24. Saturday Picnics at Jardin du Luxembourg is Joie de Vivre.
It’s where I discovered that I yearn for authentic community.
Bienvenue to the 24th article in my Medium publication, Inside Me Inside Paris, a work-in-progress memoir about my 2016 deep-dive into Paris & my journey to find my soul amidst the onslaught of depression…
I’m at the Jardin du Luxembourg on another beautiful Saturday morning in Paris, to meet my dear friends Soléne and Nico Poisson and their petit Athénaïs, Soléne’s brother François, her cousin Thomas and their girlfriends for a little picnic in the park.
If there’s one thing I’m inspired to bring back home from my visit here, it’s an impassioned pursuit to find my real community. This is not easy to find in LA.
Jardin du Luxembourg was created in 1612 and is located in the 6th Arrondissement. The garden is seventy acres wide and is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Luxembourg Palace, north of the gardens. In the seventy acres and at the gorgeous Medici Fountain, there were many pockets of people enjoying themselves on the lawns, walking along the flowerbeds or watching the toy sailboats dancing in the pond, all living a bona fide joie de vivre — a joy for life — in the fullest extent of its French meaning, enjoying genuine human connection, eating delightful food and drinking much wine, like Ernest Hemingway wanted everyone to do:
‘Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive…You will be dead soon enough.’
I wonder what his Paris picnics were like when he was here in the 1920’s.
The setting was like my favorite Seurat painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, come alive. I love love love so much the idea of people hanging out together, shooting the shit for hours on end, rabidly enjoying each other’s company. It’s a sense of community that is not my common experience in Los Angeles, which is a shame, because it’s my hometown. If there’s one thing I’m inspired to bring back home from my visit here, it’s an impassioned pursuit to build my real community. This will not be easy to build. There will have to be new people. And there will have to be casualties.
Being the sole American, I brought fried chicken, which of course, was a big hit. EVERYONE LOVES FRIED CHICKEN. We drank beaucoup vin rouge and ate fromage and baguettes and petit sausages and there was a salmon rillette that I could not stop eating.
Again, my lack of French naturally pushed me to the outer periphery of the group, and there were moments I felt alone, but everyone was so kind to try to include me, and even spoke English to each other as a way to involve me. Which sparked a thought; can you imagine having an American picnic in which one person didn’t speak English and the Americans spoke the language of that person as a show of welcome and inclusiveness? Wouldn’t happen.
I was scheduled to help Geraldine — who I met from the Buddhist session last week — with her short film later that night, but thankfully, it was cancelled at the last minute, which I was glad about because I didn’t want to leave the fun.
The sun was still game to keep the day going for quite a long time, so no one in the entire park wanted to leave. But the park officially closed at seven, so at seven sharp, the police kicked everyone out of the park. I was having such a good time with my bons amis and wanted the fun times to never end. Luckily no one wanted the fun to end yet either.
So we all took an Uber into Bastille, which is in the 11th Arrondissement, and drank more wine at Les Petits Crus, a wine bar that François’ friend opened four months ago upon quitting his corporate job.
How bold and courageous to quit your job and chase your passion, no holds barred and with no assurance of success. Man, to have that kind of passion anymore, I thought, as I was swirling my wine in my glass. I once had mad passion for making films, but I wondered if maybe that passion was misplaced. Maybe I wanted to make movies for the wrong reasons — partly to feel significant or to gain access into some kind of creative Neverland inhabited by the cool artists I had admired all my life and also to find a special kind of love that would fill the god-shaped hole in my soul. A voice of fear has usurped my voice of passion, which, frankly, maybe was just a bunch of egotistical hot air. This debilitating voice of fear is multi-headed: the fear of failure, fear of not completing my projects, fear of sucking, fear of rejection. All of them whisper to me often, and as a result, my confidence has lost its will to fight. But my friends wouldn’t really know any of this noise. As far as they’re concerned, I’m having a ball in Paris.
But right now, the feeling from wine all day was nice and warm, and the perfect distraction from all the voices. Nico was as loose as I had ever seen him, and I got excited at the prospect of going on a bender with him. Unfortunately, a little before midnight, he received his marching orders to head home — and just like that, it was bedtime for everyone else. Except me.
As is my usual way, staying until late night because that’s when things can get really interesting, I ventured about and found Rue de Lappe, which was a row of nightclubs and bars running the length of two football fields.
I zig-zagged through the crowd, most much younger than me in age but debatably in spirit, all wanting to get laid and drink their asses off, not a care in the world. I was seeking some debauchery but without a wingman or a companion and again, not being able to speak much French, it was another night of silent people-watching and texting my American friends on What’s App. I stayed out until around 145AM holding on desperately for a morsel of a chance to find a dark Paris rabbit hole. But tonight there is nothing for me.
I meandered over to the center of Bastille and sat on the curb, watching the young Parisiens do what they do, and suddenly, all the positive feelings from the lovely picnic and my Parisien friends dissipated. While I want to stay out until I pass out to see what might transpire, it’s quiet and there’s no one around. So I gave up, took a taxi home and headed up my seven flights of stairs, empty-handed.
Thank you very much for reading this memoir I’m workshopping. Looking for publishers! I’m a writer/photographer based in Burbank, California. Some of my work is visible on my Instagram.
