Paris Is A Moveable Feast

”If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Ernest Hemingway

The experiences we have and the people we get to know along the way do become a part of who we are.  In Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Ulysses, he has Ulysses say, “I am a part of all that I have met.”  That is true for me.  From my mother to whom I was attached, to the Black man who serviced our car at the filling station, to my grandfather and my 5th grade teacher, each has left his or her imprint on me.  Experiences do the same.  I was born in Boston and lived there until age one, and that is a part of me.  So was the year I spent at ages 23 and 24 in France.

Those of you who are adventures at heart, read Hemingway’s short book, A Moveable Feast.  He discovered in Paris as a very young man that he liked to write.  He was impacted by Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, James Joyce and other writers who hung out in Parisian cafes in the 1920’s.  The “feast” he experienced in Paris never left him, and my “year abroad” has not left me some 50+ years later. Here are journal memories I made back then:

Tuesday, August 17, 1965 - Journal - Somewhere in the Atlantic aboard the M.S. Aurelia

The dark, deep blue of the Atlantic for days has stretched out from us in all directions and yet constancy has not diminished its beauty and enchantment. This morning we see fishing boats in all directions, this afternoon we will haul baggage and in the morning we will see the Statue of Liberty. The spell is broken. An incomparable year is drawing to a close.

Paris is my favorite single spot in Europe. …. Fondue and rabbit stew are my favorite new dishes. … The “deux chevaux” and the month’s vacation are my favorite French institutions.  [deux chevaux = a cheap two-horsepower car; month’s vacation = all of France took the month of August off as vacation]

And did France truly leave its imprint on me?  Oh, yes.  Check what I wrote in my journal as I summed up that which would carry me forward as one reborn:

I should also like to fall in love. I lead such a fun life but I am sure these pleasures would be amplified if they could be shared. I should like to meet a beautiful, intelligent, and unselfish girl.

Five years later, in 1969, at age 29, I met and fell in love with JoElyn.  I was semi-patient; God was humongously good!