The Rally

Sunday I was a part of the biggest gathering of people in Paris since the French Revolution.

The rally for the terrorist attacks last week drew 1.3 million people to the streets.

I met Maïa and Charlotte at M&M’s. All public transportation was free for the day, and announcers on the metro informed riders that stations Republique and Oberkampf were closed for the day “pour raison d’une manifestation.”

The streets were closed – no cars were to be seen. People walked in groups, sparsely at first where we began by their apartment, all in the same direction toward Republique. We joined them. It was strangely quiet. A police motorcycle whizzed past us with sirens blaring, and the sound was a hundred times more jolting than usual, crudely ripping through the cobble-stoned streets of murmuring people.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling in the air, but these streets I’ve walked so often by now felt completely alien. There was a heavy, determined energy in the city that afternoon.

We passed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, where the 12 people were shot Wednesday; flowers and candles spilled into the street, and people stood around silently staring at the entrance as though they could somehow glean answers to all the “whys” buzzing in their minds since the incident racked the city. One young couple was locked in an embrace, and the woman’s eyes were red-rimmed and filled with tears.

Everywhere we looked people wore the name “Charlie.” Most people had signs or stickers with “Je suis Charlie” written on them. Students held up pens and an old man wore a hat with colored pencils stuck in it like feathers, and a baby was asleep in a sling decorated with Charlie Hebdo cartoons. I noticed there weren’t many children there. Nobody wanted to say it, but everyone was braced for something bad to happen, despite the anti-terror squads checking the sewers and the snipers standing on rooftops majestically like Parisian Batmen.

We met up with a group of journalism students and stood smooshed between two Jewish organizations. Everyone stood shoulder-to-shoulder, moving only to light their cigarettes. I tried to make my way ten feet through the crowd to interview some people holding flags for an organization against anti-Semitism, but mobilization was simply impossible. The sun hid behind clouds and buildings, and the cold seeped through my jacket and scarf and into my pockets where I gripped my pen and notebook.

After an hour, we started moving forward; we were far from Republique, where the march was set to begin, and much farther from Nation, the ending point. Helicopters swarmed overhead; people in the crowd waved French flags and flags bearing the name of their organization. Cameramen climbed streetlights to perch like monkeys with their giant equipment in order to capture the crowds. Every few minutes people would start clapping and chanting “Charlie,” and people of all ages waved flags and shouted down from their balconies along the street.

It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. All the while Maxime texted me as he watched on the television, updating me with the news they were delivering – that’s how I first found out there was a million of us.

I wrote an article for The Speaker with more details about the whole thing: France rallies in act of solidarity against terrorist attacks

After two hours of marching, surrounded by protective security guards (since we were alongside a bunch of journalists, obviously the most targeted group at the moment, alongside the Jewish community), dark had fallen and we were freezing and hungry, so Maia and I parted ways with everyone before we reached Nation.

On the way back to her apartment we stopped at a bakery and scrounged together our change to buy two multigrain baguettes, fresh out of the oven. Chewing them warmed us from inside until we got back and spread salted butter and jam on them, and she showed me photos from her and Matthieu’s trip to Scotland for New Years.

At home, finally warm in my bed, I opened the moonroof in my loft and climbed onto my roof for fresh air before going to sleep – it was exactly 1 a.m., and the Tower was sparkling for the last time for the night before all the lights went out in the city. The moon was enormous and yellow right next to it, and the contrast was breathtaking. I remembered the first time I peeked my head out of my moonroof in the night and saw the Tower lights weren’t shining, before I knew of the city ordinance implemented a few years ago to save energy, and my immediate thought had been, “Something terrible has happened!” I’d grabbed my phone to see if this was normal, if the Eiffel Tower really ceased to shine after a certain time at night, or if terrorists had finally attacked us. That was back in August. Now, the city really had been a target of a terrorist attack, but the Tower still shined. I watched the bluish lights twinkle exactly like stars and then abruptly stop, leaving me on my roof in the moonlight.

Pipes burst

The pipes in my shower burst back in August, and the plumber finally fixed them in November. It wasn’t until this month, though, that the painter came around to fix the brown, peeling, bubbled paint.

I wasn’t expecting anyone at 8 a.m., so when I woke up to a foreign male voice below my loft saying, “Bonjour?” my heart dropped, naturally.

My apartment is close quarters, but I didn’t feel like leaving at 8 a.m. to walk around the neighborhood for hours to allow the guy to do his job, especially since nothing would be open for another two hours, so instead I sat at my table. The table happens to be right outside my bathroom, which is so small I can’t even change in it), and I tried to make small-talk with him. The best part was that he was from Ukraine and didn’t speak any English and his French was lower than elementary level, so our communication consisted mainly of elaborate hand gestures and him pausing often to stare into space desperately searching for a word he knew in English or French that could point me toward his meaning. I was able to figure out that he had left Ukraine a year ago for Paris when he was drafted into the war and he had a 4-year-old son, whom he proudly showed me a photograph of when I offered him a cup of tea and we drank it together. I tried to ask about the kid’s mother, but it was surprisingly difficult to convey the word “mother.” I tried rocking an invisible baby and saying it in sign language, but I didn’t go so far as to mock giving birth. I rubbed my belly to show “pregnancy” in a last feeble attempt, and he said, “You?” and pointed at me. “Oh GOD, no! I’m not! Thank god…” And we left it at that.

This Ukrainian plumber/painter also sanded down my countertop for me, and his co-worker came by to see his work. This man was French, so it was a relief to be able to converse easily with at least one of my guests, although I felt bad for my Ukrainian friend who stood awkwardly to the side, not understanding us at all. The French guy told me about his friend from New York who now has a pizza shop in Paris; he drew me a map of how to get there, but he claimed to forget the street name. “Give me your phone number so I can text it to you later when I remember?” As soon as we said goodbye at the door I realized how dumb I was.

I also looked down to see a little package the mail lady had meanwhile delivered for me. “La poste!” the Ukrainian said, happy to finally have vocabulary for something going on around him.

“Oui! La poste!” I repeated, smiling at him.

When they left I ripped into my package – it was my Christmas present from Katie! She sent me a book called “How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits.” Knowing me as she does, she wrote a little note with it about how she doesn’t expect that I’ll try to be Parisian but that it can give me “more insight into why the hell these people act the way they do, all the while laughing as you go.”

She knows me so well.

I finished the book by the end of the day, filled with new knowledge. I never knew the importance of  having  “a way of looking out the window” that looks like I’m not trying to look out the window, but really I am trying to look like I’m daydreaming while trying to look like I’m not trying to look that way … And who knew that a real Parisian woman wears high heels even when 9 months pregnant? Or that “a newspaper clipping with a witty headline” on your mantelpiece makes you classier? I sure didn’t.

Appearance is of utmost importance in Paris. At least, that’s the pervasive attitude of the culture in this city. You have to always look good, but not like you’re trying to look good, but you can only look a certain kind of good. There are all sorts of rules about how you should appear to be in public, too, that I won’t get into. It’s very funny, and I get a kick out of breaking them every day in subtle ways; I’m over the whole “looking like a local” thing. I’d rather look like a foreigner and not be miserable from worrying so much about how I look. I'd rather smile at people and wear lots of jewelry if I want to. Of course, not everyone here actually gives a damn, just like anywhere you go. I’ve met several Parisians who don’t fit that mold at all, including Gaël and Laetitia, Maïa and Matthieu, Maxime.

After I read my book, I sat at my table by candlelight and ate some baguette and heavenly cheese Maxime bought me from the town where his country house is, in Corrèze. (For Christmas he bought me a HUGE chunk of it, and a super warm, fuzzy scarf and the new Pink Floyd album.) I’m not sure if I looked out the window dreamily, or how purposefully-tousled my hair was, but nibbling a baguette and cheese was enough to make feel as Parisian as I’ll ever get.

C'est ma vie tous les jours...

Daily walk up the street

My neighborhood

Sun shower the day of the Charlie Hebdo attack

Doesn't get more French that Simone de Beauvoir

My thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo incident

Before this week, “Charlie” was just another name. Charlie Brown, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory … Now, everyone in the world is naming themselves Charlie in honor of the 12 Charlie Hebdo cartoonists killed by terrorists last Wednesday morning.

Overnight, Paris changed from a safe home where I walked along the river alone at night to a dangerous city where the sight of anybody running to catch a metro at two in the afternoon made me nervous.

 People were advised to stay indoors and not take the metros. Le Marais, the Jewish district, closed for the night Friday in case of extremist attacks spawned from the very prevalent racism between Jews and Muslims here. At the kids’ school, parents and au pairs are no longer allowed to go inside to pick up the children – they are handed over individually, class by class, to the crowd of pushing women shouting their children’s names.

 Yesterday, hostage situations and false alarm bomb threats racked the city — my friend was stuck on a crowded metro at night when it was halted by a bomb threat at Châtelet; at 3 p.m., 45 minutes before I left to get the kids at school, the police shut down Trocadero (right by the Eiffel Tower), just near my apartment and the school. Gaël left work to walk me and the kids home.

Friday night I went out to “The Swamp,” the gay neighborhood near the Jewish district. It seemed normal there – there were slightly fewer people roaming about, but nothing felt unnatural. Friends and family have been texting me to make sure I’m ok. The media always makes things seem even crazier than they are, and I’m sure from across the ocean it appears even scarier hearing about it. But, as with any bad situation, life goes on. Routines are just temporarily shaken for the moment, as are the jumpy people on the metro.

I’m a bit irked by the way people are reacting to the incident and with the whole “I am Charlie” movement around the world. It's understandable that here in Paris “Je suis Charlie” appeared overnight in spray paint all over the city, but I see people from around the world using the movement’s hashtag on Facebook and Twitter. I think it’s great the world is rallying in support of freedom of expression and honoring the death of these cartoonists. As a journalist, I especially respect the fact that people are suddenly conversing so much about freedom of the press and of speech. However, knowing I run the risk of sounding insensitive to anyone reading this, I’m going to say I find all of the media hype, protests and rallies a bit too much.

Yes, what happened is tragic. Yes, nobody should be killed for exercising their freedoms of expression. But here is the thing: Our freedom of expression is not being threatened. It was attacked by terrorists, but nobody is threatening to take away this freedom. It’s still there, and it’s not leaving. Terrorists can't take that away. Flooding the news with heated debates about the freedom of the press and speech is pointless. Taking to the streets is fruitless. What are you trying to change? We have those rights. Taking to the streets and constantly talking on the television and radio about the incident is striking fear into people and only providing fuel for the terrorists whose goal is to get a reaction out of their victims.

If we’re going to take to the streets and focus so heavily on one topic at the expense of reporting on other more tragic events happening in the world (for example, I bet you didn’t hear about the terrorist attack in Yemen that same day that killed 31 people, because who cares about Yemen, right?), why not focus on an issue that actually needs to change? Why not highlight a problem that needs solutions? The Syrian refugee crisis, war in the DRC, massacres in Nigeria, the failing euro … Not one of these receives half as much media crisis as this one incident.

However shocking and tragic the Charlie Hebdo incident was, it should come as no surprise - the cartoonists’ work knowingly and deliberately insulted many groups of people, and whatever your view on satire, it’s not arguable that the artists weren’t aware of the risks in poking fun at these people, especially since multiple terrorist attempts had been thwarted at the offices over the years. They died on the battlefield. This makes it no less tragic; however, again, where were all the hashtags for all of the innocent Yemeni children killed that same day?

I just find the reactions of the media and the people of the world to be irresponsible and futile. Rather than being stuck on an isolated incident of the past that we can not change, we should say our condolences, come together and move on to focusing on what the real problems are in the world and what we should and can change now.

The day I can’t avoid seeing a hashtag supporting the millions of innocent Syrian refugees being left to starve to death, the same way I now can’t avoid seeing #jesuischarlie in support of 12 instigating cartoonists, is the day I will have restored faith in the media and humanity.