Olivier began in purple, a color that hints of metal, but a fantasy none the less. I’d chosen this color for the first structure being needled onto my rib cage, an iron tower that symbolizes the very city I was visiting. Paris, they say, is the city of love. An appropriate description, given the veil of romance that spreads over unevenly paved streets and huge wooden doorways and their palaces and train stations filled with art. It is a city ruled by beautiful things, and I was drunk with it even as I was lovesick for my home-island. The Eiffel Tower was an easy choice, the quintessential visual for this city spread across the Seine. The tower dates back to the 1889 World’s Fair, where it served as the entrance arch. Gustav Eiffel engineered this wonder, and built it to resist the wind, with its broad open spaces and artistic curved legs. He also contributed his name to it, the tallest building in the world (until the Chrysler in 1930, another marvel named after a man.) City dwellers were appalled, called it an eyesore, and indeed had every intention of taking it down as soon as the city took over ownership after twenty years. But! It’s 1,063 foot height proved functional for broadcasting, and during World War II it became a symbol of war heroics, and eventually of the city itself.
My first sighting of le Tour happened in the cab ride from the airport to my new home, on the second day of a snowstorm. Its romance is undeniable. Indeed, it seems to bestow the whole city with an aura of cinema worthy kisses and tearful goodbyes. As we drove over the snow-blanketed streets I was awestruck and silent, exhausted and nervous. I never thought I’d study abroad, and even a five-week winter session seemed like a long time away. I was crashing a University of Delaware Women’s Studies/Art History trip, so I knew no one. I also stuck out like a sore thumb, as my mother would say. I was very anxious about how this adventure would unfold. I couldn’t fall asleep that first night, and around 2am I crept out into the living room to stare at the snow falling onto the street below. Everything around me felt so unfamiliar, I was more homesick than I’d ever been. The next morning things looked less alien in the daylight, and later that day I looked up the address and directions to the tattoo shop. The journey there was my first independent outing, and my roommate Sarah and I got lost. It was only my first week in this new place, and I was slowly re-learning the language without harsh halts, and getting oriented on the un-gridded streets. Getting lost was usually acceptable barring time constraints. In fact, it was a welcome exploration. After all, it would take years to explore every narrow winding alley, to see all of the small museums and lovely facades and whimsical shops. Getting lost was a mini-adventure, and one more way to get a look at as many beautiful things as possible. Of course, like any city, there are borders to this overwhelming beauty.
Paris is a city with a rich interior and under-privileged exterior. The banlieus, or suburbs, are the neighborhoods surrounding the center city. These outskirts include urban housing developments, originally built in the 1970s as a place to live while you worked towards owning your own home. It was, indeed, an optimistic endeavor. They were supposed to be stepping-stones to upward mobility. Racial and ethnic tensions run high here, where residents feel abandoned and ostracized, even though many of the youth were born in country and are legal French citizens. These places are sites of high unemployment and violence, where each generation attempts to be heard by the government, and to be recognized as French instead of shooed away as immigrants. Riots have been breaking out here since the 1980s, and as recently as 2007 the media and government both seemed shocked that this sort of outburst was occurring, again. These latest riots were more organized than the car burning and rock throwing of the past, and this time bombs and guns were utilized to attack police. Close to 100 officers were wounded, retaliation for the death of a teenager they claim was involved in a police chase. Some estimate the injured count was much higher, not to mention citizens who were hurt or killed. The cause of this unrest has remained largely intact. The Arab and North African populations want to be treated like citizens, and to be given the opportunity to learn, succeed, and become French. There is an immense strain between them and the ‘other’ Parisians, whose whiteness is a privilege. The truth of this racial tension is deeply imbedded in a colonial history. Particularly in the country of Algeria, whose fight for independence included acts of violence with Paris’s city limits, France was not except from the European trend of colonization. This merging of cultures started out violently, and has continued to be complex and difficult. These darker citizens, kept on the outskirts of the city, have a conception of Americans that is largely un-friendly. When my roommate and I got off the number 11 train at the Pyrenees stop (about a 45 minute ride from the Louvre with multiple train transfers), we began to wander in the wrong direction, across the traffic circle from our destination. I had a large backpack, a laptop, an expensive winter coat, and a racial profile and overall demeanor that screamed, “I’m American and I’m lost.” Not smart. Not safe. Of course being from New York I was used to wandering around ghettos, and felt this was no different. I knew something was off, but I had no idea how afraid we should have been, how close in time and space we were to widespread public violence.
To make matters worse, when I returned the next day for my appointment, I ended up being tattooed completely alone. I assumed my 5pm appointment would give me plenty of time to make dinner by 7pm. However, the Parisian mindset is not one of efficiency. We did not start on time (he was eating), and I was on the table for three hours. When we hadn’t started by 5:45, my roommate raced home so as to be on time for dinner. It is very, very rude in France to be late and/or absent to meals without letting the host know. She went to represent both of us, to beg my forgiveness and try to excuse me. Silly me, I thought I’d be able to fit it all in. (I was over two hours late to dinner.)
Those three hours I spent on the table are crystal clear in my mind, the way some of the other day trips and paintings and wine bottles are not. I stood behind a screen and undressed, bra and shirt carelessly discarded on a folding chair. When he placed the stencil I panicked for just a moment. It looked big. It spanned from about 4 fingers below my armpit to just above level with my belly button, behind the curve of my breast but never quite reaching the flat part of my back. I was shocked at myself, standing alone and naked in this unfamiliar space, willing to remake my body this way. I took a deep breath with my eyes clenched shut and said, “Ok. It’s perfect.”
No comments:
Post a Comment