamlined silhouettes, and simpler functions. Europeans seemed to own less, own better, and enjoy it more than most.

How I wished for Europe but it was never in the cards. So I reserved pasta water and bought cheese from a wheel and biked to the grocery store in summer because it felt European; even though I had no street cred to measure my movements in such a way.

Once my heart and daily motions were overflowing with Euro-yearning the obsession moved to my right brain. I have mentioned numerous times most of the conflict in my right brain is due to an excess of wanderlust created from reading. Ever since I read A Room with a View I sensed somewhere in Europe there was a river I needed to stare into from a stony bridge because it was going to affect me. There were hills chock-full of blue flowers hoping I would stumble upon them. When Frances Mayes detailed the frescoes hiding behind the plaster of her Tuscan villa I suspected I, too, possessed a superior secret layer that could only be unearthed in Europe. I have wondered for years if a statue, sip, scent, or scene on that continent could really change me.

I’m overly romantic and admittedly ill-balanced so luckily there is a left brain in my head as well. That sensible lobe has quietly preached no matter where I go in life it will be people, not places, who change me.

Greg seized fate by the throat* and booked a family trip to Paris a month ago. You can imagine the anticipation on my end. It was like 30 consecutive Christmas Eves of tossing and turning and counting down the minutes until my lifetime of dreams became reality. If I expected too much reality would fall flat like a limp soufflé. If I expected too little I would get what I asked for. I tried to expect something in the middle with a small suitcase, a blank notebook, and eyes wide open.

I was blown away.

First, some practical knowledge I gained: Who needs towel racks? Hooks work fine, plus you don’t have to refold the towels once they dry. Balconies belong outside every window. Six tablespoons of nutella is too much for one crepe but the French don’t cut corners. Eight pastries in one day is also too much. Take my word for it. The perfect lunch is a warm plate of fingerling potatoes slow roasted in the drippings of a rotisserie pig. They taste even better when eaten under the stoop of an apartment building with a cobalt blue door while it drizzles rain. Macarons should be eaten with one’s eyes closed, as should one's first croque monsieur. It doesn’t matter how much self-esteem you have in America…you will feel outdone by the French women. Don’t smile at anyone on the metro because they won’t smile back.

The small amount of disdain I have for Paris is reserved for Versailles, which I have now termed "the architectural rendition of turducken." You know, a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey devoured by gluttonous Americans on Thanksgiving Day? Versailles’ recipe for turducken: Take marble and cover it with mirrors and gild the whole thing and cover that with crystals and swag that with tapestries and then dip it in more gold and frame it with more rare marble! It was just too much.

Now the juicy part. What happened to me in Paris? I can hardly describe it. Maybe it's easier to say what I want now.

I want to skip across two driveways to Frenchie's house and tell her Paris was everything she said it would be. I want to show Jaime the folders I bought from Monoprix (French Target) because we have a mutual love for clever paper products. I want to make pain au chocolat for Michelle because she has been craving them since her birthday last year when she bought her own red snakeskin shoes on the Champs-Elysees.

I want to tell Suz my heart was not sad about the baby on the Eiffel Tower and my hopes made me buy future baby a music box on Île Saint-Louis. I want Cristall to see Van Gogh’s “The Harvest” because it reminded me of that Lark Rise to Candleford episode that made us both cry like wusses.

I want to tell Matt Lund his mission must have been very difficult and I would have noticed the graffiti and filth and litter and secondhand smoke more if my rose-colored glasses hadn’t lasted six full days. I want to tell Renee that I didn’t get anxious when I saw a Bichon Frisé being walked across Pont Alexandre because she is the best godmother a dog could have.

I want to tell Aunt Lynne I understand her black wardrobe and her incredible sensibilities and I would have killed for them while I was standing like an idiot in coral jeans on the metro. I want to tell Emmanuelle I got my special rolling pin at MORA and a lifetime supply of vanilla beans at G. Detou to forever remind me of her cooking class.

I want John and Mathilde to know I ate at Le Pré Verre per their recommendation and feasted on crispy scallop and daikon salad with brown rice ice cream for dessert...a big deal for a girl who didn't eat tomatoes until she turned 30. I want Becca to know I saw no yoga in Paris but I think we both still need it. I want JP to know there are plenty of teacups in the City of Light. I want Julia to know I thought of her when I ate a slab of Comté the size of my palm.

I want to hug my parents forever for playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on the record player nearly every night of my youth because it made hearing it live in Sainte-Chapelle (surrounded by stained glass, no less) that much more transcendent. I want Kenon to keep pronouncing Sacre Coeur for me over mini tacos until I can’t see straight from laughing. I want to contact Lauri Haddock, my BYU Humanities teacher that fanned the Euro fire in my belly, to tell her I understand why she cried when she saw the David in Florence for the first time.

I want to tell Rick Steves through no fault of his own his DVDs are dead to me because nothing compares to the real thing. I want more hazelnut ice cream from Berthillon because my cone fell on the street after only 3 luscious licks.

I want everyone to know I am 36 and 36 is still young. I felt old, deadheaded and dead ended before Paris, but the gargoyles and cobblestones convinced me that 36 is nothing compared to their thousand. I want more daydreaming on the quai next to the greenish and choppy flow of the Seine. I want more midday naps on our hotel bed; three of us spooned like peas in a pod, only stirring from the unique sound of Parisian sirens.

Besides jumping on a train just as it was leaving my favorite thing in Paris was wandering through the crooked little streets to see what surprises they held. Coming home I realized there is very little wandering in my real life because I already know my favorite streets. They are the streets the people I thought about in Paris live on. It doesn’t matter I haven’t seen the whole world because I have well-worn the routes to those who make my world whole.

So all of me was right. My foolish heart, my fanciful head, and my prudent compass were all whispering truth to me these many years. I believe that is called HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT TOO and the only place on earth that famously advertises cake eating for the underpriviledged is Paris.

Serve me another slice, s'il vous plaît.

*one of my favorite quotes from Ludwig van Beethoven.

Photos from the top: steps south of the Sacre Coeur (with a metro ticket!), Van Gogh's "The Harvest", Eiffel Tower, the freshly restored and dazzling jewel Sainte-Chapelle, Notre Dame behind Pont de l'Archevêché- the bridge full of "the love-locks" of Paris. Greg immortalized our love with a padlock installation. Because nothing says "love" like a padlock. Our love is locked down, Kanye.