Look Up

This is the third time I’ve found myself joining the tourist invasion that is Paris in July. I don’t know how many times I’ve visited the City of Lights, but I’ve gotten to the stage where I more or less return and do the same things over and over—with some slight deviations sprinkled in.

Paris is one of those places that is always reminding you to look up. Look up from the sidewalks, look up from your phone, look up and see a Gothic, Renaissance, Classical, Belle Époque, Art Nouveau and Postmodern patchwork that defies logic in its peaceful coexistence. But it’s not just the architecture. Beyond all the initial dazzle there is so much more to pick up on, if only you allow for a second look. There is culture everywhere and it only starts with the stern-looking statues standing eternal watch in the Louvre walls. Every time that I return and walk a seemingly familiar street, invariably I am introduced to something I had never noticed before.

I was reminded of this type of touristry not soon after checking in to my hotel in the 9th. As my friend and I sat at the Chausée d’Antin La Fayette metro stop, I amused myself reading a green placard noting cultural interest (France is full of such signs). Here it discussed a fresco that was created on the bicentennial of the French Revolution, and as I read on I quickly grew more interested.

“La Fayette is pointing to the New World (the child). The child (America) looks with wonder at La Fayette and his soldiers. A young, beautiful woman (Liberty) looks past the torch she is holding, a treaty of cooperation between La Fayette and Washington. La Fayette looks toward Liberty. In the overhanging the centerpiece, a five-pointed star symbolizes an eternal America and the Europe of today.”

After reading I slowly drew my eye up to the vaulted ceiling and discovered the visual landscape that most people likely never scrutinize. And it’s not just because everyone finds their smartphones far more engaging. It’s because time and grit have done their part to obscure the finer details of the fresco, and it doesn’t help that this is already a dimly lit metro stop. The painting, created in 1989, is simply no match for the neon light assault that is currently strangling your attention when you pull into the Opéra metro stop.

But the fresco at Chausée d’Antin metro stop is special. It’s special to me, and it was special that I discovered it this past weekend. Here the marquis de Lafayette is looking as regal as any French depiction would have him—but it’s important to remember that he is also a hero of our American Revolution. Like a cretin, it took me years to realize that all references to Lafayette in France were not in deference to Le Grand Magasin. Looking up now, just before the train sped into the station, I admired the handiwork and reflected on his actions and how they placed me and my country where we now stood.

And later on in the day while walking some more, I suddenly stopped to admire the pastel sky after first spying a swatch as it reflected in a side street puddle. Further along, I smiled to myself in glancing up to catch one of the illicitly-placed Invader pixellations that add a modern flavor to the old edifices. The thing I love about this city is that there’s not only so much that it can teach you, but there is also plenty of crazy stuff (and people) running around who are guaranteed to make you smile. Like a man playing a recorder as he drove his delivery van down the street. And he was doing both of them very well!

On Monday morning I found myself back in the Luxembourg Gardens. It’s a place that holds fond memories spent with good friends as well as while solo. While here I always retrace a path that I am certain my father once took while on one of his trips to Charles de Galle Airport. As I walk to the garden’s perimeter, it’s a bit like I’m under some sort of magnetic pull because invariably I wind up on Rue de Tournon. I walk a bit more. Then I look up. The placard next to the door is of no surprise anymore. I am standing in front of the house where John Paul Jones died exactly 225 years ago this month

While I have been here many times since Dad first slipped me the address in our pre-smartphone days, I still always like to return. Maybe it’s because I feel the need to pay ongoing respect to a man who felt a slighted by an adopted country he helped to found. I’ve read that even the esteemed La Fayette largely ignored Jones while the two men were in Paris. Whatever the case, there’s something to be said for attending to the things that you once discovered and now deem important when you find yourself back in familiar territory.

The thing is, Paris in particular is a place that grants a handful of offerings that allows for a personal connection. Even if it’s a person’s first time visiting, they will feel familiarity. Maybe you go to a stained glassed church because a friend told you to see a concert there. Maybe you grab an overpriced scoop of ice cream on Île Saint-Louis because you know that sending a photo will piss off your envious brother. Or maybe you have a family connection from the War, and you want to discover the many memorials and placards that somehow serve to connect you to your heritage. Whatever the case, I can see why the city center is always so desperately crowded with wanderers such as myself.

So it’s another fourth of July weekend spent abroad, but I feel like I am in a good place to mark the occasion. Even given the uncertain state of the world—all the threats to public safety, persistent inequality, and good god the crackpot leaders—I still feel pretty positive. It’s hard to be surrounded by so much beauty, creation, and collaboration in Paris and not believe that it all has some staying power. Whether it’s to regard overhead frescoes or something as simple as a rosy blue sky, we just have to remember to keep looking up.