France – MeredithInk

The Ironies of Arles: Part 2

The Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh’s dream of making the Southern French city of Arles an arts destination is finally becoming a reality. Now, a brand-new, Frank Gehry-designed, 184-foot tower dedicated to the arts is being constructed on the site of an old rail yard, where it seems to rise up out of nowhere when seen from afar.

We saw it at a distance this June from the vantage point of the Arles Roman amphitheater when we climbed to the top of the ancient stones, its shiny, twisty newness looking out across the horizon past old church steeples.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the silver structure is already covered in nearly 12,000 “microstressed” steel blocks. It’s set to open soon and is already hosting events. The driving force behind this structure is a contemporary Francophile with far more influence than Van Gogh ever achieved in his lifetime: A 62-year-old Swiss art patron, Maja Hoffmann, key funder for “Luma Arles.” A scion of the Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceutical company, she has worked in the arts and film production for decades.

Nearby is the well-known Actes Sud, an independent publisher with a big reputation; its director, Françoise Nyssen, recently was tapped as the French cultural minister under President Emmanuel Macron.

And it is this old vs. new that defines the rest of Arles. Visiting the city, we sought out numerous Roman ruins as well as the still-in-use amphitheater. You really can’t help but see them even if you’re not looking—they are central and prominent in this small city.

We stood on a Roman stage and looked out at Roman stadium seating (invented by the Greeks, but a staple of Roman bread and circuses). We saw old Roman marble columns being repurposed in medieval cloisters. A Turkish marble obelisk, also ancient, sits at the center of a main square.

A huge modern museum covers Arles’ ancient history extremely well, showcasing an ancient boat and many marble busts, as well as small-scale reproductions of what it was like in the really old days.

But there is a great deal of newness evident in Arles, too, and not just in the arts buildings. There’s also the contemporary photography emphasis, including an educational institution and a huge multi-site exhibit event that was happening just after our departure. (Our rental apartment featured some interestingly photographed female nudes in black-and-white, and a restaurant we ate at was displaying and selling artfully captured male semi-nudes.)

You’ll find numerous hip boutiques and trendy restaurants that dot side streets and places. A fun one: a store named after the mosquito, La Moustique, carrying all kinds of creative things with images of the hated insect (this one gave my older daughter PTSD from the 40+ mosquito bites she sustained at summer camp the year before… and her propensity to attract the critters wherever she goes).

And one more innovative establishment to add to the list: a Michelin-starred restaurant, recommended by a colleague, that we were lucky enough to enjoy. The Atelier de Jean-Luc Rabanel is a retreat from the dusty streets into quite another world of upscale dining. We began in a bamboo-laced room with large comfy seats, consuming a cherry gazpacho with garlic sorbet and fish with anisette broth and tiny vegetables. The chef, Jean-Luc, stopped by to say hello. Even the number of breads on offer, around 6 kinds, amazed us (hint: skip the squid ink, try the chocolate).

As we enjoyed our first courses, we noticed other diners being whisked away—odd, we thought. Are they finished with their multicourse meal so soon?

No. They (and we) were being moved to a separate dining room, one with fanciful photos of beautiful women in toreador outfits and the mysterious bulls they loved (OK, I might not have that exactly right, but it was something along those lines!).

We were indeed given a plate of “taureau,” a popular dish of “bull meat.” The Camargue marsh area around Arles is known for wild bulls. I don’t know much about their lives, but I picture them enjoying the southern sun until they enter the amphitheater for a bullfight (nonlethal in France these days) or they end up on our dinner plates (definitely lethal).

But despite its solid ancient roots and its artistic sparkle, Arles often feels like an out-of-the-way place. It’s a city that hasn’t been discovered yet by Uber drivers, for example. We did meet up with one, just by luck: he was from Marseilles, and normally worked there, but a passenger at the Marseilles airport had asked for a ride to Arles. Hence he was available to take us across town.

When I asked him why Arles is not serviced by ride sharing companies, the young, smooth-headed driver answered, “C’est une ville qui ne marche pas.” (It’s a city that doesn’t work… or pay.) I wondered what Arles’ famously Communist mayor would say to that?

In one odd way the city does “marche” (work) with enviable civility. It may seem obvious in this ancient city, but it’s important to note that the medieval streets in the old town are narrow—VERY narrow. These one-way passages can barely accommodate one medium-size car and often wind around blind corners. We found ourselves navigating through these streets in our rented Opel Zafira hatchback numerous times, with my husband (a fearless and experienced stick driver) at the wheel.

When we first arrived in the city after departing from an airy boulevard-like street near the train station in Aix-en-Provence (albeit torn up by construction), we were somewhat shocked. We approached the address our GPS gave us for our lodging. Was this tiny street really the road housing the furnished apartment building where we’d rented a place? There was just a sliver of sidewalk in front of the door with its old brass knocker, and no place to pull over without blocking all traffic behind us. I jumped out with my kids while my husband planned to circle the side streets and figure out a parking spot.

When we found the caretaker, a hip young woman, we asked where should we park to unload our luggage? Oh, just stop your car right in front of the door, she said, and unpack it there. Really? Won’t the drivers behind us be incensed while we block the street to remove 4 suitcases and various backpacks, tote bags, and briefcases?

No, they’ll be fine. That’s how we do it here. (Cue the raised eyebrows of four dubious Americans.)

Without any other option, we stopped and blocked the street while two adults and two kids unspooled all our stuff and deposited it behind the bright blue double doors of the apartment building.

Amazingly, cars stopped behind us, but no one got angry, no one yelled, and no one honked. Because they, too, have to frequently block streets themselves for similar purposes—and the Arlesians are willing to pay it forward.

That small gesture left a lasting impression of this vibrant, historic city.

The Ironies of Arles: Part 1

DSCF1192 The French city of Arles is filled with contrasts—you could even say ironies.

It begins with geography: an ancient city in the South of France built by the Romans on a marshland beside the Rhone, Arles is swimming in humidity and still heat one day. The next, it is swept by a fierce, dry wind—the Mistral—as sharp and piercing as you might expect before a sandstorm.

In fact, our early impression of the city as a paradise of mosquitos the first night of our visit was soon belied by this blast of Siberian air that blasted the annoying insects straight out of sight. I’d originally thought the Mistral was a sort of Southern French legend without much basis in fact, much like the Yeti or Loch Ness monster. I was quite wrong—the people of Provence were not exaggerating its strength.

But just as striking to the visitor is the legacy of another visitor who came to Arles, Vincent Van Gogh, who seems to hover over the city like a ghost, by turns benevolent and wrathful—and, most of all, lucrative.

The Dutch Van Gogh, who’d previously lived in London and Paris, came to Arles in 1888 for the light, he wrote to his brother Theo, an art dealer who gave him much encouragement. Van Gogh loved how bright everything was there compared to the rain-soaked north. The landscape also reminded him of Japan, he said, a great inspiration. He hoped to found an art colony in Arles and make the city a real destination for artists and art-lovers.

DSCF1194 — The city of Arles, with the Rhone in the distance, as seen from the top of the Roman arena

Van Gogh’s painting was incredibly prolific and innovative during his one year and three months in Arles. Many famous works were done in the city and in the nearby town of St Remy-de-Provence, a few miles away (where he went directly after Arles, voluntarily confined to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum there). He produced around 300 drawings and paintings during the short period he lived in Provence.

Imagine the painter at night, the sweep of the Rhone River below him, sticking candles in his straw hat to provide light in the dark, and then painting a starry night scene over the water.

Van Gogh’s view of the stars over the Rhone…. a painting in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris

Imagine him depicting a bright yellow café lit up in the evening in the Place du Forum, its wide awning beckoning passersby to come and have a drink.

Arles’ commemoration of the Cafe le Soir, the subject of Van Gogh’s 1888 painting

Imagine the people of Arles, irate, so angry that they started circulating a petition to force Van Gogh to move out of town.

That’s the part of the Van Gogh story that you may not hear so much about if you travel to Arles. Van Gogh, a “redhaired madman” (“fou roux”), as some called him, became known for acting erratically. He had been hearing voices, and he frequented brothels and drank heavily. Some (including his painter friend Paul Gauguin) found him physically threatening. Then—in an incident that has been used to sum of Van Gogh’s madness ever since—he severed his own ear and gave it to a prostitute he knew.

Van Gogh was taken to the hospital in Arles for a period—where he continued to paint, including an image of the flower-filled hospital courtyard—and began to recover, returning to his home. But the hallucinations continued.

DSCF1275 — The Arles hospital garden, through Van Gogh’s eyes

DSCF1273 — The Arles hospital courtyard today (now a space dedicated to Van Gogh and art)

At that point, 30 Arlesians who signed a petition to force out Van Gogh made their wishes known. The authorities made Van Gogh leave the Arles “Yellow House” where he lived, and soon after he made his way to the asylum in St. Remy.

He continued to produce bright, beautiful paintings. Nevertheless, his troubles continued, and he committed suicide near Paris not long after.

Today it’s quite a different reception for Van Gogh in Arles’ tourist materials, local sites, art museums, and shops. Everywhere it’s Van Gogh. There’s the Espace Van Gogh, an art institution that was formerly the hospital, and the Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, housed in a 15^th-century mansion, which features a handful of his paintings and many works “inspired” by him as well as other contemporary exhibits.

There are numerous outdoor reproductions of his paintings forming “easels” scattered around town, in spots where Van Gogh created his art. My family used those to organize a walking tour through the city.

DSCF1172 — Van Gogh’s Yellow House residence was destroyed by WWII bombs, but an easel honors its spot

Some have tried to capitalize by recreating what Van Gogh saw. The “Night Café” he painted in bright yellow is there today on the Place du Forum, again brilliant yellow thanks to its current owners. Our guidebook warned it is a tourist trap, so we just walked by and ate at another restaurant. Many foreign tourists we observed seemed to focus almost exclusively on Van Gogh sites in Arles.

The “Night Cafe” today (in the day time) in the Place du Forum

What was once hatred has blossomed into love, appreciation, and international commerce.

It’s a very friendly commerce. Shopkeepers and small stall-keepers in Arles were among the nicest and most patient that I’ve encountered anywhere in France. They explained, guided, and even made a little conversation with yet another tourist in their midst. I didn’t begrudge them at all wanting to give the public a piece of Van Gogh’s artistic legacy to take home, and to make a few Euros in the process.

I happily participated in the capitalist celebration of this tragic genius, coming home with a Van Gogh tote bag, Van Gogh calendar, Van Gogh pocket flashlight, and pillbox, not to mention a magnet and numerous postcards. (In my defense, several of these were gifts.)

And now, when I see artwork by the master, I’ll think of the windswept streets, the quiet gardens, and the expansive riverbanks of Arles.

Next time: Van Gogh’s dream of making Arles an arts destination is becoming a reality today. Find out how.

Paris Observations, Part 2

Following my first set of Paris observations, here are a few more thoughts. Read on for notes on Parisian tattoos, pedestrians, iced tea, underground dining, water, pastries and crepes, and, of course, macarons.

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In the popular Place de la Contrescarpe, and all around Paris, you’ll find many tattoos

Last time, I wrote about a French trend that echoed American fashion: fancy sneakers on everyone with everything. I also wanted to point out that the hipster look of tattoos (on men and women) and beards (men!) has also spread to France in a big way.

I recall reading an article about 15 years ago about how the French, and other Catholic-origin cultures, would never adopt tattoos (or piercings) enthusiastically, as Anglo-Saxon cultures did. That their Roman religious roots somehow made them immune to the idea of defacing their God-given bodies with permanent ink. Clearly that cultural theory has gone the way of the dodo. Tatts are everywhere now among the younger generations in France, just as they are in the US, and tattoo parlors have sprung up too.

It’s odd how, walking along the streets of Paris, Nice, or Aix-en-Provence, the 20-something students were indistinguishable from American hipsters. Levis have long been popular, but now it’s every aspect of their look that mirrors Americans. My French friend attributes this to Netflix, which is popular in France. Young people see American trends there. Instagram, too, and all kinds of social media spread the desire for the same styles around the world. The French are not setting the fashion pace when it comes to lower budget streetwear.

One upside is how little me, my husband, and my pre-teen daughters stood out as different in our American clothes, shoes, and accessories. In fact, people seemed to mistake us for natives. Normally, in the past, that would have made me smile, but now, I view it as a part of the homogenization of all cultures, trends, and self-expression: A little dispiriting.

We also had trouble recognizing who was a local and who wasn’t. I sometimes asked a fellow traveler for directions, and usually it turned out to be an American. When I realized their confusion, I’d rapidly switch from Parisian French to American English to rephrase my question. This amazed my kids. (As my husband said: “It’s your mom’s super power!”)

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Parisians walk VERY fast.

Our second night in town, we were strolling around the 6^tharrondissement after dinner. We were tired, and full, and taking our time.

I heard behind us an exasperated voice. “Oh, les touristes,” came from a young woman to her friend. I overheard them scheming to jaywalk across the street to get away from our too-slow steps. Just then, Bob said we should cross together as well, and unknowingly stepped right in front of them.

The young women angrily muttered and marched around us, and I called out, “Oui, les touristes!” my voice somewhat bitter. I am not quite sure if they heard me or even cared. But it helped me to acknowledge that I knew they were talking about us…. and didn’t appreciate the attitude.

A few days later, walking down a Parisian street, I heard myself saying, “My God, these tourists are SO slow. We’ve got to get around them.”

When in Paris, I guess, one can become slightly more Parisian.

The only problem is, when trying to pass other pedestrians on a very tight walkway, you might end up walking in the road, and there, the motorcycles (or cars) might get you. They come out of nowhere in the tiny old streets.

I am certainly not the first to observe the Parisian pedestrian rapidity. The late British author Peter Mayle, who wrote about his experiences living in Provence, reminded readers that you could always tell visiting Parisians in the South of France apart from the locals by how extremely fast they walked.

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It’s official: the French have bubble tea (aka pearl tea, aka boba tea). We tried “Chatime,” a small storefront facing the Seine near the Place St Michel.

It’s like the bubble tea served in America, with a similar list of flavors (I got mango green tea), only even more expensive (at least 5 euros per serving). Happily, the tapioca pearls were quite tender, just how I like it. My daughters gave it a thumbs up as well.

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Eating in a wine cellar is quaint, but once you’re down there, expect a long stay. (This is not ideal for the claustrophobic or the super hungry.)

We enjoyed dining in the “caveau” on the basement level of a small restaurant on Paris’ charming Ile St Louis. The thick stone walls had a certain charm and had clearly been cleaned and refreshed. However, it was slightly musty and dank, and “out of sight out of mind” is surely true in France as well. We saw our server approximately once per half hour and eventually had to ascend to ground level three hours later to pay our bill and move on with our lives.

I did enjoy the endive salad and fish, though, and we had plenty of time to talk and visit as a family. But I confess, I breathed easier as we emerged into the open air.

Caveau dining, a long (and slightly caustrophobic) experience

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Water is a precious resource. We all know this, but as Americans, we have come to expect water served at restaurants as our due. During the long California draught, we noticed more restaurants posting signs saying “to save water, we won’t serve you water unless you request it,” and we were somewhat annoyed. Americans want our access to free water to begin just as soon as we arrive at an eatery, thank you very much! You know, “give us your tired, your thirsty,” etc. (Yes, this is a generalization, but I challenge you to find evidence to the contrary.)

Well, in France (and Europe overall) getting water is a different story, one that tells of scarcity rather than abundance.

Few water fountains grace French public places. French restaurants are required to serve you free water if you request it, my French friends tell me. Yet they are not exactly happy about it, since they make no money off the tap water itself, and probably resent having to wash your water glasses “for free.”

So when you politely request “un carafe d’eau” with your meal, be prepared to wait. And wait. And the carafe that the water brings will be small, and you will have to ask for multiple refills, especially if you are traveling with parched, potentially dehydrated, tour-weary children.

(Also: Be sure not to ask for just “water”–“eau”–because often they will bring you Evian or another expensive bottled water. Word to the wise: “carafe d’eau” is the way to go.)

The water dearth in France did make us value our free-flowing American water. We are used to large, ice-filled glasses of the wet and refreshing stuff set down in front of us almost as soon as our rear ends hit the seats.

(The only kind of water we saw a lot of in Paris was the Seine, and of course the waves and waves of rain that fell on our heads.)

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Speaking of ice: You may know that ice is not really a “thing” in France if you’ve ever traveled there before. But there’s often a unique twist in the Gallic mind. What got me this time around is that there are more restaurants serving “iced tea”—just don’t expect ice. (As I mentioned above, bubble tea, a.k.a. pearl tea, has made it to Paris, but it’s still a rarity.)

After leaving Paris, I ordered and consumed a lovely “thé glacé” in the Rothschild Villa restaurant in Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera (a longer story for another time). Quality tea, and was served cold. Well chilled, but not an ice cube to be found, just a foamy layer on the top.

Be warned: most places in France that serve “iced tea” will give you Nestea Pêche in a can, or some other syrupy disaster.

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My kids never thought they’d get sick of pastries. And yet…. temporarily, they did. Numerous croissant breakfasts, both to-go from bakeries and seated at cafés, seemed to put them over the edge.

My older daughter tried brioche and almond pastry; my younger daughter preferred chausson aux pommes, an applesauce-filled puff pastry. But after nearly a week of this, they started to rebel. The kids were quite eager to return to cereal, toast, and eggs.

They even seemed to tire of crepes, which I also didn’t think was possible. Within three days we had crepes three times for lunch. The frequency took the fun out of it for them.

Personally, I really did enjoy the “crepes de sarrasin,” I ate, also known as “galettes de blé noir.” In this country, we’d call it a buckwheat crepe or pancake. It’s uniquely hearty and savory, especially with swiss cheese, mushrooms, and a touch of egg or ham. Those crepes are the “salée” or “salted” version you often find in France (and especially in Bretagne, birthplace of great crepes). They are perfect with a bowl of hard cider, also from Brittany (I prefer brut, but some like doux, or sweet).

The “sucrée” crepe, on the other hand, is made with a more typical white flour and served sweet with a range of flavors (Nutella or chestnut being favorites). It can also be tangy with a lovely sprinkling of fresh lemon juice.

I’m getting hungry.

The site of the best crepes we had in Paris, in the pouring rain that sent us running inside

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And once more back to food: macarons. If you like things French and live in a major metropolitan area, you’ve undoubtedly tried these upscale delights. If you don’t know them, I do recommend you seek some out. I wouldn’t exactly call them cookies, but they are in the cookie/pastry family. They are essentially two fluffy rounds with flavored cream or preserves inside.

On this trip, we were struck by the expansion of macarons across Paris and France. More than ever, they seemed very widely available. We stopped several times at La Durée, where the macarons on offer were light and delicate and delicious. My daughters surprised me by loving the rose and geranium flavors. I’m partial to raspberry and lemon. Mmm.

Sadly, I lost my sense of taste for a time during my Paris stay. This happened because, unfortunately, I’m allergic to the city. Its high ozone levels and diesel pollution make me ill after even a short stay. But through the wonder of allergy pills, I regained my senses in time to take in a few last macarons, and the memory lingers.

Paris Observations (Part 1)

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Paris is a very old place, and yet it has remained dynamic over the centuries. Every time I return to the City of Light, I see something new—some detail or quirk that I’d never noticed in numerous visits, or something that’s actually changed as generations of Parisians shift and evolve.

In this post, I’ll share the first part of my Paris observations from June 2018, when I visited with my husband and two daughters.

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As soon as I arrived in the heart of the city, I spotted a trend. Just about everyone—both men and women—sported fancy sneakers.

These are specific kinds of sneakers: Adidas, Nike, and New Balance, primarily. Only certain colors and styles that qualified as somewhat upscale. Gentrified sneakers, not so much running shoes as urban fashion sneakers. And compared with two years ago, it was a vast uptick.

My older daughter, wearing slightly beat-up Adidas Superstars (the kind popular at her school), fit right in, whereas in ages past, any sneakers-wearing tourist would have been immediately branded an American and pointed/laughed at. (When I was a student in Paris, I selected my footwear just as carefully as my clothing, to try to fit in. Leather oxfords, flats, or sandals seemed acceptable then.)

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Our first night in the city, my husband and daughter spent a couple hours watching feet go by the Place St. Michel as we sat at the Café St-Severin. Nearby, Saint Michael himself watched us from his mighty statue, wings spread and sword in hand, judging us all.

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Sneakers with wide culottes. Sneakers with dresses. Dodging puffs of smoke from neighboring diners, my family members spied dozens of Adidas and Nikes coming in and out of the Metro stop.

Interesting that the French seem to have now embraced healthier approaches in some areas—wearing supportive footwear, drinking detox teas, enjoying spa treatments, and taking up running—while still continuing to smoke like chimneys.

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In Paris, we walked. And walked. And walked (in our well-designed footwear). And then we did what the French do, alongside tourists, in public parks—we propped our weary feet up on the edges of large fountains.

We did this at the Palais-Royal, the famous royal courtyard now populated with black-and-white columns, leafy trees, and a traditional round fountain basin encircled by metal chairs (this site was featured in Mission Impossible: Fallout, along with many other Paris locales).

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Later, in the Tuileries garden, by an even larger round pool, where many tourists sat to take in the view of the Louvre, statuary, and patches of (off-limit to feet) very green grass.

The weather was humid and damp, not exactly hot, but sticky. (It got cooler and much wetter as our Paris stay went on.) Given our jetlag and the longer-than-usual walks often fighting against the traffic waves of cars or of other tourists, it felt good to relax à la française.

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Have you ever been shamed into silence by a museum guard? My family has.

“Un peu de silence, s’il vous plaît,” alternated with “quiet, please” (same thing, in English, and less poetic-sounding). This happened in two places: the Orangerie museum was the first. It’s a gem located in the Tuileries garden, not far from the Place de la Concorde. The museum houses remarkable wrap-around waterlily paintings by Monet, who wanted the space to be a sanctuary for “working men” (and women, one hopes) far from the hustle and bustle, a place of rest and peace. I sort of got the point of honoring his wishes in the Monet rooms.

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But in other rooms, featuring riotous post-Impressionists, the same rule seems to hold—guards asked us to keep our voices down. And they did that too, with other patrons who had not yet learned to communicate with each other silently, in a special exhibit featuring the influence of Monet on contemporary New York artists.

Really? “New York modern art scene” and “silence” are a very unlikely combo, in my opinion.

The second spot of voice-shaming was the mausoleum in the basement of the Pantheon, where Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and many others are entombed and memorialized. I understand that it’s a solemn place.

But the female guard yelled “silence” and “quiet” through the labyrinth of echoing halls so vociferously that it was unsettling. Her voice created its own disturbance. (My younger daughter continued to invoke the hypocrisy of this approach long after.)

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Also in Paris, we learned that if you design a treasure hunt, it’s best not to offer as clues “water” and “a ledge.”

The otherwise-clever City in My Bag Paris treasure hunt overlooked this notion.

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The experience as a whole was quite fun and we enjoyed the little gifts and treasures we could “unlock” along the way by solving location puzzles. However, one visual clue was a photo of water from above. In a city that 1) has a large river running right through it 2) has numerous (aforementioned) fountains everywhere and 3) is constantly being rained on and fairly frequently flooded, a picture of water does not really distinguish things much.

The ledge image, a different clue, was also kind of funny. It turns out that specific sizes of these items were used by the French as they converted to the metric system more than 200 years ago. Physical ledges, built into walls, told the citizens how long a meter was.

(Are we meant to picture people walking up to these ledges, taking their measurement, and then being forever informed of its size? Or did they have to go back over and over again to check their work?)

There’s one such ledge still in existence, and we think it’s somewhere near the Luxembourg gardens. The only problem was, what was happening near the gardens when we visited that day was an aggressive protest. A passerby told us it was striking railway workers, but with all the smoke bombs and torches and loud megaphones booming, as well as the armored swat teams ready to pounce, it was a bit hard to tell.

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The rest of the week, my younger daughter kept pointing to random ledges and asking, “Is this the ledge? Is it this one?”

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We may have made it onto the B roll of a French film.

I can’t be sure. I really have no idea what they were recording with a professional-grade video camera when my kids and I visited Sainte Chapelle. We were admiring the gem-like windows, coated in brilliant red and blue stained glass. They surround you on all sides in the former royal chapel, an outstanding example of medieval artistry and modern cleaning/repair work.

And then the woman in red appeared, and with her, an encourage. A large camera, a mic on a small boom, and some people hovering about trying to ensure a good shot.

At one point she ascended to the top of the pulpit area. And her camera person seemed to be seeking something else to shoot. Another person–the assistant director perhaps–pointed in our direction as we were carefully observing windows from the sidelines. The camera pointed our way for sometime. I could swear it moved with us.

I wanted to ask what they were filming, but they were intensely focused, and I didn’t find a good opportunity to interrupt their work.

So who knows? “Coming soon, on a screen far from you: Meredith and daughters touring Paris, hot on the heels of a mysterious woman in red…”

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Next time: Paris musings, part two. Please return for the sequel!

Not an Expert

Growing up, I saw myself as a future expert. Someone who knew her stuff, who could exude wisdom and knowledge to others. It was a goal I worked on throughout junior high, high school, college, and graduate school.

It took a long, long time to figure out that I didn’t want to be defined as an expert. I’ll tell you a bit about how it happened, and where it took me.

My steps along the expert path began early. As a young kid, I was lucky enough to travel from the Chicago area to Paris when I was turning seven. My parents got me excused from my first-grade class to accompany them and my younger sister on a once-in-a-lifetime journey, a chance for my dad to work with French colleagues and for the rest of us to experience life as Parisians. My mom and dad were both confirmed Francophiles and relished the idea of several weeks in the heart of the Latin Quarter, and they were brave enough to bring their two young daughters.

I was amazed by what I saw on that trip. Even as a child, I was blown away by the sheer force of so much art, history, architecture, culture, and a fascinating language—with echoes of English, but more melodic and rich to my ear.

When I got home, I started studying French. Combining my recent exposure with a natural affinity for language, I was able to copy a Parisian accent better than my classmates. My teachers heaped praise on me. I spent years striving to learn to speak authentic French so that I could truly experience a country steeped in art and history, could live like the students I saw roaming confidently through major French cities, sipping their tiny cups of coffee and flipping their long hair.

My parents took me back to France a few years later after receiving another invitation, and we explored Toulouse and the Southwest. The visit reenforced my love of the place.

As a student, I’d heard that there were opportunities to get back to France if I aced academic competitions—which I did. I made it through a competitive high school (a big public institution in suburbia) and into the college of my dreams. I focused on European history and literature, specifically that of France, and won grants to study in Paris during summers. I then went on to a year-long exchange scholarship stay to study in Paris again, and from there, attained my goal of being accepted into an excellent program for graduate studies. I was, I thought, living the intelligentsia dream.

But things had begun to fall apart. During my time studying in Paris, I struggled to find a research topic that I thought was worth pursuing. I knew it was an extraordinary opportunity to learn something, yet I flitted from class to class, hoping to uncover some hidden meaning there. The most memorable course I was in focused on the history of European government and law, and the only part I really recall was my effort to understand and translate the group discussion about a new European Union human rights law against dwarf tossing. Yes, you read that right—they were talking about whether it would be legally permissible to throw human beings for sport. I seemed to find myself in an alternate universe, and not just because I couldn’t always speak (or comprehend) the language.

I felt lost.

What exactly was I trying to become an expert in? As I trolled the libraries, I asked myself, how much could I really learn about European history as a modern American, hundreds of years after the period I studied? What could I actually glean from old documents molding in the archives… and who would care what I had to say about these distant events and people? An even larger question hovered: What was the point of this exercise?

It was beginning to dawn on me that inhabiting a purely academic sphere did not suit me. In the midst of my master’s program, I made a decision: I would leave academia to become a journalist and a writer. I would start over, putting aside my expertise in French and European history, and take on the goal of telling stories about the people around me, their passions, and their discoveries. I would learn from their lives and work, and maybe find ways to apply that learning to my own experience. Expert no more—except in the craft of writing itself.

My first paid writing job was at a legal newspaper. My second was at a weekly business and technology magazine (sadly, now defunct). My next roles were writing and editing for a foundation and then for Stanford University.

All the while, I wrote about people and topics far outside my own knowledge and experience, including: lawyers suing Microsoft; conserving wilderness through smart land deals; the legal rights of pets and their “guardians”; motorcycle personal injury work; margin lending; stock wealth on paper and its rapid disappearance in the economic downturn; ancient practices of making music from conch shells and worshipping jaguars; the Stanford prison experiment; how to secretly meet intelligence officers in Moscow and live to tell about it; bioengineering molecules to fight cancer; using light to activate the brain; crab migration and survival in changing climates; improving testing for tuberculosis; women’s volleyball star turns; a college quarterback returning from his Mormon mission; prehistoric horsemen who invaded Western Europe; the genius of Buckminster Fuller; and the ethics of self-driving cars. I talked to experts often, to tell stories about discoveries and ideas and human lives.

It was not just liberating—it felt true.

All around us are stories that are worth telling, innovations worth understanding, people worth knowing more deeply. I still carry a deep interest in European history, culture, and French language, and I treasure my French experiences and friends, but I’ve opened my world far beyond the limits of that expertise.

I am reminded of Shakespeare’s famous lines, voiced by Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.” As a non-expert, I was free to explore all those things. And I still feel that way now.

Each day, learn a little. Each month, interview new people, write about something I’m not knowledgeable about. Each year, rediscover that there is more out there than I will ever know—feeling a sense of satisfaction not from expertise itself, but from the ability to ask good questions and find new answers.