USA, USA

Sometimes on foggy French mornings I can’t help but miss the United States. I lived there for a huge chunk of my life and there is a lot to be wistful for. The food, 24 hour stores (oh god how I love the 24 hour stores!), general friendliness, national parks, NYC, San Francisco, cholas, pho huts, unironic flannel, casual conversation, Miami…I mean, yeah, I do love me some USA.

But my neighbor takes it to a whole new level. If such a thing exists he is France’s answer to the Francophile, he is a United Statesaphile.

As I type this he is blasting Kenny Rogers “The Gambler” from his porch where he is conducting a barbecue (yes, in winter). If it were summer there’s no doubt I’d be listening to his friends splashing around in his above ground pool. Next to said pool, his Hummer is parked. It is yellow. It has American flag dice hanging from the mirror and a California license plate in the window. He drives by blasting Johnny Cash.

When I first moved here from the US, I would walk my dog by his house every day. One evening I heard him singing Garth Brooks (The Dance) from his front porch. It was my first real look at him. A balding man in his mid to late forties, he sat perched in his rocking chair, dog by his side. “You like Garth Brooks?” I called out in English and he looked taken aback.

“What?” he asked in flustered French.

“Garth Brooks, you like him?” I say again, except now in French.

“Yes, I love him; he is a real cowboy I think. You’re American?”

“Yep.” I laughed “American enough to know he’s no cowboy”.

“Why would you say something like that?” He huffed, almost indignant.

“Because he’s a pop star now. You can’t be a cowboy and a pop star at the same time.” There was silence. He looked at me thoughtfully and he smiled.

“I do know something.”

“Yeah?”

His eyes got narrow and he hunched his shoulders over. He put his hands up in front of his chest, palms in, and begun gesturing back and forth like an old Italian nonno, “You fuck my wife? You fuck my wife? Are you tellin me you fuck my wife?” United Statesaphile leaned back incredibly pleased with himself. I could not stop laughing. “I love de Niro” he laughed in English. Apparently so.

Since then he has asked me to multiple “American” events. I declined today as it’s my first day off in a while and I have serious studying to catch up on.

But there is something profoundly excellent and simultaneously heartbreaking about him. He has a dream trip. It’s to rent a bright red Mustang and start in Phoenix. From there he will drive up the California Coast and into Oregon and Washington. He’ll shoot East and drive until he hits Yellowstone and then follow the circle back down through Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. It would be his first time ever visiting the United States. He explained one evening over a Heineken that his English was so poor he was embarrassed, and frankly scared, to commit to the trip. But one day he’ll start studying English again. One day soon. So he saves up what money he can and dreams. He watches old movies and talks about the day when he can smirk like Steve McQueen and ride into that burning sunset…

“You fuck my wife?!” He yells at me when I walk by with my dog.

“You talkin to me? Are you…talkin…to me?” I yell back.

He chuckles and leans back content. One day, into that burning sunset…

Thinner Skin

Sometimes I feel like I have molten lava boiling right underneath the surface of my skin. It’s been building, and waiting, and accumulating all things toxic. It wants nothing more than to burst through the fortified layers of propriety that society has done its damnedest to levy it with.

You know, rather than finding some way to abate the pressure in the first place.

It is a rage that comes in an instant, but is taking longer and longer to leave me be. I will be walking; relaxed, so relaxed I am almost singing out loud the music piped into my ears alone and about to make a damn fool of myself…

And then I’ll see them. A group of 3 or 4 young men. Ages 20-30, standing in my path. My shoulders tighten, I can feel my face change, morphing into it’s trademark Bitch Face. My hand goes to my purse, my pace gets stronger and I brace. I literally brace for attack.
And then it comes.

“Hey sugar tits”
“Sexy bitch.”
“Come here, I gotta secret to tell you.”
“Can I take a picture of you?”

Fear literally seizes my brain. My thoughts start to swim and I swear for a moment my vision blurs. I keep my head rigidly forward, I do not flinch or move a muscle on my face. “Don’t show weakness!” my father would tell me. And so I do not. I become a seething pillar of strength and tightly wound and ready to spring loose years of accumulated fuckery.

Today I sat in the metro station and a man came up and sat next to me. He put his arm flush with mine, I moved my arm and turned my body ever so slightly away from him. He leaned forward and then looked back at me. A long stare after a long day of dealing with bullshit coworkers at a bullshit job. My eyes barely contained my petulance as I met his gaze and held it. Willing him. Asking him silently to give me a fucking excuse. Today. Today I am strong enough. Today I will be able to unleash the extent of this inequitable fury on the next motherfucker who bothers me so, come on kid, what do you got?
He stood up and walked away.

But I am still bristling. I can feel my skin literally getting thinner. As I age I am no longer able to just let shit go.
A man stared at me on the tram ride home. I took off my hoop earrings as I thought, ‘if I have to fight this asshole off, I don’t want him to cripple me with something so obvious’. I placed my earrings in my bag and watched him as he got off the tram behind me. I walked down the dark street made glistening by the evening rain. He followed behind. I stop. I stand. I don’t pretend I am busy or that I am reaching for something. I just stand, and wait.

He walks by. I let out my breath. I wait a moment, look behind me, and then continue my way home. I wonder about the girl, out there somewhere, who has the same habits as I. Taking her earrings off, not letting men follow closely behind. I know she must exist somewhere. Really I know she exists in all women but even alone in my head, admitting widespread fear as normalcy feels like a punch.

And so I grow. Exposure has not thickened me up. Rather, I can feel the cracks forming and I know where the lava will spill out first. My mouth, my fists, my eyes. It will attempt to destroy anything currently in it’s path. It will do everything it can to melt and make null what once stood proud.

A friend of mine had a man follow her and attempt to rape her on the beach a few months ago. He got so far as put her on her back and place his hand down her pants. That’s when she stuck her thumbs in his eyes. Once he gave up he actually tried to help her stand and even attempted to brush the sand off of her. As if she could just forgive and forget his childish imprudence. She told me, as she looked at him cowering, she knew she was capable of murder. Not in an abstract sense, but in a very real and concrete way. If given the tools and the space, she would have taken the life from him. Luckily for both, a couple happened upon the dune and aided her as he fled.

Still, I know of what she speaks. When I was younger an Army Ranger attempted to break my hand and place me on my knees while I was visiting an Army base. I fought back and was picked up and thrown to the ground. Another Ranger saw this and stepped in, throwing the man off me. I was relieved until I heard him say, “Don’t fuck your life up for some bitch.”
Blind rage.

I’ve been threatened. I’ve been hurt. My friends have been threatened and hurt. I regard any man invading my space and disrespecting me as a direct threat to my well being. Every single time I get verbally accosted, every single time a man sits too close on purpose. Every single time I catch a man, out of the corner of my eyes, sizing me up as bait. I feel that same rage. I am there again.

I am holding my friend’s hand as she tells me her boyfriend raped her while she was bent over the toilet and throwing up from the flu. He got one year in jail.
I am crying as she tells me how he pried her legs open, he goes to our high school.
I am shaking my head as she quietly whispers to me, “I don’t remember what happened, but I woke up with him on top of me.”
I am sobbing as they tell me, “She was bleeding really bad, apparently he was really rough. She’s in the ICU.”

And every cat call, every time a man follows me, or peacocks for affection he is tapping into this history. He may not know it, he may be just some clueless kid who can’t even begin to imagine the horror that is woven into the tapestry of so many women’s lives.

But it is there. And he is reaching for it. If he is not careful that history could come spewing out.
If I am not careful it will come out.

One more motherfucker slides into my booth uninvited, one more asshole corners me while I’m waiting for a friend on the street, one more douchebag doesn’t take, “I’m not interested” as the final word…
It will come out screaming.

Note From Management

Welcome!

This will be a blog that discusses a myriad of subjects. It will not be limited to social commentary, foreign policy, feminism, travel, history or cultural phenomenon. Nay! It shall be all those things, and possibly more! Although the one thing it will never be is a place for little tidbits on what I'm doing today. Sure there will be stories that relate to my existence, but rather then turn this blog into an egotistical mess of Each Moment is Precious, I'd rather focus on the larger picture.

But! You must know something about me. So here's the skinny:

I am a freelance writer who currently lives in Paris France. I came here from the US a few years back and am still trying to find my footing in this never ending expanse of a city. I have a dog, I hate pants, and believe that ice cream is actual medicine.  The French language is still slowly draining the life out of me, I think dark wooden pubs are where magic happens, and airplanes still blow my mind. 

I hope you enjoy.