Icancelled
her first trip - my daughter was six weeks old and somehow I'd agreed
to go on a vacation with another family to an island off the coast of
Michigan. It meant a flight to Chicago and then a smaller plane to the
middle of nowhere. A few days before we were supposed to leave I looked
at my infant and asked: is your first trip supposed to be to Michigan?
She said nothing. Paris, I thought - city of light, city of Madeline
and Babar, and the childhood home of my beloved grandfather. How soon
could we go? We went in August, the empty season in Paris; she was five
months old.
Boarding the plane, other passengers glared at us -
we'd become the people others loathe, the ones travelling in business
class with a baby. What they didn't know was that Juliet was a born
traveller, literally; having accompanied me on a book tour in utero,
she formed her hands, feet, eyes somewhere between New York, Los
Angeles, Portland and Seattle while I was promoting my collection of
stories, Things You Should Know. Exhausted after a dayof travel,
interviews and a reading, I spent my nights in hotel rooms in strange
cities talking to my belly about my hopes and dreams for her. It seems
to have worked. She flew brilliantly.
As
the plane landed, the stewardess brought me a bottle of wine. "We've
never seen such a good baby," she declared as though her good behaviour
was something I could claim responsibility for. From the moment we got
to Paris, my daughter knew we were somewhere different. We spent hours
walking the city, the little one strapped in her BabyBjörn carrier, her
whole body taking in the sounds, smells, voices, the glittery glow of
Paris.
The city was half-deserted in a fantastic kind of way - it
was ours alone. There was a freedom to the lack of traffic, the
wide-open streets. Restaurants and shops were closed but it didn't
matter; this trip wasn't about revising our personal Michelin guides.
For
now, Paris was still on our terms. We took the child where we wanted to
go, introduced her to her French cousins, visited her great-
grandfather's home on rue du Temple. A street musician played the
violinfor her and she seemed to dance inher carrier. We rubbed a taste
ofred wine on her lips and whispered "sleep well". Toothlessly, she
gnawed her first baguette.
Instead of shopping for myself, I
became fixated on finding beautiful and unusual French clothing for
her. At Galeries Lafayette, the Parisian department store, I had my
head buried in the children's sale rack and heard a recognisable voice
speaking to my daughter. I looked up to see Jodie Foster chatting with
my child.
From the time of Juliet's conception, it had been my
hope to raise a child who would be a citizen not just ofNew York but of
the world. Eighteen months later we returned to Paris and she was both
mobile and verbal.
As much as I was introducing her to my world,
she was determined that I become engaged in hers. The days of lingering
in museums and late-night dinners were over for now. Once children can
walk, they need to run - they need parks and swings. Arriving without a
reservation at a brasserie, we are seated in Siberia and given a menu
in English; I feel as if I have a neon sign on my forehead - "Dumb
American".
Often when people have children, they take a step down
in their travel style, in part for the obvious financialreasons but
also because they imagine sophisticated travel and children don't mix.
For me, travelling with a child required a step up. I gave up my
beloved and romantic Montalembert hotel on the left bank and opted for
the illustrious Le Meurice on the right. Located on the rue de Rivoli,
it sits next to the adored Angelina, the café with the best hot
chocolate in Paris.
What drew me to the hotel was that it seemed
to actually encourage one to come with a child. The doormen got down on
their knees to welcome my daughter, treating her as though she were a
young movie star. She captured their attention, dancing through the
lobby in her rose fairy princess costume and sparkling shoes, her joie
de vivre contagious. She loved Le Meurice.
Room service is a
rollaway table set with beautiful silver and china and miniature rose
plants. My little girl thinks these are for her to keep andthe room is
quickly filled with pots of roses. I buy her a children's apron in the
pistachio green of the hotel and suddenly she is playing restaurant,
using the notepads to take orders.
The second trip was all about
being outdoors - across from the hotel is the Jardin de Tuileries,
among the oldest public gardens, open since the 17th century. There is
a pond with sailing boats for hire, a carousel, playgrounds,
trampolines, pony rides, ice cream and barbe à papa ("papa's beard" or
candyfloss).
In Le Marais, we lunch in a courtyard restaurant
while Juliet plays with an older French boy. He takes her to meet his
family who are dining a few tables away. "What is he saying?" my
daughter keeps asking.
She enjoys an ice cream cone constructed
of petal-shaped scoops assembled to look like a rose blossom. We buy
her a small metal Eiffel Tower - and, inexplicably, she decides that
the best place to keep it is in the mini-bar.
This spring, out of
nowhere, my daughter's pre-school teacher asked me, "When are you going
to Paris?" I must have looked baffled. "Juliet said she's going to
Paris, and she invited me to come along." The teacher and I both smiled
- it was very like Julietto invite someone to join us on a trip that
had not yet been planned. Now four years old, my daughter lives in
aworld that is a blend of magic and materialism.
As far as she's
concerned, princesses are real - every little girl is one and we are
her footmen. She is a prima ballerina - and we are the assistants who
lift her high as she flies magically suspended like Tinkerbell. Suffice
to say her childhood thus far has been a more collaborative and
indulged experience than those of previous generations, when children
lived by the edict of being seen and not heard.
That said, I plan
the trip - a return to Le Meurice. "We are going to Paris," she
announces to everyone, "and we will have a beautiful apartment." The
staff welcomes her, piling her bed with gifts - child-sized pink
slippers, two stuffed Pistache dogs (the hotel mascot), a tin of
coloured pencils and a jigsaw puzzle of the hotel's facade. She doesn't
want to leave the room.
I lure her out with the promise that this
time we will go up the real Eiffel Tower. We also go to the Musée
d'Orsay, a stunning museum in a converted railway station. What makes
the museum work for children is that it is an ever-unfolding space on
multiple levels, combining sculpture and painting, tiny architectural
models, catwalks above, and the promise of tea and snacks inside an old
clock. On a rainy morning, we explore the 19th-century arcades at
passage Jouffroy, filled with small shops, including a toy-shop with
everything for doll's houses.
On another rainy afternoon, after
lunch with cousins in Neuilly, we headed for LeJardin d'Acclimatation,
a park with a children's science museum, a carousel, a small zoo and a
puppet theatre. "We have to come here a lot," my daughter said, while I
trudged off in the rain to buy more ride tickets.
On the first
sunny weekend, we set out for my favourite flea market at St Ouen. It
is something we couldn't have done last year - too overwhelming. This
time, I wheel her buggy slowly up and down the aisles, pointing out
things she might like. I don't complete my search for the perfect
silver salad servers but I do enjoy noticing things that in the past I
would have ignored.
That evening - our last - I give a reading
from one of my books at the legendary bookshop Shakespeare and Company.
Meanwhile a friend takes Juliet for a wander over to the Ile de la Cité
and the best ice-cream in Paris, Glaces Berthillon.
"We're New
Yorkers," Juliet tellseveryone she meets. "We're busy. Tomorrow we are
going home. Our dog Lulu will be excited to see us."
Yes, and we
will return again soon, perhaps next time not to a hotel, but an
apartment or a house in the French countryside. Clearly it is no longer
my Paris, nor is it her Paris, but it is becoming our Paris.
The next night, back in New York City, I open the refrigerator and a small cold Eiffel Tower falls on tomy feet.
A.M.
Homes' most recent book is 'The Mistress's Daughter', a memoir about
being adopted, published this month by Viking in the US and this summer
by Granta in the UK
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