JOURNAL NO. 17

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s piece, “Babylon Revisited” offers me a range of thoughts. Initially, I viewed Charlie as a man who came back to a place he had once known. He’s asking his old bartender about the people he used to know and hang out with, seeing how their lives are going and if they’ve gotten any better than they once were. It just doesn’t really seem as though Charlie really cares about what his old friends have been up to. 

What I find especially interesting about this story and Charlie’s time in Paris throughout the story is that it’s a story of his return. His return after everything had changed — the loss of his wife, his daughter, his path to sobriety, Charlie coming back to Paris as a brand new man is something I don’t think I’ve read about yet. 

With Hemingway, he doesn’t seem to really discuss how he had changed over time and how his idea or view on Paris changed with him. I don’t really think I’ve written about that either…which, now thinking about it, is actually pretty strange. 

Obviously I don’t have a wife that has just died and I didn’t just spend a couple years trying to get over my alcohol addiction. However, thinking about the person I was days before my arrival in Paris and comparing that person to who I am now, I just know I’ve grown into a whole new person. 

I know this blog post isn’t supposed to be this personal, but reading “Babylon Revisited” kind of sparked something personal for me. I now am thinking about what Paris will be like the next time I come here. As much as I want to come back to Paris as soon as possible, I just don’t think that’s realistic. I have to work, finish up school, save money, get some type of real job, and pretty much just grow up before I can live here again. And I don’t want to…I don’t want to grow up and come to Paris and not have it be the same as it is now. I want to come back to Paris, live in 31 Rue Duret, with the same people, with the same schedule, living the same life. I want to go to Le Zig Zag and walk home on the Champs-Elysses at 4 am. I want to wake up at 2 pm on Tuesdays and force myself to do school work. There’s just something so perfectly balanced about my life here. I go out, I go to school, I do school work and I sit around watching netflix, and its all completely even. 

This all brings me to thinking about Charlie and how he feels about the Paris he used to know. I can’t help but think that some of his anxieties are coming from his yearning for the past. His desire to go back to the way things were before he, and maybe his wife, messed everything up. I know a lot of his anxiety is coming from his ability to prove himself, to prove he’s changed and to prove he’s capable of taking care of his daughter. I just find it easiest to relate to the desire for the past.

JOURNAL NO. 16

FICTION PIECE II

I was swimming through the ocean trying to get somewhere. I don’t know exactly where I was trying to go. The waves were huge. So big that every time one came, I would be thrown hundreds of feet ahead. I never drowned though, I never even came close. Water never filled my lungs and I never choked. It was the most confidently I had ever swam. When I was under the water, I could see fish and coral reefs and turtles, sea creatures of all kinds. 

At one point, I came to the surface. Took a deep breath and looked over to my right. There he was. Floating on his back in the water. I realized I was trying to get to him. Every time I would swim in his direction, the current would become so strong and it seemed as though I wasn’t moving at all. 

I went back under the water, under the waves. I swam as hard and as fast as I could. I came up for air and he was gone. Most of the water was gone, in fact, and the shore was directly ahead of me. I swam further and reached the sand. I was breathing heavily, panting. I laid down in the sand. The sun was hitting my body and it felt amazing. I could hear the waves crashing onto the sand and the wind was making the most beautiful humming sound. I heard birds. 

My eyes were closed but I knew nobody was there. I laid, silently, for an amount of time I can’t define. 

Suddenly there was shade over me…I could no longer feel the sun. I opened my eyes and saw the silhouette of someone standing above me, but I was too blinded by the sun and couldn’t tell who it was. 

And then I woke up. Just me. In my bed. The sun coming through my window, hitting me right in the face. 

What an interesting phenomena, dreams. Our brains working on an unconscious level, showing images, making us feel things, smell things, hear things, all in our heads. And it happens when we aren’t even awake. We’re fast asleep and our eyes can see things that aren’t there, our ears hear things our noses smell things and our hands feel things. 

I’ve been trying to write down my dreams every morning when I wake up. And if there are a lot of parts of my dream that I can’t remember, they usually come back to me throughout the day and I write them down then. I’m trying to see what my unconscious brain is thinking/doing/telling me. As I was recalling this particular dream, I was unable to decipher who the man was that I was trying to swim towards in the water. Throughout the entire day, I never was able to remember who it was or what his face looked like. 

By recalling my dreams, interpreting them and comparing them, I think I’ll have an infinitely better hold on what the hell this thing called life is all about. A various amount of cognitive neuroscientists believe that only 5% of our conscious mind is used on a daily basis, and everything else occurs in the subconscious. I want to understand my subconscious. Thats the main controller of my dreams, so I figured if I can figure those out, I’ll have a better chance at understanding the whole thing. The whole subconscious, I mean. 

And, I mean, if the subconscious really does control 95% of our mind — of our actions — I think thats the best way for me to figure out life. Maybe not figure out life, but understand it, you know? Understand why I do things and why other people do things. Understand how dreams connect to reality and vice versa. 

I’m no scientist. I’m just a normal, curious person that wants to know more. More about herself and more about those surrounding her. 

I tried to remember the man’s face from my dream all day long. Nothing came up. I eventually stopped thinking about it. I went down to the beach, and I laid in the sand. It wasn’t the same beach that I had dreamt about, but it was a beach. My body was sprawled across the sand, the sun hitting me, all over. I heard the waves hitting the shore, I heard the wind, the birds and the other people on the beach. I heard an ice cream truck every once in a while. I must have been laying there for at least 2 hours. Dozing in and out of sleep. 

Suddenly, I felt the presence of someone standing over me. The sun was blocked and I was covered in shade. I opened my eyes. It was exactly like my dream had been that night. I rubbed and squinted my eyes, and realized who it was. 

The man standing over me was my ex-boyfriend. I had broken up with him months earlier because he was a piece of shit. A liar and a cheater. I thought, what the hell is this little fucker doing here? How does he even know where the hell Long Beach Island is? How did he find me on this particular beach, out of all the beaches on the island? 

“Hey” he said, “fancy seeing you here, huh?” I sat up, sitting criss-crossed apple sauce in the sand. He sat down next to me. I was silent for a while. “Well you gonna say anything or just stare at me like that?” He said, with a smirk on his face. 

I asked him what he was doing there and how he saw me. He told me he asked my best friends where I was. They told him, reluctantly. He then messaged the girl I was staying with who, the dumb girl that she is, believed that he wanted to surprise me…that he missed me. She told him what beach I go to and what time I get off work. So he got in his car and came on down to the island. Drove to 14th Street beach and saw me. 

What the hell does all of this mean? It drives my mind in circles. I have a dream that I’m trying so hard to get to a man in the ocean but the current won’t allow me, and then before I know it he’s gone. Then he all of a sudden shows up again, standing over me on the beach. Then the next day a man from my past shows up, standing over me on the beach? What the fuck?! 

So I took it as though my subconscious was giving me a warning of him coming to see me. That somehow my unconscious brain knew what was to come and wanted to let me know. I also thought that it meant I should give him a second chance. How else would a silly, naive 20 year old chick take that? So I did. 

And, boy was I wrong. Things were good for a while. Then we fell back into the same patterns. He lied and he cheated, I got even, we fought we made up and fought again. 

I finally realized that my dream wasn’t telling me to give him a second chance. The fact that he was unobtainable in my dream, I couldn’t get to him. I was trying and trying but I wasn’t moving. My subconscious was indeed warning me that he was coming to see me, but also telling me that I can never get him the way I want him. He will never be faithful or honest. He’s unobtainable, in my dream and in real life. 

All this just trips me out now. I think I lost what I was really looking for by writing down my dreams. They are all so coincidental. Most of my dreams have nothing to do with the reality of my life. They don’t make sense and they don’t connect. It was a silly idea to try and make sense of it all. 

The subconscious is subconscious for a reason. I don’t think anyone will ever really understand it. And I certainly don’t think dreams will help out, in any way. 

JOURNAL NO. 15

Hemingway’s relationship to Ezra Pound intrigues me deeply. You see, I can tell that Hemingway has a certain amount for Pound — for his writing, his efforts and his personality in general. 

I get the sense that Pound is similar to Sylvia Beach in some way. They are both extremely kind, and do their best to help others — whether or not they are their peers. I also think that Hemingway loves people like this. He holds them in his heart. But I mean, who wouldn’t? 

There’s something incredibly enchanting about a person who has a big heart and only wants to do good for others. I know that that’s one of my favorite character traits in my friends. 

Not to say that Hemingway isn’t a nice guy, or that he’s a dick, but I get the sense that he isn’t as affable as his friends Pound and Beach. And I can see why that would make him appreciate the two even more. As humans, we tend to appreciate and love the aspects of other people that we don’t obtain. I wouldn’t suggest you quote me on that, but I can imagine the words to be somewhat true. 

Calling Pound a saint, Hemingway is clearly expressing his true opinion of him. By definition, a saint is a very holy or virtuous person. However, I think when someone calls another person a saint they simply mean that the specified person is a good person — someone who has no bad intentions. 

I can see that being very true, when I read about Pound’s “Bel Espirit”. A fellow writer to Hemingway and Pound was T.S. Eliot. In the chapter we read for this blog post in the “Additional Sketches” section of A Moveable Feast, I learned that Eliot was working as a banker in order to make sufficient funds to live. This work at the bank didn’t leave him much time to work on his writing. In order to help Eliot out, Pound got a group of writer friends together and started to save money up for Eliot so that he wouldn’t have to work at the bank anymore. 

This act of solely wanting to help out a fellow writer and a friend, shows a lot about character. Even Hemingway admits that at times he didn’t necessarily want to put his money into this fund, but I have an idea that he was willing to just because Pound was the one who started it. 

When Hemingway spoke about Ernest Walsh, a poet who Pound was friends with, it was just another instance in which it became clear to me how much Hemingway truly cared about Pound. You see, Walsh was a conman, and was insistent on conning writers into being a part of his new magazine by promising them an award. He promised both Hemingway and Joyce the same award, and they kept this a secret from Pound. From what I gather, their reasoning behind this secret was to protect Pound from thinking his friend Walsh wasn’t actually as great and kind as he thought. 

I don’t know if I’m making up too much in my head regarding Hemingway’s relationship with Pound, but this just seems to make the most sense to me. 

As I mentioned earlier, I think it’s common for people to love personality traits that we don’t actually have. It’s clear to me that Hemingway wasn’t as blatantly kind and giving as Pound was. Doesn’t make him any lesser or more than Pound, just different.

As A Moveable Feast comes to an end, I have a bittersweet feeling. This wasn’t the first time I read Hemingway’s memoir, however, it was the first time I read it so deeply and closely. I feel as though I was able to really get up in Hemingway’s head, into his thoughts. I feel like reading it now, 4 years later, 4 years older and 4 years wiser, I can actually compare and contrast my own thoughts/feelings with those of Hemingway. 

I think that if I was around during the time of the Lost Generation in Paris, and I knew all of these writers and artists alike, I would be a Pound or Beach like person. I would be the one to want to help out as many people as possible. I also think I would have a certain disliking for Gertrude Stein — for different reasons, though. I got the sense that Stein and Hemingway’s friendship diminished because he couldn’t handle the fact that she was lesbian. The reason I wouldn’t continue a friendship with Stein is because she is too stuck up and gives herself too much credit. But hey, that’s just me. 

Hemingway is truly an interesting guy, and I don’t think I or anyone else can really, fully understand him unless we actually knew him. I guess its just that reading his words, it almost feels like I do… 

Journal NO. 14

FICTION PIECE

I never thought that I’d want to leave my home. When the time for applying to college came around, I knew in my heart that New York City was where I wanted to be. Why go to a school with 10,000 faces I would never recognize and only have my campus as an exploration ground when I could have millions of unrecognizable faces in the best city in the world? 

My family was both happy and sad about this. You see, my parents wanted me to get out into the world and experience something new. My grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were all thrilled at the thought because me staying in the city meant they wouldn’t have to miss me. 

To please everyone, I applied to schools all over. Some in florida, some on the west coast, some in Boston, some in Pennsylvania, one in Paris cause why the hell not, and more. 

The only school that I held high in my heart and mind, though, was Colombia University. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a lawyer who attended and IV League school in New York City. I wanted my own law firm where I was the boss. I wanted to fight for justice, and so be it, I did everything in my power to get myself there. 

Without discussing it with my parents, I applied Early Decision. This meant that if I got accepted, I had no choice but to go there. I pretty much signed the contract without knowing if the people I was signing with actual wanted me. 

It had been about a month and a half since I applied. Acceptance or rejection letters should be arriving at me and my fellow students doors any day now. As I waited for my letter, I would spend my days uptown on the campus and sit on a bench and just watch as all the amazing brains and people walked passed me. 

Then it happened. The letter came. And, it was a no. “Dear Charlotte, it is with regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to the freshman class at Columbia University.” 

It was as though 800 different emotions went flying through my brain. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know what was wrong with me. I was sad. I was angry. I was disappointed. I was surprised yet I expected it. I didn’t know if I should cry or if I should scream. If I should crawl into a ball and hide in my room or go out into the street and wreck any and everything I saw. 

I grabbed the letter, folded it up and placed it back in the envelope. I walked out my door without saying a word to my mom. I needed air, I needed to walk. I didn’t know where I was going or for how long I’d be gone. I just knew that I needed to get out of that apartment and put what seemed like the 6 million scattered pieces of my brain back together. 

I walked up Furman Street till I got to Columbia Street. Figures, huh, that I’d try to run away from the name that was jabbing a knife into my stomach and end up looking right at it again. Instead of walking down that street, I turned left and made my way up Atlantic Ave. I turned right onto Henry Street and walked and walked. 

It was a gray, rainy February afternoon, so it was pretty convenient that there was scaffolding up all the way down Henry till President Street. It was almost perfect, the sky matched my mood. Gray, rainy, wet, and unhappy. I liked that the scaffolding protected me from getting soaked, but not as much as I liked it when I had to cross the street and the rain would hit my body hard and fast, due to the lack of scaffolding on the crosswalks. The rain cooled my heated and red face, while the scaffolding served as some type of protection from reality. It was like I knew the rain was there, but it wasn’t actually affecting me because I had something to hide under. 

I reached President Street and the scaffolding was gone. I had nothing to hide under anymore. The reality was that it was fucking pouring outside and I didn’t get accepted into my dream school and I had no idea where I was going to go or what I was going to do. 

It all seems so funny to me now, after graduating from college and heading off to graduate school, how purely depressed and lost I felt in this exact moment when I stood in the rain and just cried. And how the moment to follow changed everything about me and my future. 

I was crying on the corner of President and Henry. I went to the side of Henry where there was no scaffolding at all, plopped down on a stoop, lit a cigarette and cried. I had my hand covering the entire cigarette so that it wouldn't get soaked from the rain and go out. It was my last one. Had to make it count. 

I felt a vibration in my coat pocket. Pulled my phone out and saw that I had an incoming call, from Susan, my mom. I took a deep breath, sighed, opened my eyes real wide, and picked up. 

“Charlie,” she said, “You’ll never believe what I’m holding in my hands!” I rolled my eyes, “What is it? The fucking golden ticket? You’re going to Willy Wonka’s magical chocolate factory?” 

“Shit, someone must be PMSing. No you hormonal little shit. It’s a letter from the American University of Paris. You got accepted! They want YOU in PARIS and they offered you a scholarship. A big one at that. Where are you anyways? I wanna talk to you about this. Get home please, Char. This is so amazing I need to squeeze you till ya pop!” And she hung up. 

I was frozen for what felt like an hour but was probably a minute. Paris? Me in Paris? Me not in New York? I didn’t know what to think, or what to do. Then something so cliche happened. Something that you would only see in movies. Minutes after my mom hung up, it stopped raining. The sky was still gray but the rain had stopped. I literally heard a bird chirp. I was waiting to see the sun pop out from behind a cloud, but that would be to unreal. 

I stood up, suddenly knowing exactly how I felt. I had hope. I knew that I would be alright. Paris…I thought. Not a college campus with 10,000 unrecognizable faces, but the second best city in the world with a million brand new faces. 

I’m gonna skip the part with all the conversations, decisions, obstacles, fights and tears that came to follow me in the months after I found out about Paris. I’m gonna jump right to the part when I decided I was going. When I suddenly had no desire in my blood to be a lawyer anymore. When I was walking down Henry Street on an excruciatingly hot August morning and it was my last day in Brooklyn. I plopped down on that same stoop on Henry and President. Looked around, smiled, and started crying again. But this time it was a happy cry, a melancholy one, a bittersweet one. A cry because everything had fallen into place and a cry because I was excited and nervous and a cry because I was gonna miss this stoop and everything else about my home. 

I walked back home, with out any scaffolding. Completely aware of and present in reality. Kissed my dog, jumped on my bed, and left for the airport. I was going to Paris and I was going to write. Nothing felt more perfect than this. 

Now I’m gonna jump to when I had settled into my apartment. Settled into school. Made friends. Had a little bit of a clue as to how to navigate my new home. It had been 2 months at this point. I was loving every second and every minute that I spent in this city of love and life. Since it was still fall during my first few months in Paris and the weather was nice, I made a point to walk all over. Go to every park. See everything that was outdoors while it wasn’t too cold or too rainy. 

My apartment was walking distance to my school. I was lucky enough to only have class 3 days a week. When I wasn’t at school or doing school work, I was outside. I spent a lot of time in the Tuileries and Luxembourg Gardens. I had made my way to the canals by Reublique and to a bunch of different parks. I would walk through Le Marais and Bastille. Sunday morning were spent at the market in the Bastille and then picnicking at Le Tour Eiffel. Some days I would walk through Montmarte and up to the Sacre Coeur and stare at the city below me. Paris was everything and nothing I had expected at the same time. Completely different than New York, but equally as lovable. 

Once November approached, the warmth seemed to disappear and the cold appeared. It wasn’t dead winter yet and being outside wasn’t quite painful. It was the time of year for a hot coffee or a hot chocolate. It was time to take the metro and walk a shorter distance and find somewhere cozy to sit inside. This is when I discovered the passages of Paris. They were walkways that were covered and filled with little boutiques and shops. Like all of Paris, they were filled with history. Many of them have been around for over a hundred years. 

My favorite passages to walk through were the Passages des Panoramas and Galerie Vivienne. It wasn’t until recently that I realized why I liked these passages so much. I just arrived back in Paris and I’m starting Grad school. It’s kind of like starting college all over again. There are still so many surprises in store. I made my way back to the passages and walked through them a bit. Window shopping and people looking. I suddenly had a flashback to the day I found out I got accepted to the American University of Paris. I remembered walking under the scaffolding and escaping from reality. 

Walking through the passages on a cold, rainy day is kind of the same thing, escaping from reality I mean. You get to walk and pass by adorable little shops and see so many different people, with the feeling of walking down any of Paris’s historic streets. But, the cold and the rain aren’t hitting you. You seem to forget that its such a shitty day outside when you spend your time walking through such gorgeous walkways. 

As I walked through Galerie Vivienne, I seemed to forget that I was starting yet another new part of my life. I forgot that I was now 24 and had to get serious about everything in my life. I was that same 17 year old girl I was when I was walking down Henry Street. I was blinded and naive. But this time, it was invigorating. It was exciting and warm. I wasn’t crying at all. 

JOURNAL NO.13

I couldn’t really tell you why, but reading this Henry Miller passage reminds me of my first week in Paris. I remember that the first few days and nights I spent in my apartment, seemed to be a dream. 

I have never moved before. Well, I moved from a house in Brooklyn to an apartment in Brooklyn, but that doesn’t count. I’ve never packed up and left my home to make a new place home. 

Until I came to Paris. 

The first week in my apartment felt dreamlike. It was strange to me that this place was my home. It didn’t really register that I would be living here for months. That I would be calling this apartment home. 

Now, though, it’s hard to imagine life before this was my home. Its hard to remember what it felt like not having 31 Rue Duret as a part of me. The creeks of the floor, the sound of the heater, the way our fridge doesn’t close all the way unless you really slam it. 

When I read the article about sexual geography, a whole new perspective and view on Hemingway and other expatriates came to mind. I never really read Hemingway with the idea of sexuality in mind. Even when I read the chapter about the girl he saw in the cafe, I didn’t really think about sex. 

When he wrote that writing a story was like making love, I never really compared it to him making love to the girl he saw in the cafe. Not until I read this article, that is. 

Something else that this article opened my eyes to was in regards to Gertrude Stein. I have written this previously, but I’ve never been a huge fan of Stein. Granted, I only read parts of Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, but the parts that I did read didn’t really resonate with me on a positive note. 

That being said, when Pizer began to discuss Stein’s book and relationship to Alice Toklas, I definitely came upon a new found appreciation for her work. He was right when he said that many casual readers sometimes find her work to be egotistical. I sure thought it was. But looking at her writing as a way to show her appreciation for Toklas’ ability to give Stein confidence in her “creative powers”, makes it seem a lot less egotistical and a lot more appreciative. 

I mean, I must have been blind reading this book because how could it not come off as appreciative when rather than writing her own autobiography, she writes one in the voice of her lover. At least now I know. 

This is something I love so much about reading. I love gaining a whole new perspective on things. On life. On the world. 

I honestly spend hours just talking to my friends about what they think about this or that rather than discussing my own opinions. Obviously I spend time talking about my own, but I find it so much more interesting to hear what others have to say. 

By hearing what other people think or feel, it helps me to truly shape my own thoughts. And I don’t mean to sound unoriginal, or too caught up with what other people think. That’s not it. 

It’s just that by listening to and understanding other people’s thoughts, feelings, opinions, I am able to decipher between what I agree with and what I disagree with. What I resonate with and what doesn’t resonate with me. What I can sympathize with and what I can’t. 

The world is made up of billions of people for a reason, why push their minds aside? 

The little passage that Pizer included from a piece of Miller’s writing is another great example of this. 

I think that for most of my life I have been waiting for something to happen. I can’t put my finger on exactly what that is. But something tells me it’s love. Love to me is something that will fill a void of emptiness and loneliness. But this is just an idea. I don’t necessarily think it’s true, but it’s still something that sit inside of my stomach and doesn’t really want to go away. 

Anyways, when Miller writes, “…now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, I felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders…”, I can’t help but to yearn for this feeling. 

This feeling of relief. 

I don’t want that relief to come from realizing that there’s hopelessness in everything. That I don’t agree with. I think there’s hope in everything. There’s even hope in writing this blogpost. 

But the fact that he was able to find relief from something that had been daunting at him for his entire life is inspiring. It gives me hope that I will find relief from whatever is daunting at me. Whatever the hell it is. 

Anyways, enough of my personal banter and back to sexual geography and Henry Miller. 

Miller’s style is difficult for me. I know I understood a majority of what he was saying in “Walking Up and Down in China”, but for some reason it’s hard to completely and utterly grasp it. I can’t resonate with it. Maybe it’s because I don’t know enough about buddhism? I don’t even know if many of these ideas are in fact buddhist, but that’s what comes to mind. 

He seems so sure of what he’s writing and as if it comes to him in an instant. I like that. I like that confidence and that easiness. Its strange, though, because the writing itself isn’t what I would call, easy. 

I have yet to read any Anaïs Nin, although I just bought one of her books from Shakespeare and Co,. It’s hard for me to, again, fully grasp and understand what Pizer is talking about in his article. I mean, yeah I understand it, but I don’t feel like I can really discuss it much because I don’t attain enough knowledge on her as a writer and her history. 

I’m at a loss for how to end this blogpost. I don’t really have much more to say but I feel as though it’s missing something. Maybe because it’s 2 a.m. and it’s only Thursday. Who really knows anyway?

JOURNAL NO.12

For many authors who write about walking, Nature seems to be their go to walking route/spot. Two specific writers that discuss the beauty of Nature in retrospect to walking are Wordsworth and Thoreau. Wordsworth explains his ability to get lost in nature and find himself while Thoreau explains how nature is a key to one’s happiness/sanity. I personally am not a big fan of Nature. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the beauty of trees and plants along with open fields and birds chirping through the air. There is definitely something serene about sitting in Nature and taking everything around you in. Literally breathing in the Natural air and having a crisp feeling inside your lungs. In order for me to fully maintain some sort of happiness or sanity, though, I must take a walk down a city street. I need to be alone yet surrounded by people. Seeing a flower blossom is not nearly as rewarding or helpful to me as noticing a piece of graffiti on a familiar street for the first time. 

Walking through Nature, I feel alone. Most of the time, I am physically alone. But that aside, the quietness and peacefulness of Nature has an ability to make me feel alone in every aspect of my life. There’s something about complete and utter quietness that makes me feel uncomfortable. There’s something about perfection and cleanliness that makes me troubled. You see, I’m a city kid. I grew up in Brooklyn and have spent most of my time in either Prospect or Central Parks. These parks are dirty. They are tarnished and filled with people. Their grasses are far from perfect and their fields are filled with people. Walking through one of these parks is pretty much like walking anywhere in the city itself. You’ll find some pigeons flying around, maybe a duck if you’re lucky. There will be garbage cans filled to the top, and garbage all over the grass or little cement walkways. There will be a few homeless people asleep on benches and a few teenagers smoking weed or drinking beer. There will be cigarette butts and picnickers. You will never be alone. 

Thoreau states, “When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods; what would become of us if we walked only in a garden or a mall?”. This statement just isn’t true for me. If I need to go on a walk and do some intense thinking, I’ll hit Clinton or Henry Street — naturally. The thought of finding a field or some woods to walk through has never crossed my mind and I doubt it will. As I walk down a city street, I find comfort in the people around me. I find comfort in the sound of the cars driving down the street and comfort in the filth that makes up the sidewalk. Sometimes, if you’re in a really busy and popular area, you’ll get a whiff of garbage or body odor, and I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I like it. Well, maybe I don’t like it, but when I’m away from it for too long I begin to miss it. 

Here in Paris, a street where I have done some walking and some thinking is in Le Marais. We had to take a walk down this street for one of our blog posts, and I didn’t realize which street it was until I got there. I never knew the name of it before I did the walk for class. Anyway, for this walk, we had to keep an eye out for street art and discuss it in our posts. This assignment brought me a lot of inspiration and a lot of knowledge. It was here that I rediscovered the beauty of taking a walk down a busy street. It was here that I became inspired to write once again. And it was here that I did my best thinking since my arrival in Paris. 

Rue Vieille du Temple was no Clinton Street, that’s for sure. It is kind of a mix between Clinton and Mercer Street. Parts of Rue Vieille du Temple are emptier than others, and parts are more aesthetically pleasing than others. I have always said that Le Marais is the Soho of Paris, so Mercer street is a great comparison. Before taking the walk down this street for my assignment, I had never really paid attention to or noticed any street art. While I was looking for it, however, I found numerous pieces on each block. Not all equivalent with beauty but, in my opinion, equivalent in importance. What I realized as I saw more and more graffiti is that there have been so many people that have walked down this street and marked it with their art. And, there have been even more people that have walked down this street and have not noticed the art that it has. I was one of those people…I hadn’t noticed a majority of this artwork until I was actually looking for it. 

These discoveries brought me to think about invisibility. The invisibility of the history of the people who have walked down a street before you. The invisibility of art and the invisibility of things in general. I like how when there’s cement, or some surface that you can write or draw on, you can mark your territory. You can mark it any way that you like so that everyone and anyone knows that you were there. But they don't know exactly who you are. They don't know your name or anything about you. They just know that someone walked the same route that they are walking and drew something to show it. I know that if you’re walking through Nature and you see a tree, you can carve your initials into it or something and mark your territory. But with carving something into a tree, it’s much harder to notice. I mean, if it’s hard for someone to notice graffiti in bright yellow spray paint on a dark blue door, how can someone discover a small carving in the trunk of a tree? 

There’s a huge difference between people who need nature for sanity and those who don’t. A few of my friends find the need to get out of the city for a while because it seems to become too much for them. I have never felt this way. Except for when I decided to come to Paris, that is. But that wasn’t because I needed a break from a city in general…just a break from my own particular one. I needed to experience something new and unfamiliar for a while. And I guess I could have decided to experience something new and unfamiliar like Nature if I really wanted to, but that would have driven me crazy. Unlike Thoreau who needed to take a walk through Nature to get away from society and find his sanity, I need to be surrounded by society and remember who I am. Remember my contribution to the group and my own value. 

I’m an invisible person and an invisible walker to the thousands of people who have walked before me and will walk after me. In Paris and in New York. But I, the invisible walker, and everyone else, the invisible walkers, have something in common. If you can’t guess what it is…it’s invisibility. We don’t know anything about each other and we don’t know if we would be friends or not. But thats what I like.

Walking through a city, you know people have walked the same exact route that you’re taking. Walking through Nature, you have no clue if anyone as even seen the same things that you’re seeing. The presence of others is uncertain. If you can’t be certain about their presence, you can’t feel their invisibility. 

JOURNAL NO.11

The unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is one that is biased and concerned with him/herself. One that doesn't include or consider any perspective other than their own. An unreliable narrator cannot be trusted. They are ignorant, they are liars and they are selfish.
John, the narrator of the passage we had to read for this blogpost, is most obviously unreliable. The story he is telling is that of an unfaithful and manipulative wife. If I were to narrate a story about my unfaithful and manipulative husband, I can guarantee that I would be unreliable, or biased, too.
Since we're only reading about John's perspective on this subject, I can empathize with him considerably. Although his tone comes off as quite arrogant and bitter, I can understand his anger and frustration.
Who wouldn't be angry at a spouse who was controlling and constantly cheating? Who wouldn't be bitter after knowing their loved one cheated on them multiple times and didn't seem to care at all?
Since we only get a look into how John, the narrator, feels/thinks about all of this, we automatically sympathize with him.
I find something kind of comforting in truly understanding one person's thoughts and feelings, however, this passage causes me to want something more. I want to hear about Florence's thoughts. I want to her about Jimmy and Edward, and if they agreed with John about her cold heart.
The unreliable narrator causes a story to be one-sided and extremely simple. I don't have any problems with John as a narrator or a character, I just don't like the role of the unreliable narrator here.
I don't think that John comes off as mentally unstable in any way. It seems as though he is just an angry man that has dealt with a lot of bullshit. I mean, granted, when he says he would have given Florence and Edward money and allowed them to be together, he didn't seem to sane. But generally speaking, he seemed like a guy who was caught up with a girl and did his best to marry her. He then realized that she isn't someone who he should be married to. She isn't someone who should be married at all.
I don't know if I'm a good person to have discuss the difference between American and British mannerisms because my father is British. My aunt and uncle are British. At least 20 of my cousins are, too. I know them all extremely well and their mannerisms don't seem much different to me.
However, to get stereotypical, I really can picture John's voice in a British accent. His sarcastic and bitter tone almost fits the sound of that accent.
It is interesting, though, how he talks about Florence's aunts and her family's desires for her. He seems to find them strange and he doesn't understand. This is a good example of a difference in British and American culture, not so much mannerisms.
I don't really feel like anything in this passage relates to Paris as a city. The Ford Maddox Ford passage I had to read did, though.
Ford's personification of Paris makes me feel warm. I feel his love for the city and I think I can relate to that love deeply.
I wish I knew where the square is that he talks about in the very beginning of the passage. Personifying the city brings the city alive, as redundant as that sounds. She [Paris] is the city filled with cafes and cigarettes and artists and politicians and writers alike speak at different volumes. She is the city who has endured many invasions.
In my opinion, Ford Maddox Ford's "A Paris Letter" doesn't seem to have an unreliable narrator. It seems to have a very reliable one, actually. The narrator doesn't seem to be only concerned with himself. It's quite the opposite, in fact. The narrator seems to include all different information and descriptions that are open to interpretation. They don't emphasize one feeling or thought. It's all over the place.

JOURNAL NO.10

My walk through Park Monceau was a pleasant one. A sunny and warm Sunday afternoon, I dragged my roommate out of the house to walk with me.

We took the metro and got off right in front of the entrance of the park. 

Reminiscing on this specific walk I took with Ali, the strongest feeling I remember is cheerfulness. As we strolled through the cement of the park, sometimes stepping on the damp grass very briefly, I felt happy and present in the moment. 

It wasn't a very pensive walk. It was more of a nice, fun thing to do. Something that made us 100x happier to be here in Paris and be together. 

This walk made me think about history. The history of the different statues that are placed throughout the grounds. Why are they there? Who created them? What's their meaning? I don't really know the answers to any of these questions.

But I then start to think about the people who have walked through this park in the past. The people who walked through this park the day before I did, or 80 years before I did. This brought me back to my idea of invisibility of street art and invisibility of common walkers.

The people who have walked through Parc Monceau before I have, are invisible to me. They're invisible to the rest of the world, now. 

There were some people who walked through this park alone, trying to figure out why their hearts were hanging so low in their chests. There were some people who walked through this park trying to figure out how their hearts could beat so fast and feel so good. There were people who walked through this park that just walked and looked around. Some who didn't even look at all. 

I think taking a walk isn't something you can really define or something you can explain how to do. Everyone walks throughout their lives. Sometimes, a walk could be life changing or eye opening. Sometimes a walk could be just a plain old walk. Sometimes they can be dreadful. 

It's hard for me to say whether or not someone knows how to walk, or if they're good at it. And I don't mean literally how to place one foot in front of the other, but figuratively about the thinking or pondering they do whilst walking.

I don't think we always need to have a specific outcome in mind while we're walking. Sometimes it's nice to talk a walk and take in the fresh air. Sometimes it sucks to take a walk because your feet hurt and your legs are tired and you're running late for something important. Sometimes its nice to walk around with your best friend and forget about your surroundings while simultaneously discussing everything you see. 

That's how Ali and I walked through Parc Monceau. We made a point to look at each statue we saw and we even noticed a strange area with different trees and mosses that didn't seem to belong or didn't seem quite natural.

We noticed the horses walk past us. We noticed the old men sitting on the bench talking and throwing bread at the pigeons. But we forgot to notice the birds. We forgot to notice the sky and each tree. We forgot, for that walk, that we were in Paris. Instead we were just in the park. Taking photos of statues. Making fun of the people we see. Reminiscing on our childhoods and wishing to be 4 years old again.

I was told to meditate on walking for this blog post. For me, walking is so many different things. I go on walks that consist of tears and pain and sadness. I go on walks that consist of joy and laughter and thirst. 

There are all different types of walks one can go on. There are all different types of walkers. Everyday, we change the type of walker we are. Sometimes more than once in a day. 

Walking is something we all do. It can help us learn and it can help us grow. It can just be a pleasurable activity. It can be a necessity. 

I'd hate to give it one definition or one type of person who meets the criteria. Who walks correctly.

A walk is a walk is a walk is a walk is a walk....

JOURNAL NO.9

“…I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be…” Hemingway, 62. 

The Lost Generation. A generation of American artists and writers who made their way to Paris during the Roaring 20s. 

The Lost Generation. A generation of American artists and writers who made their way to Paris during the early 2000s. 

There’s definitely some sot of symmetry between these two lines. Not only because the only different words are those that describe the time that these Americans made their way to Paris. There’s symmetry between them because they’re both true…well, for the most part. 

I may not be the best person to write about this because I get defensive of my own generation and of any generation that is criticized by anyone who is not apart of it. You see, I can’t really tell if calling authors such as Hemingway and Beach members of the “Lost Generation” is an insult or a compliment. Or maybe, it’s a mere fact. 

That being said, when Gertrude Stien first tells Hemingway that he is a part of, “a génération perdue”, it seems like a bad thing. She tells him that those a part of this generation don’t have respect for anything and they drink themselves to death. 

In my opinion, you can find people like in any generation and at various ages. It’s not just one particular group of people. And, if you really think about it, Hemingway and his colleagues had an extreme respect for the arts in many aspects of the world — but many for literature. They read as much as they could and wrote as much as they could. And, to be as real as possible, what generation doesn’t have a phase in which many people would and come close to drinking themselves to death. 

As the article we had to read for this blog post stated, at the time that Hemingway and others were fighting in WWI, the amount of youth/teenager was very small compared to those older than them. Since their weren’t as many people in the generation, they’re considered “Lost”. 

I think this is all a bunch of bullshit. 

To put a singular name to a whole generation of people is not only wrong but it’s impossible. There are so many different brains and types of people and personalities that make up a generation. The people within a generation have lived vastly different lives and have grown into vastly different people when compared to one another. 

I honestly don’t know enough about the Lost Generation of the 1920s, so I feel as though I shouldn’t say much more on the subject. However, I know a lot about my generation. And I have no problem saying anything and everything I want to on the subject. 

I personally don’t think my generation is lost in any way. My generation is actually extremely lucky and I think guided. You see, we were born in the late 1990s. Before everyone had a cell phone, laptop, ipad, kindle, tablet, 8 flat screen TVs and a netflix/hulu/hbogo account. We still had ficsher price toys and leap frogs. We played with barbies and action figures. We used yugi-o cards and pokemon cards on a daily basis. We barely knew how to work any technology at all. 

We had the opportunity to watch as technology developed at an extremely fast rate and have been able to learn all about it as we have gotten older. My generation is fortunate enough to mix the old with the new. 

I think it’s safe to say that kids between the age of 12 and 22 (more or less) are lost. This 10 year span of change and growth and trying to figure life out is made for one to get lost in. My generation still falls into this “lost” period of time — but that doesn’t make us completely lost for the rest of our lives. 

Everyone I know that’s around my age has some sort of talent or hobby or thing they love to do and are good at it. We’re all creative in every and any sense of the word and do our best to put ourselves out there and make a difference. From participating in the recent protests in NYC regarding Ferguson and Eric Gardner to creating a clothing line that allows people to become free and express themselves. From convincing others, older and younger, to believe in themselves no matter what to working hard to put an end to the negative connotation attached to the words, retarded and faggot. Photographing in the nude and photographing things that are questioned by our elders and considered wrong. Fighting for feminism and women to get the same privileges as men. Creating music that will allow someone to get lost, to lose themselves and just feel the sounds. 

Everything I’ve listed are things that my friends and I have worked for, are working for. In my opinion, none of this sounds like a generation that is lost. It sounds like a generation that is determined to stand out and make a difference. A generation that wants to better our society and better the people in it. 

I agree with the Hemingway quote I included at the very beginning of this post. Every generation has a period in time in which they are lost and unsure of what to do or where to go next. Thats a part of life…being confused and being lost. And this period of time doesn’t have to be between the ages of 12 and 22, it may happen at age 30 or during one’s “mid-life crisis”. 

There’s no doubt in my mind that Hemingway and those apart of his generation went through a time in which they were lost and confused. Same with each generation that came before and after his. Just like every generation that will follow mine. 

Fuck the labels and fuck the judgments that older people want to make on younger people. We all know they’re just jealous that they aren’t in their youth anymore. ;) 

JOURNAL NO.8

It’s strange to me that walking was once considered only something the poor did. It makes sense that due to financial reasons one could not pay to have a driver, or I guess in the 1700s a horse and carriage. But for my whole life and for the generation before mine, walking has always seemed like something nice to do. 

Its true that at times I and probably everyone else get lazy and don’t want to walk. I think we all have one specific walking route that we dread everyday. For me, I always dread walking from my house in Brooklyn to the subway because it’s an uphill climb. Its especially worse when it’s early in the morning and cold out, or when you’re extremely hungover. Walking through Times Square is always the worst. Every avenue or street in the 4 block radius of Times Square is constantly packed with people. Even worse than people; tourists. 

For this class, I have began to approach the idea of walking differently. I have always liked to walk. I do some of my best thinking while I’m walking. But the thinking was always only done or thought about during the walk. I never really took the time to reflect on the thoughts that went through my head on a walk. I would just walk down one of my two favorite streets, think, figure out whatever issue I was trying to figure out, smoke a few cigarettes, go home and have some tea.  

Growing up in New York City, I haven’t had many opportunities to take a nice, long walk through nature. Yes, there are parks and such in the city, but I honestly have barely gone to any park alone to just walk and think. 

Back when I lived in Park Slope, I would make my way up to Prospect Park a couple times a week, but majority of the time I was with company. 

Central Park is a place that I’ve never gone to on my own for the sole purpose of thinking. Looking back at it, I don’t think I have ever gone to Central Park on my own. 

I know that for many people, nature is a place for solitude and happiness. Being the city kid that I am, I find solitude and happiness in 3 specific places. 

First and foremost, the promenade in Brooklyn Heights. I walk down Remsen street and hit a dead end that leads to a pathway onto the promenade. I usually walk a few feet down and find a pleasantly empty bench, and I sit. Sometimes I sit and just look at the almost unfathomable skyline directly ahead of me. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I draw. It was here that I first realized I was in love. It was here that I first realized how silly it is to feel lonely. It was here that I first felt unloved. 

The two other places I go are two streets parallel to each other; Henry Street and Clinton Street in Carroll Gardens. Typically, I would walk down Henry towards Red Hook. When there’s nobody on the street, I have found myself talking out loud. My thoughts become vocalized and they begin to make more sense. I don’t have any particular realizations or moments of clarity that stick out in my head when thinking about the many walks I’ve taken down this street. I mostly use this walk to figure out something thats been going on in my head. Once I hit 2nd or 3rd Place, I make a left and head over to Clinton street to walk back home. 

Clinton street is different. As I walk down Clinton I experience a myriad of emotion. I become nostalgic and think of the many times I walked down this street with the many important people in my life. I think of the times I’ve walked down it alone, feeling either extremely happy or extremely depressed. It reminds me of my childhood and going to the dentist. I remember going down Kane street on 9/11 with my friend Nicholas and his mother after we were dismissed early from school. I remember finding one of my dearest friends blackout drunk laying under a mailbox crying and hitting himself in the head saying he doesn’t deserve to live. I remember getting him up, holding him and convincing him to walk home with me. 

The promenade and these streets are nature for me as nature is for others. They make me feel warm inside and many times make me want to cry. A lot of the time I don’t really know why I want to cry in these places. There’s just so much that come with them. 

I guess you could say that the promenade, Henry and Clinton Streets are my nature; an artificial nature. 

My natures, however, are extremely different than the nature I encountered at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Getting off of the 7bis line at Buttes Chaumont, the seemingly endless stairs were somewhat comforting. They were a challenge and the naive part of my brain thought, hey maybe these steps will help burn off all the baguettes!

I made it up the stairs, barley, and completely out of breath. I made it to the park and stood at the entrance for a few moments. The mere act of standing in a park made me miss home. Everything in there seemed so peaceful and calm, it was almost eery. I felt like crying. 

My phone died about 3 minutes after I made it to the park and I didn’t get a chance to take photos. Looking back on my walk, it seems to be a blur. My stream of thought during this walk was a depressing one. It was drizzling and gray out. I had my ipod plugged in and was listening to my good old friend Taylor Swift. 

The grass didn’t bring me peace but brought me nostalgia. Theres something so comforting about grass that isn’t entirely green and displays the various different shoes that have walked across it. I missed Prospect Park and it’s dirty, uneven, imperfectly green grass. 

I saw different types of people doing different things. But the park wasn’t packed. In fact, it seemed closer to empty than full. I felt alone walking through this unfamiliar place that did nothing but make me think of familiar places. 

I came across a few dividing paths and thought about Robert Frost which brought me back to my 7th grade English class with Hope, my teacher. I remembered how being forced to read something made it 8 times worse. 

I noticed trees and small plants/flowers. Trees usually have this ability to make me happy. When I look at a tree I can’t help but smile at it, most of the time that is. The trees in the park didn’t make me happy. Honestly, nothing in this park made me happy. 

I didn’t want to be walking through nature on my own on this cloudy day. I wanted to walk down a street with a bunch of people passing by me giving me a weird face for talking to myself. In the park, there was barely anyone. There was nobody there to give me a look. 

I walked across the bridge and finally felt warm. Looking down at the water reminded me of the lake in Prospect Park across the street from Mike’s deli. I remembered sitting on the benches with my friends when we were in either 8th or 9th grade, drinking four loko and playing truth or dare. 

The birds that floated atop the water made me feel like floating. I realized I sort of was…floating, I mean. Standing on this bridge that was also atop the water. I was floating in the most human way possible. 

That’s all I really remember about this walk. Feeling alone and feeling like crying. Missing the comfort of people. Missing the comfort of being judged and not giving a shit about it. Floating. 

I guess it was nice to have a stroll through nature. Though this park has lots of artificial aspects, I didn’t even realize nor necessarily care. Artificial or not, it was still nature to me. 

But nature isn’t my place. Nature doesn’t bring me solitude or happiness. Nature makes me feel alone and makes me miss things. It’s pretty weird, I know. But it is what it is. 

JOURNAL NO.7

The character focused on in this excerpt from Dos Passos’ novel, Three Soldiers, is one of the most realistic characters I have read about in a long time. Andrews, an American soldier during World War I, is doing his best to cope with the war and be optimistic about it’s end. 

Dos Passos’ language is impeccably detailed and descriptive. From the way he describes the eyes of a boy in a restaurant to the way the mist moves throughout the night, I constantly have a picture in my mind of what’s going on. A beautifully and carefully crafted painting that could be mistaken for a photograph. 

Andrews, to me, seems to be an extremely relatable guy. I mean, I couldn’t necessarily relate to anyone who took part in the first World War, but if I could, it would be to Andrews. 

His emotions are complicated yet simple — who wouldn't feel the way he does? But, let’s wait a second, what are his emotions any way? 

In my personal opinion, Andrews seems like your typical lost soldier. I don’t mean physically lost but mentally. It’s clear that he dreads the war and everything about it. The way that Dos Passos goes about showing the hate Andrews has for the war is one of my favorite parts of this excerpt. 

It’s when Andrews first gets off the train that took him from Paris back to his faction of the army. Dos Passos compares the feeling of having reluctant feet to continue on his way to the base to Andrews’ reluctant feet when he was going back to boarding school as a kid. 

This comparison was the first thing that made me feel as though I could relate to Andrews. Although I’ve never gone to boarding school or had to fight in an army, I have experienced the feeling of reluctance towards the simple act of placing one foot after the other to go somewhere. I think the one place that I experience this feeling the most is when I’m making my way to the airport. It sounds a little silly, but whenever I have to leave somewhere, actually get on a plane and go to a far away place, I feel resistant. When I’m leaving home to go somewhere else, I have a feeling of not wanting to be away from home. When I’m leaving a place that I had been visiting, I have a feeling of not wanting to go back home. 

Although my reluctance and Andrews’ reluctance are completely different, I know I can relate to the feeling of having a hard time taking a few steps just to get somewhere. 

By drawing this line of comparison, to walking to one’s school building and walking to one’s army division site, a huge sense of reality comes over the reader. These are two very human and relatable feelings to have. I think it’s safe to say that everyone at one point or another has had a difficult time physically walking somewhere they don’t necessarily want to be. 

By making his character relatable, Dos Passos is successful in depicting reality rather than a summary. 

It’s realistic for one to feel reluctance. It’s realistic for one to compare a current feeling to one they had in the past. 

As Dos Passos continues, he explains that Andrews was going back and forth in his mind, trying to find some optimism or hope in the seemingly depressing time he was facing. By describing everything Andrews was telling himself and thinking, the reader gets a sense that Andrews his a real person. That he has real feelings and real thoughts. Questioning his sanity is something that I think almost everyone has done at least once in their lives. 

The other aspect of Dos Passos’ writing that makes his work seem like reality is his descriptions of physical settings. He writes, 

The fog swirled about him, hiding wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet his hands, eyes ready to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the mist, to be crushed under his lips. "From the girl at the singing under her street- lamp..." 

And he walked on alone through the drifting fog. (7)

I read over this quote a number of times, and each time I had the same exact picture in my mind. I see the figure of a man walking through the fog, as it molds with his movements. I can almost feel his yearn for someone to be next to him or with him. I can almost feel the cold against my lips as they become dry and chapped. 

To me, this is magical. It’s magical that one can get such a true and realistic thought or photo in their imagination through the use of just a few words. This ability to make fictional words become real is magical. 

This description makes the work seem like reality. 

JOURNAL NO.6

I haven’t realized how inspiring walking is until I did this walk through Le Marais. My dad was visiting me this past weekend and yesterday was his last day. I decided to take him along the walk with me and one of my roommates, Emily. 

This was the first walk that I actually followed the directions for exactly. Although I enjoy walking without a destination in my mind, there was something pleasing about having directions to follow. 

We got off the metro and immediately saw a Space Invader piece above an electric sign. Emily and I each snapped a photo and continued on. My dad was asking us, “What the hell is a Space Invader?” and we had to explain. 

As we continued to walk down Rue Vieille du Temple, we cam across different forms of graffiti or street art on each block. 

From some plain and not necessarily aesthetically pleasing tags and stickers, to beautifully crafted murals and paintings, I learned the story of this street. 

It’s funny, I think, how hundreds of people walk down this street on a daily basis and only some of them notice the art that’s surrounding them. Street art is very unspoken. It’s very silent — almost invisible. It’s only there for those who are looking for it. I know this for a fact because I have walked down this exact street three times since I arrived in Paris, and didn’t notice half of the art until I was actually searching for it. 

That’s what inspired me to write. The invisibility of such obvious things. How you can walk down the same street and not notice something until months later. 

This reminded me of an epiphany I had back in New York about a year ago. 

Growing up in NYC, I have walked through Union Square more times than I can even imagine. From drinking four lokos there when I was a freshman in high school, to waiting to meet up with someone, to walking through it to get back to my dorm, I’ve been there thousands of times. In October 2014, I was walking through Union in front of the steps that are across the street from Whole Foods. I couldn’t tell you why, but for the first time ever I looked up. I looked up and towards the left a little bit and noticed something for the first time. The “W” sign atop the W Hotel. 

I realized that I had done this exact walk countless times in my life and never once looked up to see this sign. Or maybe I’ve seen it but haven’t consciously processed it…Who knows. 

I find it hard to believe that there is so much we see, hear, or know on a subconscious level. It’s crazy that one small act or realization can bring this knowledge to our consciousness. 

I have a strong feeling that I have seen a lot of the artwork on this street in Le Marais on a subconscious level — how could I not have, after all? 

It wasn’t until I was consciously looking out for as much street art as possible that I was able to process this information, consciously. 

Our walk continued down the street and we came across more and more Space Invader work. More seemingly insignificant tags. The phrase, “Je Suis Charlie”, seemed to be everywhere in every shape and form. There were stickers and murals and everything alike. Artwork on doors and walls, high and low, some even on the floor. 

My dad pointed out a drawing or painting in white marker on the sidewalk of a man’s face and we all admired it and found it funny. Emily and I looked up from the floor just to see our good friend, Sintra, approaching us cigarette in hand. 

Luna and I keep talking about how New York moments keep happening here in Paris. We keep running into people we know at random times when we least expect it. Emily and I seeing Sintra made sense because she too was doing her walk for this blog post, but it was almost surreal. I felt the world shrink under my feet because I realized just how small it really is. 

Anyway, the three of us chatted for a few minutes and Sintra told us about an alley way she found that was filled with grafitti and stickers alike. I asked if she wanted to join us on our walk, but she had come from the opposite direction and wanted to see what was ahead. So, Emily, my dad and I continued towards the Siene. 

Just a few steps down from where we ran into Sintra, Emily and I found the alleyway she was talking about. 

I walked down the little street and found so many beautiful pieces of art. This was the one place that has inspired me the most in the past month. 

I first noticed two women higher up on the wall that appeared to be dancing. They were covered with glitter. Below them was the remnants of something that was torn off. Under this tarnished piece of the wall was a closer-up image of a woman’s face. It;s in black and white and there’s a shadow over the right side of her face. 

Directly across from these images is a sticker saying, “JUST DO ART”, next to the figure of  a man. The man has a white hat on with what looks like aviator glasses sitting on it. His hands are holding the strings that come down from the sides of his hat. His face is covered in shadows but his eyes are very clear and seem to be staring right at you. I feel like it’s him that is telling me to JUST DO ART. 

Next to this man is another depiction of a woman’s face. This was is bigger than the one across from the man. There are less shadows and the coloring is lighter. She’s very beautiful and seems to be staring right at me. Underneath her is a smaller image of a woman. This woman is pregnant and naked, with a pink shirt or blanket covering her breasts. Her legs are spread open and she comes off very sexually. Next to her is a small name tag saying, Zalez. 

Further down the alley, I saw another sign saying “Zalez Was Here”, in-between a woman’s head and her legs. 

I walked closer towards the end of the alley to find more graffiti, but there was mostly just stickers and writing with spray paint. 

We left the alley and walked all the way down to the Siene. We then made our way to the Notre-Dame and then went home. 

When I got to my apartment, I was intrigued by this street artist, Zalez. I searched him up and found his website and all of his other work — drawings, paintings, photographs and more. He is a French street artist and his exhibition just ended about a week ago. 

This got me thinking. I find it crazy that there are so many different pieces of art in this one alley that were put up by countless artists. Nobody else put their names next to their work, so there’s no way to find anything else they’ve done. 

It’s kind of like me and my roommates. The four of us live in this apartment that has been occupied by other people in the past. The different flaws in our apartment are a cause of their actions, but we don’t know their names or anything about them — we never will. 

If only there was a way to look up, or allow our consciousness to process any information about these people. They are as invisible as the artwork was to me before I went looking for it. 

That’s what inspired me to write this The invisibility of history, of people, of art, and of things. 

JOURNAL NO.5

My faculty advisor at Eugene Lang, Niel Gordon, was also a professor of mine last semester. Niel taught my intro to J.D. Salinger course. His class reminded me of everything I love and hate about literature and it’s criticism. 

The biggest point that I have taken from Niel’s class is that an author’s life isn’t what’s important. What’s important or valuable about an author is his/her’s work. What they have written and published and put out there for the world to read. 

After completing the necessary reading for this blog post, I realized how strongly I agree with Niel’s statement. Reading so much about Hemingway and his letters to his family and wife, Hadley, i can’t help but to become extremely angry. I frankly don’t care about any of that. It honestly shocks me deeply that there are numerous biographies written about Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson. It baffles me that so many of Hemingway’s personal letters have been published for all of the world to see. 

Now, I of course don’t know if Hemingway was okay with this and/or decided to publish these letters on his own. If so, everything that I’m writing right now can be considered completely wrong. That being said, I’m going to continue this with all of the knowledge that I do have, which is that someone other than Hemingway found thousands letters he wrote and decided to publish some fraction of them. 

It’s true, though, that in A Moveable Feast, Hemingway seems to have appreciation and respect for Hadley. Based off of what I read in “New Readings of American Expats in Paris”, it’s clear that Hemingway didn’t necessarily treat Hadley that well. From writing letters to her best friend expressing how much he misses her to shacking up with another one of Hadley’s friends and eventually marrying her, I can see that he could have treated her better. 

It’s interesting, though, to compare how Hemingway treated Hadley to the way in which Joyce treated Sylvia Beach. In one of the letters included in “Joyce and Sylvia Beach”, I see Joyce’s affection and appreciation for Sylvia — but it’s a very on the surface appreciation. Almost as if he is only appreciating her and everything she does for him because he feels as though he has to. This point is proven later on in the article when a letter that Sylvia wrote to Joyce is included. This letter was never actually sent to Joyce, but you can see that she isn’t necessarily happy with the way things are going with Joyce and the way that he almost takes advantage of her kindness. 

Hemingway’s portrait of Sylvia in A Moveable Feast, is that of utmost respect and appreciation in my opinion. Sylvia seems as though she is nothing but a sweet and endearing person. And it’s clear that Hemingway doesn’t think any less of her than this. 

Sylvia’s letters don’t seem to dispute this portrayal of her, either. It’s hard to get a sense of if she’s a bad or good person based off her recollection of her time during the war in Paris and when she was forced to go into hiding and remove all the books from Shakespeare and Company. The only sense of her personality that I can gather is that she was extremely passionate about reading and getting others to read more. She wanted to help her dear friends with their writing and personal lives. 

It honestly seems like Hemingway’s depiction of her was nothing but true and accurate. 

All of this, however, brings me back to wondering why so many people are so dedicated to understanding the personal lives and personalities of famous writers. 

The best way that we can learn from a writer is to read his/her work and try our best to understand it. Our understanding of it may be completely different from what they intended or from what someone else’s understanding is — but that’s the point. 

An author writes a fictional piece for a reason, they want people to read it and take it in however they can or will. Spending our time figuring out what type of person they are/were and figuring out how they treated their loved ones doesn’t do anything but change the way we can view their writing, possibly in a negative way. 

I chose to listen to Niel Gordon and disregard information about my favorite writers’ personal lives and purely focus on their writing as  source of knowledge. But that’s just me. 

JOURNAL NO.4

It was a crisp and windy Saturday morning. There were two things on my agenda: one, going to western union to pick up some cash, and two, making my way to Montparnasse so I could write this blog post. 

Just two nights earlier, I went through the traumatizing event of having my wallet get stolen —for the first time ever. My navigo pass, debit card, fake ID, 60 euros and various random little cards were gone forever, and I didn't know how to react. Not only were the things inside my wallet gone, my bright red, Kate Spade patent leather wallet was, too. 

My wonderful roommates helped me out and bought me some food for Friday until I was able to get a hold of my own money. Getting myself to the Western Union was not only tedious but difficult because of the brisk air. I finally got my hands on 230 euros and started my journey to Montparnasse. 

My metro ride was extremely stressful. I had 230 euros in my bag along with my passport, and I was probably the most paranoid I have ever been. Each time my eyes met someone else’s i was convinced they were gonna snatch my bag and take everything in it. I successfully made it to Montparnasse - Bienvenüe without losing a single item. 

As I stepped outside, the air seemed to be a bit warmer, but something tells me it was just my imagination. At first glance, I saw the Tour Montparnasse. The building is extremely tall, probably the tallest building I have seen so far in Paris. It’s architecture reminded me of home, of New York City. A single, tall, glass building that didn’t necessarily fit in with anything else here. 

With a sense of familiarity, I went to Starbucks and got a dirty chai latte and continued on my walk. 

Although there were directions given to us for this walk, I really wanted to check out the Catacombs while I was in Montparnasse. I didn’t know much about the ruins, but I had heard about them in passing and they intrigued me deeply. 

I made my way to the entrance of the Catacombs and found out it was only 10 euros, so I bought my ticket and made my way down. 

As I descended down the 100 steps to reach the site of skeletons and prayer, I could feel how haunted everything was. 

There were skulls embedded in the walls staring at me as I walked through them. As I continued walking through, I came across a cylindrical figure in the center of one room which consisted of bones and skulls facing different directions. 

I have never been in such a depressing yet warm place ever in my life. I feel as though I can see people hiding out from the government and practicing Christianity in secret. 

Thinking back on my experience in the Catacombs, I wonder what I would have been like if I lived in that time in Paris. If I was a practicing Christian that couldn’t honor their religion freely and in public, would I have come here? It’s a bittersweet feeling — because either I would have been proud to have found somewhere sacred where I could be the person that I wanted to be, or I would feel discriminated against because of my beliefs and as if I was betraying my people and my government. 

The thoughts of prayer aside, I start to think about the people buried here. The reason why there are skulls and bones of human beings stacked upon one another in such a sacred and hidden place. All the disease and hardship that took over Paris so many years ago must have been not only terrifying but extremely saddening. I imagine myself having a family member who got terribly sick and was buried in a cemetery, yet had to have been moved from their burial ground to somewhere deep and hidden because their body was spreading germs through the soil. 

My whole experience at the Catacombs just reminded me of how lucky we are today to be able to practice our religions freely and to have our loved ones buried at peace in one place without being moved. 

Not only am I personally extremely lucky to be here in Paris on my own at such a young age, but I feel like everyone living in this day in age is lucky to have all the advantages that we have. We have so many medicines that protect us from extremely harmful diseases and we have the ability to be who we want to be without being penalized for it — at least most of the time.