On a Visit to a Café

The Man with the gray mustache in the purple hat walks by. He stops at the newsstand, il regarde seulement…He is chased away by the Old Woman’s poodle. The Poodle wears an Hermès scarf and seems to be suffering from a psychological disorder that causes it to cry a greater cacophony than a children’s orchestra, and jolt in every which direction. The Old Woman buys a newspaper. The Poodle in the scarf breaks from the leash and runs directly into the street. The Old Woman screams. Six cars come to a screeching halt. The Man driving the black Renault gets out to retrieve the Poodle in the scarf. The Old Woman is on the ground, head tilted upward with hands in prayer position, she pleads, “Take me! Take me!” I wonder, does she pray for the dog or the scarf? The Young Woman next to me orders a café and lights a cigarette. I have recently moved into a small studio located at the top of seven flights of stairs in the 16th arrondissement of Paris from the sunny, smoggy streets of Los Angeles, where poodles don’t wear Hermès scarves but little Jack Russels do sport Burberry. However, in Los Angeles the dog would not have run into the street. There would be no Old Woman to drop the leash and no Man with a gray mustache in a purple hat at the newsstand, “Just looking.” Well, this is not entirely true. Though these characters surely exist in LA–and stranger ones at that–they often go unnoticed. Which brings us back to the old philosophical debate, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise? Does human life exist outside of one’s self-absorbed world in La La Land? In Los Angeles when I go to a café–rather, Starbucks–I am always careful that I bring something to pretend to read. This way, I can people-watch without being accused of having a staring problem. In Paris I leave my books behind and participate fully in perhaps the Parisians’ strongest sport: observation. Parisians practice everywhere. They are perched in every café on each corner smoking their cigarettes, sipping their coffees and watching. Watching the couple in love who only yesterday sat in the same place debating the responsibilities of pet ownership from the points of view of Sartre and Descartes. Eavesdropping on the two teenage boys who talk of drinking and the condition of human morality. They know everything about everybody else’s business–so much in fact, that they consider it their business. This appeals to me as a young writer, because my business is other people. Or rather, exploring the human experience. It has just occurred to me as I sip my café crème, that I too am being watched. That every person I’m observing is in turn observing me. Yet, I am completely relaxed and uninhibited. I am not concerned with what I look like, or what I appear to be doing. Instead, I remain as I am, in stillness watching people watch me. I am comfortable with my company because we have this interest in common. I know that I am not being judged merely observed and understood. It has been said that a true friend is someone who knows everything about you and still likes you. Maybe this is why in Paris; I always feel like I’m in love and I’m the ingénue in an old black-and-white movie, preferably starring Cary Grant. I am understood here, when I’m wobbling down the cobblestone streets, or riding the métro early in the morning crammed into the car like sandwich filling. Unlike the guy at the bar on Sunset Blvd. peering down my blouse, Paris listens to me; or surely the people at the next table do. But the eavesdropping is not for Tuesday evening’s Bridge Club, just a result of a pure curiosity for human life. The world-renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin said, “The most important thing for artists is to feel, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. It is to be before an artist, a human being.” For me, there is nothing more interesting than being human, nothing more intriguing, more watchable than the human experience. Put a camera on that and we begin to understand one and other. —Kirsten joins Bonjour Paris from Los Angeles, California where she recently graduated from the University of Southern California with a BFA in Acting. Last year she co-wrote the book and lyrics to a new pop musical which expects to open in Los Angeles next spring. Two years ago, while studying at a conservatory in London, Kirsten fell in love with Paris and decided that she was destined to return for some time. She’s thrilled to experience this dream come true.