LETTERS FROM HOME: FIVE DAYS, FOUR NIGHTS AND TWO AMERICANS IN PARIS

Oct. 1, 1998

Dear Leslie,

The line of people inside the immense old train station that housed the Musee d'Orsay extended past the Rodin pieces and beyond Maillol's famous sculpture of the four female forms holding up the world, doubled back to circle the arresting Monet nude DC decided not to bring home in a poster because it would make her jealous, past the American Mary Cassatt's "La Jeune Fille en Printemps" and finally stopped at an entryway that announced the Millet/Van Gogh exhibit.

This was the reason we'd come back to the Orsay a second time during our brief stay in Paris, to wait for two hours to see paintings by Van Gogh and his mentor, Jean Francois Millet.

The idea didn't please me, especially when there were so many sights in Paris that would have to remain unseen by us first-timers. We had booked a tour that stopped at nine of the top spots, including the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Opera House, the Arc de Triumphe, all stunningly beautiful but indigestible from a double decker bus. We disembarked and spent an hour crowding onto the top of the Eiffel Tower, a few more hours in the Louvre topped off by sightings of the "Mona Lisa" and "Winged Victory," but felt like we were just accumulating memory snapshots to take home. No sense of Paris was to be had this way.

That comes from observing the everyday life, an exotic whirlpool of hurrying people and cars observed from the still point of a minuscule round table at an outdoor cafe. It comes from spending three hours negotiating the 20 miles from the airport to our hotel in central Paris, frustrated by our ignorance of the city and the language.

"I'm not having any fun," DC said as we lugged our baggage up and down narrow streets we knew could only be blocks from our destination, La Rue Faubourg Montmarte.

Eventually we learned to use the Metro, a subway system that is clean and safe and will take you almost anywhere.

We stayed in two rooms on the seventh and top floor of the Alexandra Hotel, near the Folies Bergere and the Opera House Napoleon built. The ceiling was slanted and vertical windows opened out onto a view of Paris rooftops. We spent a good deal of time just looking at that view.

We didn't eat at any really fancy restaurants and still spent most of our money on food. You will be appalled to learn that we ate at an Indian restaurant on our anniversary for the simple reason that we never get a chance to eat Indian food.

Both of us were astounded by how stylishly Parisians dress and how they carry themselves as if they are very proud of who they are. I have already confessed to DC that I have never seen such beautiful women with the exception of in my own house.

We decided to get Parisian haircuts. Her stylist gave her a head massage. The French are famous cineastes but my stylist confessed that she doesn't like French movies -- all that talking and saying au revoir, I suppose -- but loves American films. Tom Cruise is her favorite actor.

You have to like that, and you have to like a country that puts likenesses of Cezanne and Saint-Exupery -- along with his creation the Little Prince -- on its paper money.

The list of sights we didn't see is almost as impressive as the list: Monet's garden at Giverny, the Pompidou Center, the Picasso Museum, the National Museum. But thanks to DC's insistence, we saw something unforgettable.

The Millet/Van Gogh exhibit compared the work of the two artists, who in some cases had painted exactly the same scene. Millet's polish and the way he infused light into his scenes of peasants at work were masterly, but seeing so many Van Goghs at one time was dazzling, made you need to take a seat.

I came up behind DC as she was looking at a painting of a purplishly beautiful church, and as she turned away saw tears in her eyes. Walking through the rooms, I could see others crying, too.

The exhibit didn't have that effect on me until the end when both painters' "Nuit d'Etoiles" -- Starry Night -- were presented side by side. I don't know what shortened my breath, turned my heart in my chest, misted my eyes. Perhaps just the beauty of this world conveyed so sublimely that you are left gulping and speechless.

Paris is like that, too.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.