Paris Letters

by Janice MacLeod

  She led me to the change room and waited outside for me like a good girlfriend. Almost everything fit except for the dresses I had picked myself. See, they had sized me up the moment I walked into the store and knew exactly what would look best on my figure. They weren’t trying to sell me everything. They were fitting me. That’s the difference with the French. These aren’t some girls who have a summer job in a clothes shop. These are women who work in the fashion industry in Paris. There is a difference. And they weren’t trying to make me look younger or thinner. For the French, there is no problem to solve, only a chance to make something more beautiful, to bring out its essence. My saleswomen were enhancing.

  “Je suis professionnel!” my saleswoman boasted when I complimented her on her choices.

  I walked out of the store with three dresses that were me, but better.

  Friends had warned me that the French were unkind. But if you let them be, meaning if you let them do their thing and trust that they take national pride in making everything more beautiful, you’ll end up being more beautiful yourself. The reason you see so many beautiful French women of all ages is because they have teamed up through various divisions of labor to make everything and everyone a little more beautiful—from top to toe.

  For my hair, I would go to Sylvie Coudray. Her atelier was just down the street from Chanel’s first Paris shop on the famed rue Saint-Honoré, in the same apartment where Maximilien de Robespierre lived during his reign of terror after the French Revolution. In fact, she cut hair in his bedroom. I can just imagine him waking up and deciding whose head to chop first. And centuries later, Sylvie doing the same, but with hair and not heads. Sylvie is a tall, strong, blond woman. I liked her immediately. The first time I went to see her, she sat me down at a chair in front of a mirror and took me through a one-hour consultation before she even picked up her scissors. She explained that there was only one perfect hairstyle for me and she was going to give it to me. She pulled my hair up, pulled it back, moved it here and there to illustrate how other hairstyles wouldn’t frame my face as well as this one haircut. “Why do most stylists concentrate on the back of the head when they should concentrate on the front? I don’t understand this,” she would say, shaking her head. She had big opinions about hairstyles that go through fads. “The worst was the Jennifer Aniston hair!” She rolled her eyes. “It looked good because it framed her face nicely. HER FACE. It wouldn’t do the same for others, and yet women of the world insisted on it.” She shuddered. “That was a dark time in my career.” She started snipping away at my mane and proceeded to give me the best haircut of my life. It was me, but better. It was so lovely that I became instantly miffed by every hairstylist I’ve ever had. They just didn’t know what they were doing! Sylvie understood. “No thought put into what would actually look good!” She took a breath and dropped her arms in fatigue. “Don’t people know how to imagine what is beautiful and what is not?” I wasn’t going to trust anyone else with my wedding day hair. Sylvie was a true artist.

  I would need a wedding gown too. After cleaning out my closets back in Los Angeles, which seemed like another lifetime by now, and after seeing my friends shopping, I had low self-esteem with shopping. Melanie and Alison would walk down racks of clothes like two prongs of a divining rod, senses perked, searching and gathering, searching and gathering. I would follow, walking down the middle, looking calm on the outside, but inside I was a bubbling volcano of overwhelm. I didn’t know where to start. I was picky and couldn’t make decisions. I couldn’t even pick out Christmas tree ornaments. And now I would have to pick out a wedding dress?

  While I lamented to my mother about the prospect of having to buy a wedding dress in French in France, she said one thing: go to Belgium. Now this may not seem like sound advice to the average onlooker, but going to Belgium was going to solve all my angst about the dress. See, my cousins have a wedding dress shop in West Flanders, in a city called Roeselare. I would try on dresses in English in Belgium with help from my cousins. Knowing it was family, I was walking out of the joint with a gown for my big day. This was happening. One decision made.

  I took a train. Four in fact. After all my traveling throughout Europe, getting to a small city in Belgium proved the most challenging of all. I arrived in Lille and had to buy train tickets for the local lines. Generally, in major ports, the signs all offer the local language and English, but here I only had French and Flemish as choices at the ticket booth. I was actually grateful to be able to communicate in French. Progress! But once fully in Flanders, I had a few stressful moments at some podunk outpost train platform in WhoKnowsWhere when I had four minutes to transfer trains. Finally, I ended up in Roeselare where my cousin was waving and running to greet me.

  We got busy. I was in town for twenty-four hours and I would need to find a dress, get it altered, and leave the next day with it in hand. My cousin Véronique was fantastic. She whipped out everything in my size. I said yes, no, or maybe. All the yeses and maybes were set aside. In the big change room, standing in my delicates, I stepped in and out of many dresses, whittling the pile down to two lovely gowns. She was a pro. She knew what looked good and what didn’t look good. She was not putting me in anything that didn’t flatter my figure. When we made the final decision, the seamstress arrived to pin it in all the right places then took it away to sew, and we went out for a tour around town.

  The next day, I hopped back on the train with my dress in hand. Adding the time limit helped me make decisions. Progress!

  My bachelorette party, or a hen party as my English expat friends called it, became a cock and hen party as I invited Simon as well. We sat around a long table at our favorite wine bar, 5 Cru at 5 rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, and sipped wine as one by one they prepared me for marriage.

  Alison advised me to enjoy everything. The good, obviously, but there are lessons in the bad and joy to be had there too. The bad helps you set your course and informs you of what you don’t want so you can veer toward what you do want. Melanie advised us to drink more wine. The maître d’ and owner of the wine bar agreed and brought over another bottle. Simon advised me to be myself, to not try to change. Sometimes we can get flustered and fall out of line with our true desires. If I ever felt myself getting flustered, I should stand back, observe the moment, and center myself. There is wisdom there that can help me deal with a situation. Julie said that I must go to Vienna and attend a ball in my wedding gown. I didn’t even know this was what people did. I added it to my list. Shannon’s advice was to prioritize each other. When her grandfather came home from work, her grandmother would make him a drink and they would sit alone in the salon, away from the seven children who knew to stay away during this sacred apéro. Carole sat with her arms crossed and said that she had no clue what made a good marriage. “Good luck,” she concluded. But then it dawned on her. “Maybe that’s what it takes to have a good marriage. Good luck.” Glasses were raised with wishes for good luck.

  Tipsy and happy, I made my way home at the end of the evening armed with my list of wisdom from my friends. I was no longer baffled. I was ready to get married.

  Dear Áine,

  May 1st is Labor Day here in France. This means that those who have jobs don’t have to work and those who don’t have jobs attend demonstrations to scream about it. May 1st is also the day when you can buy small bouquets of lily of the valley from the street vendors dotted all over the city. The idea is to give the flowers to friends, but I didn’t know about that until later, so my little bouquet is adorning my window and honoring my friendship with myself. My windows are finally open, and I can feel a warm breeze. Since winter lingered in Paris, the city was slow to turn on the fountains. For months, they were dry and silent, crusted with last year’s fallen leaves. But now they are gurgling, spitting, and splashing, inviting wishes and centièmes. I’m not sure how the city manages the urban décor, but I’d like to think that a big meeting is called at City Hall. The who’s
who of Paris gather and agree that NOW would be the ideal moment to turn on the waterworks. The mayor nods and saunters over to a giant switch on the wall. Everyone holds their breath as he turns it on. Cheers, applause, and champagne follow. Meanwhile, water rushes through the labyrinth of underground pipes, along the Métro tunnels and catacombs, to reach the hundreds of thirsty fountains that explode in joyful rapture. And there I am, waiting with a wish in my heart and a centième in my hand.

  Amitiés (Best wishes),

  Janice

  31

  A Wedding in Paris…and Beyond

  In the days leading up to the wedding, Christophe mentioned that I was running out of time to change my mind. I joked, replying that he shouldn’t do anything that would make me change my mind. I added that I probably shouldn’t do anything to change his either. He, in his infinite kindness, said that I could do anything and he would never change his mind. “Who loves who more?” His arms crossed. Chest out. Grinning.

  The only time I had doubts about marriage was back when the lady from the city hall was taking her sweet time approving the dossier, akin to a big folder of the Vacation Request Forms of my past. Would she ever let us get married? But I never had doubts with Christophe. It would be my great pleasure to marry this man. In Paris! I still couldn’t believe it.

  Making it official was important to Christophe. Yes, it was important for him to show me how much he loved me by committing to me, but I also sensed he was starting to feel like he had family again. He’d gone twenty years floating without much more than a few phone calls at Christmas and the occasional visit to Poland. He shyly asked me one night if he could call my mother his mother, explaining with his manly reasoning that this is tradition in Poland. Tradition or not, my mom would be pleased to add him to the pack. He breathed easier. The worry lines in his forehead decreased. He seemed to get younger as the wedding day approached. Young and happy.

  For my wedding day hair, Sylvie snipped my bangs here and there, pinned in a dainty and sparkly tiara, and curled my hair into long relaxed tendrils. It was me, only much better. She, my sister, and my mother worked together to get me into my wedding dress. An elegant A-line floor-length gown, fitted at the bodice with halter straps wrapped around the back of the neck and a simple belt with a few sparkles. I looked and felt like a princess.

  Christophe arrived to fetch the team. In some cultures, it’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony, but in Paris, where there is no aisle to walk down at city hall, the bride and groom walk in together and leave together. A nice metaphor for life. We’re in this together. Two by two. I thought he would wear his nice gray suit, but he walked in with a black tuxedo. Seeing him took my breath away. He looked even more like James Bond in his suit. “A black tuxedo?” I said.

  He swallowed hard when he saw me in my gown. “I couldn’t wear my gray suit,” he said. “I am picking up a princess. I need to look like a prince, not a chauffeur.” He took my hand and kissed the back. “Let’s go, my princess.”

  The ceremony was at the city hall in the 5e arrondissement. This wasn’t by choice. It is law that you get married in the city hall in your district. Every arrondissement has its town hall and mayor. I suspect this is for an easy division of labor for the thirty-five-hour workweek. You get married by the mayor or his deputy or you don’t get married at all. There are no exceptions. But we were delighted to be getting married at city hall. Ours was a spectacular space with gold gilded walls and chandeliers that drooped with large, sparkly crystals. It was an iconic landmark, right between the Pantheon where France’s biggest thinkers have their final resting place, and the Jardin du Luxembourg, the park that is my preferred resting place during my urban hikes.

  Our group of fifteen gathered outside the great hall and we walked into the marriage room. The mayor arrived, with a red, white, and blue sash across his chest, looked at my last name on the register, and asked, “Highlander?”

  I nodded. Even here. Even now.

  He continued. “Immortelle?”

  “On va voir.” We will see.

  We had Team Poland, Team Canada, and Team France in attendance. Together, our united nations crew sat through twenty minutes of legal proceedings that had been set by the government since Napoleonic times. Each spouse owed each other respect, support, and assistance. “Oui.” We were both responsible for the material and moral guidance of the family and were to provide for the education of the children and prepare for their future. “Oui.” Each spouse was to contribute to the marriage expenses in proportion to their respective means. “Oui.” We were to protect our children in their security, health, and morality, ensuring education and allowing their development, showing regard to them as people. We were to make the children a party to judgments relating to them according to their age and degree of maturity. “Oui.” And finally, after these super romantic vows, we were both asked if we would take the other to marry. “Oui!” When we were to exchange the rings, they provided a silver saucer and gave a gesture to simply “go ahead.” No big blessing of the rings. No “with this ring I thee wed.” I suppose the French fought long and hard for a separation of church and state. We shrugged, and Christophe picked up my ring and put it on my finger. I did the same with his. A big kiss followed, flower petals were flung, and a marriage license was handed over in a blue velvet folder. Later, I opened the marriage license and noticed that my birthday was wrong. Le sigh. After all the birth certificates and copies of my passport I provided, it seems I would have to return to city hall later to correct an administrative error. But, for now, champagne.

  Our group walked together to Jardin du Luxembourg for photos. Someone popped a cork, and glasses were filled. Rounds of cheers and laughter followed. After the photos in the garden, the group meandered down rue Mouffetard, and Christophe shook hands along the way with colleagues and shopkeepers who came out of their stores to see the wedding procession. When we arrived at the restaurant, our local Tourn’Bride at 104 rue Mouffetard, I threw my bouquet. It went soaring high and well over the ladies with arms stretched and landed with a thud behind them. Oops. My sister fetched it, and I offered it to Carole, wishing her good luck with a wink.

  One of the men pulled out a chair and sat it in the middle of the street. I sat and Christophe slowly removed my garter, invoking sniggers and jests from invitees and onlookers. He sent it spinning into the air where his nephew caught it. (A few weeks later he would ask his girlfriend to marry him and she would gleefully accept.) We laughed and walked into the restaurant for dinner. It was there when Milena, the youngest of Christophe’s family from Poland, stood to say a speech. She was a doe-eyed, quiet brunette, still learning English. And though she was merely fifteen, she spoke like a true matriarch. She spoke of how Christophe’s mother wished to see him married and taken care of like her other two sons, but she knew she would die too soon. His mother always wore a gold necklace with a leaf pendant. Upon her death, the family decided that Christophe’s wife would have this necklace and they tucked it away for twenty years until this day in Paris where her only granddaughter would present this necklace to me.

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

  I was so proud of this young woman in this moment, and instantly so aware of how important it was for the women in this family to keep traditions alive. After all my letting go of the material, along came this young girl to remind me that some things are worth keeping. That some mementos mattered. Milena was strong, assured, and sweet as she struggled to say all this in English through her tears. And now, I had more than a necklace. I had someone to look to for times when I will be charged with tasks of a matriarchal nature. Eventually, it would be up to us.

  Later that night, I changed out of my wedding dress and into a white sundress (one of the wedding-related event dresses from Karen Millen). A few of us took a riverboat down the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and watched the light show. Quelle romantique!

  In th
e wee hours of the next morning, we hopped a plane to Toronto, another to Calgary, and yet another to the lake in the mountains. We spent a glorious week sitting on the porch and barbecuing with friends. Why did we have our honeymoon with a group? Because the trip was planned well before the wedding was even considered. And as Christophe pointed out, our whole life is a honeymoon. “The matching robes!” One morning, as the waves lapped quietly against the shore, we decided that it would be a good day to do it all again. I pulled out my wedding dress, he pulled out his tux, and we gathered for our own ceremony at the edge of the lake, this time with seven friends. My friend Mary conducted the ceremony and was also the maid of honor. She had scrounged up the readings from her wedding, which suited us just fine. One person recited a reading from the Dalai Lama, another recited a Native wedding blessing, another did the Our Father. Christophe recited his vows in Polish, and I recited mine in English. We pulled off our rings and set them on a silver saucer similar to the one in Paris. But this time all of us hovered our hands over the rings and gave them a blessing, serving of a visual reminder of this day when our love was sealed.

  With this ring, I thee wed.

  Wind rustled in the trees. The train from across the river tooted its horn. We kissed.

  Tanned and relaxed, a week later we flew to Ontario to do it all a third time. We had the reception at the golf course where my brother-in-law Brian was the greens keeper. While my sisters and mother were planning the event, he said that he’d try to keep the grass green by the clubhouse. And my other brother-in-law, Otto, helped deliver and assemble a massive wedding cake my sister Carla made for the event. This was a true family affair.