An Arkansan at Home

Returns are curious affairs. Like most things in our life they seem so much more magnificent in our own minds than they are in reality. By no means did I consider myself a returning Caesar. I had no visions of parades or red carpet welcomes but I must confess that my return has left me a bit dismayed.

Thoreau claimed "most men lived lives of quiet desperation." One always seems to create a fetish out of memory and expectation. Our reminisces are always fonder in mind than in practice. Our expectations of the future are always grander than what they in truth will become. Hope for something greater is upheld in the face of despair. One's hope and one's imaginary future is an easy handle to grasp in a foreign land, where possibilities might seem boundless.

Back at home, an Arkansan no longer abroad, reality has quickly settled in around me and this boundless future proves harder to find. As I navigate the pathways of normalcy, I slog on like Mr. Thomas, quietly raging against that dying light.

The Flights

I've had a history with U.S. customs. Each time I've returned to our nation after spending time abroad I've been detained several hours. Reasons for this have varied depending on who I am talking to. The first time it occurred it was because I have a "common" name. I was given the impression that they were worried someone (read terrorist) could sneak in to the country using my name since it was so "common." For those that know me (blond and white), this seems like it would be a bit obvious. Fortunately (or not), we have a fairly thorough unit manning our borders.

I was fairly surprised when it happened a second time. The given excuse that time was that they were "looking for someone with my name." One would assume that since I had been previously detained a few months prior that their computers would denote this and it would be an easily resolvable affair. Not only was I wrong but I was chastized when, quoting the previous officer, I asked a new officer why I was detained. That, I was informed, was none of my business and no officer should be giving out reasons for my detention. My desire to return home was greater than that which wanted to partake in a sarcastic retort. Being at this officer's discretion I rightly figured the better way was the higher path and kept silent.

These incidences have created an apprehension within me. I expect to be stopped by customs and thus have to plan for it. When I was booking my return flights I spent $40 more to take a later connecting flight in Newark because I was afraid I wouldn't have made it through customs yet. This in turn created another series of events to which I will shortly return.

My voyage home was far from a staid affair. I flew home on Air India. I thought it was odd that they had a flight from Paris to Newark but the ticket was the cheapest available so I took it. Naturally it never dawned on me that the flight was Mumbai to Newark and Paris was the refueling stop to pick up more passengers and let others off. For as unforgiving as I was about flying on Air India (one of my fears was that they'd only have Bollywood movies on the flight), it turned out pretty cool, which just goes to show you what preconceptions are good for. My rating system might be different from others but when you have movies like Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and Dial M for Murder to choose from on your in flight movie screen, you're running a damn fine airline. The fact that the seats were comfortable and the food was good were just added niceties next to Bogie.

Since I had allowed myself extra time to get through customs without missing my flight, it of course turned out to be a breeze. I made it through everything and was waiting for my next flight no more than an hour after I landed. I got to sit in New Jersey for the next two hours waiting on my Air Tran flight to Atlanta and then on to Dallas.

Continuing on with my life's trend, my flight from Newark was late. The two hour wait turned into almost three and a half (this was particularly unnerving since I could have taken an earlier flight to Dallas via Charlotte on U.S. Airways). Miracle of miracles, however, I made my 11PM connecting flight to Dallas after landing in Atlanta at 10:47PM. It was my first time to run in an airport. No one had any stop watches out but, I was like the wind that night. The last thing I wanted was to spend the night in Atlanta's airport after being awake for 24 hours. I just wanted to get home as scheduled.

When I landed in Dallas I didn't have a high school band waiting for me playing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow." It was just my sister. After being away for so long, Sarah was a very comforting sight even without a brass section.

Thoughts Before Returning

Would it be cliche to say emptiness pervades my entire being, that I'm alone inside myself and in the world around me? Fault me for saying it but there's the truth. I'm sitting in the Roissy airport with only a newspaper and a sandwich for comfort. Where are the loving arms I know? Where are the smiling faces I once knew?

I'm broken and drained--split equally between the love I have in Paris and the comfort of home. Neither of us expected the end to be like this. Neither of us ever wanted it but, as so often happens in life, we lived the days that were given to us--dark and hollow as they were.

I live with regrets. Regret that I couldn't stay longer to comfort my love. Regret for the things we put off only to have fate put them off for us ever longer. I want to believe I will be back. I want to again look out a window and see the glittering glamor of Eiffel's tower. Whether anything follows from this day is a guess only father time can make. So, I take comfort in thoughts and memories. Broken as I am inside, I try instead to concentrate on the sandwich and paper in front of me. It's all anybody can really do.

May He Find Peace

A tragedy has struck. Clint Sezalory, Morgane's brother, died in a hospital in Varanasi, a city in northeastern India on Friday. We are all trying to cope with the sudden loss of such a unique person. There are countless emotions that accompany the passing of a loved one, emotions I could never dream of being able to properly convey. What has made this particular passing evermore difficult is the thought that it has occurred so far from home and so far from family. Though it is not something I can accomplish with mere words, what follows below is an attempt to assuage not only my own grief but to offer a bit of relief to those who loved him dearest.

Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and famous the world over for it's religious significance for Hindus. It is on the banks of the Ganges that the believers go to wash away their sins. As one of the most important pilgrimages a Hindu can make, it is believed to be auspicious to die in Varanasi. Your soul is granted a release from its transmigrations.

Clint was a born adventurer. Though he passed just over a week after his 25th birthday, he had already seen more of the world than the billions who out of fear, poverty, or ignorance are too unfortunate to have that chance. He lived in Africa as a child, he had traversed two continents by rail (Paris to Peking), he had explored the wonders of Big Bend in Texas, and was almost finished with his three month exploration of the sub-continent when he fell ill. He was never afraid of the unknown; he knew no personal limits.

Clint's favorite comic book character was the infamous Tintin, a boy who embarks on journeys throughout the world. He keeps a figurine of Tintin on his desk, one that I have seen every day I have been here in Paris without a second thought. At some point soon after his passing I realized that that statue represents Clint to me and it will always be how I remember him—confidently stepping forward with his eyes on the horizon, ready to greet what's around the bend.


"Somewhere out across the Great Divide
Where the sky is wide and the clouds are few
A man can see his way clear to the light
Just hold on tight, that's all you got to do"

Translating Titles

There are American influences everywhere in Paris. I don't mean "everywhere" in the sense that France has lost its unique cultural identity, far from it. What I mean is that American life has wedged its way into the day to day life of the French. This is evidenced somewhat constructively in the current events coverage (I'm constantly asked for my thoughts on the Presidential race) though less so in the baser realm of pop culture, particularly movies.

Films that are chosen for wide screen release here have a variety of tasks to complete before their debut. Perhaps the most obvious is the subtitling and/or dubbing work necessary before release. If they are of the giant blockbuster kind (National Treasure) or inane comedy (Wild Hogs) then a dubbed version must be created to accompany (or in many cases, replace) the original version. This is more a financial decision than anything else. Unless the movie is expected to appeal to the broadest base of the population then the expense of employing voice actors won't occur.

To me, the true art within the release process is the film's title. There are two broad categories of titles--altered and unaltered. On the occasions a film doesn't warrant a title change it is always a result of its simplicity. If a title is easy for the French to pronounce themselves then the name stays (ex: Gone Baby Gone, This is England). I find these to be the most interesting because even though they are "easy" to pronounce for French speakers the words generally sound quite different than when they fall out of my mouth. (Though not films this was made clear the other day when I went to the tabac to buy cigarettes for two of Morgane's friends. I ended up having to just point at the packs of American Spirits and "Fee-Leep More-ees" --Phillip Morris).

Of the altered titles there are three kinds. First is the direct translation, which is perhaps the most common (Be Kind Rewind/Soyez Sympas Rebombinez). Next is a complete title change. This is supposed to make the film more appealing and approachable for the French market. As such, upon French release, The Good Shepard is transformed into Raisons D'Etat (Reasons of State) and The Other Boleyn Girl is morphed into Deux Soeurs Pour un Roi (Two sisters for one king).

Lastly, the most peculiar naming method has to be the rare movie that retains an English language title but is different than the original. What first caught my attention to this particular category were posters I've seen plastered across the city advertising Sexy Dance 2. Apart from the amusement I derived from seeing a movie called Sexy Dance 2 on the market, I was eventually prodded into some investigatory work on the internet. This causality occurred when I saw an advertisement for another equally intellectual offering, Never Back Down, which was billed as "Par Les Réalisateurs de Sexy Dance" (from the directors of Sexy Dance). I figured if this "Sexy Dance" was big enough to spawn not only a sequel but cross advertisements, I needed to get some answers. What I found out was that I'm more out of touch than I realized. The original title, Step Up didn't ring any bells either.
I never expected to keep up with adolescent tastes, I'm just shocked that it has already happened. Perhaps I should start spending more time at the mall.

A British Bent

Strangely enough my life in France has lately been dominated by the not always so friendly neighbor, Great Britain. English is my native language. My biggest news source here is the BBC world. As a person residing abroad, neither of these vestiges of British imperialism should be considered anything but natural. They are so downright common that it'd be strange to have it any other way.

Seemingly conscious choices have marked the shift from the normal day to day life as an English speaker to a complete inundation of Britannia. In the past couple of weeks I've not only become somewhat addicted to reading the Guardian but I've also begun to read A People's History of England by A.L. Morton, a Marxist intellectual from Suffolk. The former can be easily explained or excused since the Guardian is an award winning paper. Since I (and in many ways the world as well) have no real use for communism, reading a 1938 Marxist interpretation of England's history up until WWI would seem a bit pointless. Discounting the outmoded nature of the book (historically and politically), it has turned out to be an interesting read.

Adding to my current reading choices are my film choices. It is a bit misleading to say "I" since the choices have been as much mine as they have been Morgane's. Therefore our Britannic lean in film can be termed a "we" instead of a "me." We've had a whirlwind tour of the United Kingdom of late. We've inundated ourselves with 16th century dramas, one great (Elizabeth) and two decent (The Other Boleyn Girl, Elizabeth-The Golden Age). Robert Altman transported us back to another time with his English manor mystery Gosford Park while Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett reminded us why they are two of the best in the business with Notes On a Scandal, a heartbreaking (and at times uncomfortable) peek into solitude and human relations.

Though all of these things have conspired to give my time here a decidedly British tilt, it was not something I set about on my own. My first inclination was that it perhaps was just a phase, a new penchant for something beyond the "known". This would seem logical if I had consciously conspired to consume the culture of my own accord. Though each choice was itself conscious, the larger motif was never purposely set upon.

When I experience culture it is generally through the English language. In America I can experience foreign locales and other worlds because although the medium might be foreign the explanation or subtitles will always be English. Despite the fact that my French has improved quite a bit, I'm still unable to easily read French for pleasure and still struggle to keep up during French films. Amidst it all it struck me that each passing day here brings to me more and more a feeling of "home" and of belonging. Often I still feel wholly separate and am still very much an outsider but, each time I pop into a shop or take the train into town it feels less so. Each day I spend in France it becomes less of an oddity and more of a home. And thus the subconscious reasoning behind my recent British tilt became apparent. As France became a home, British culture replaced it as an escape. Through the common tongue it has allowed the chance to once again experience a separate world.

Lafayette & the Language of Oppression

I've never given much thought to the "why" of my language. I've always marked it down as the natural outcome of Britain defeating France in the French-Indian war. This assumption was verbally attacked by a pious Catholic gentleman a few weeks ago when Morgane and I went to visit the grave of General Lafayette at Picpus Cemetery.

A guillotine was set up on what is now Place de la Nation, just a few minutes from the cemetery. An average of fifty-five people a day lost their life at the guillotine from mid June to late July in 1794. Over 1200 bodies were dumped in a nearby garden. Three years later this garden was secretly purchased by a princess whose brother was interred in one of the mass graves. Another group of families bought additional adjoining land in 1803 to create the cemetery that stands today. Burial in the cemetery is, I believe, wholly reserved to relatives of those interred in the mass graves.

Overseen by the sisters of the Sacred Heart, Picpus remains the largest private cemetery in Paris. There is also a fairly large church attached to the cemetery that houses a small station of Vierge de la Paix (virgin of the peace) that supposedly cured the Sun King from an illness and now attracts devout pilgrims. The sisters only open the graveyard in the afternoon but with some convincing (it was my "last day" in Paris) and a few extra euros, Morgane was able to get a caretaker to let us in.

It was on our walk across the courtyard towards the cemetery gate that the caretaker began his discourse on how strange it was that Americans spoke English. Instead, he insisted, we should be speaking Cherokee or even French. My feeble attempt at telling him that I'd speak French if they had been successful in the Seven Years War was met with a confused look. Shaking off my counter argument, he then went on to inform us that America was the only country that spoke the language of the oppressor. He evidently wasn't privy to the fact that the vast majority of the "original" inhabitants/colonists were native English speakers. Nor, I suppose, was he familiar with the categorical extermination of the native population whilst "subduing" them--hence no Cherokee. Declining an opportunity to educate, I sensed the easier route was through acquiescence. I smiled, nodded, and stepped into the graveyard.

The graveyard itself turned out to be a vast spot of quietude, the antithesis of the verbose man who watches over it. Perhaps visiting Lafayette's grave is an odd thing to do in Paris but, he has long been a favorite of mine (having historical "favorites" is one of the perks of being a history geek) so it was something that I had been wanting to see for quite some time. As a result of his military and monetary support, Lafayette and his descendants were granted American citizenship in perpetuity. As a way of illustrating his eternal support of America, Lafayette was buried in American soil.

Despite his continued dedication to the struggle of equality, despite the fact that throughout the U.S. there are at least 50 towns and counties named in his honor, he is largely a forgotten entity as a freedom fighter. Instead, it has become "hip" to revere a practitioner of torture and brutality thanks to an iconic photo. I know it's not going to look as cool on my key chain but I'll take the former marquis any day.