I am always thinking about writing but these days, but it is too easy to get distracted. My phone buzzes with notifications and so I switch its data off, making a last-minute decision to visit the latest exhibit at Jeu de Paume after completing a few admin and school related tasks. I choose to take the longer route because it is a pleasant day: a 12-minute walk, a 4-minute metro ride on line 14, then another 6-minute walk, according to Google Maps.
As I’m walking, I like to observe what people are wearing, how subtle—and then later on, not so subtle—changes in their outfits signal the arrival of summer. I spot an impeccably dressed older lady about to cross the road, abruptly stopping when a motorcycle and a car speed past. Her sudden step back creates small waves in her crisp white dress and causes her multicolored bangles to glisten under the sun. Frustrated that she cannot immediately cross the road, she throws her hands up in the air, bangles jangling, showcasing both exasperation and amusement at the same time—an expression that is plastered on many faces in the streets of Paris, I observe. Ca va? I ask if she is okay, commenting that drivers almost never give in. (As I had a French lesson in the morning, I was motivated to keep my streak going.) Oui, oui. C’est marrant, Paris, she replies. Yes, yes. Paris is funny. Her hot pink lipstick is loud enough to be a stop sign of its own.
Like the woman, I am wearing white linen, but in a jumpsuit instead of a dress—the type of outfit I would easily throw on without much thought to meet friends for drinks in Manila, where we all spoke the same language, where everyone knew everyone. It is a bubble I am very comfortable in but also one I like to venture out of once in a while. It is a nice reminder, through a chat or a video call with people back home, that while many of us are venturing out of our own little bubbles in our own ways, there are special connections that haven’t changed.
Madeline, the voice from the métro’s speakers announce once, and then twice, shaking me out of my thoughts. I walk the six minutes to the museum. Once inside, I realize that it was not just me who had the idea to take myself out on a date that particular afternoon, seeing a few people doing the same. Something a friend told me once suddenly comes to mind: Paris is a nice city to be an introvert. While I oscillate between being an introvert and an extrovert (I’ve always been an ambivert—but aren’t most of us?), I do agree that many of the solitary activities I take pleasure in—reading, writing, going on long walks, people-watching—are things I don’t feel as scared of doing in Paris. It could be age as well. In Manila, when I was younger, I too self-conscious to even eat alone, surrounding myself with people even when, at times, they weren’t always people I liked. It is much easier to say no to things these days.
The exhibit featuring the work of Jean Painlevé is short but encourages one to be immensely meditative, at least in my experience. I had forgotten how relaxing it was to watch nature just be, and then do the same, simply being and watching in a state of awe. I wasn’t as familiar with his photographs and his documentaries before but I am drawn to his meticulousness and the fact that he allowed himself room to play, fusing science and art (he was inspired by movements like surrealism). There are a few rooms playing his documentaries and I sit inside one showing Acera, or The Witches’ Dance. Mesmerized by the dreamlike visuals in front of me, I stop thinking about the notifications on my phone, about the lady’s pink lipstick, about boys I shouldn’t be thinking about, about introversion and extroversion. I shift my focus to dancing mollusks instead.
Something I type in my phone’s Notes app on the way back: everything is amusing with the right lens.