newness

I’m live from my apartment, where I sit at my table with a hacking cough that has plagued me since the weekend; brain matter that seems to slither through my fingers – held firm only from a potent cocktail of American-grade cold medicines; and an ever-accumulating pile of tissues from the mucus factory in the middle of my face, which has temporarily replaced my nose. 

It’s been three weeks since I’ve returned from Los Angeles, a trip that served as a denouement of sorts to a 9-month period of soul-searching and occasional crisis.  For the first time in as long as I can remember, I left L.A. heartbroken: wanting just a few more hours or days in that familiar chaos to bathe in the unfettered sunshine, revel in the friendships that have endured oceans, explore some uncomplicated romances. 

But things are starting to get back to normal.  Classes have started after their long hiatus, and I’ve returned to Sciences Po with a basket of newness on the crook of my arm, which I hope can last till springtime: new projects, new stories, a newfound volition to learn and consume and discover. 

I was walking on Boulevard Raspail last Thursday, on my way to work from an appointment at the Foreign Press Center, right off the Champs-Élysées – where the view from Pont Alexandre and the sight of Paris shrouded in grey made me stop for a second and marvel – when I was approached by a man in a motorcycle helmet, who interrupted his concentrated tapping of an entry code to get into an apartment building to stop me on the street and say, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?”

Since this very phrase has birthed many a misadventure, I of course said yes, prompting him to say:

“Tell me something, if someone came up to you and asked you, ‘what is one thing you want in life?’ what would you say?”

A bit flabbergasted, although mostly relieved it wasn’t anything obscene, I told him that, frankly, it wasn’t the question I was expecting and, well, come to think of it, I didn’t really know. 

“Well I ask you this because this happened to a friend of mine the other day – this guy came up to her and asked her what she wanted, and, like you, not expecting a question of this kind, said she didn’t know either.  But the guy said, ‘Come on, everyone wants something, just think it over a bit.’

And so, she thought about it for a second and said, ‘You know, I’d like a new pair of boots.’

‘Okay,’ the guy said.  ‘Let’s go to Le Bon Marché and I’ll get you a pair.’”

Mind you, the helmeted gentleman and I had been standing on the street for a few minutes at this point – me in a state of quiet disbelief: half at the story this guy was recounting, with a sneaking suspicion I knew where it was going, half at the fact that he had not acknowledged the extent to which this conversation was a bizarre thing for two complete strangers to be having. 

“What do you do?” He then asked, in efforts to help me figure out what it was that I wanted. 

“Well, I’m a student and a journalist,” I said. 

“Okay, so what do you want – anything, if someone asked you what do you want, what would you say?”

I kept saying “I don’t know,” to his insistence that I think about it and give him a concrete answer, so I said, “money.”  He then said, “No, a thing,” as if by virtue of us having this conversation I was contractually obligated to respond to his inquiries in a satisfactory manner, after which I would be released back into free society. 

“It’s not easy, is it!”  He exclaimed.  “Okay so let me tell you what happened next – my girlfriend died of laughter when she heard this.

Okay so my friend was suspicious, naturally, and at first told the man, ‘No thank you,’ but he insisted.  He said, ‘Don’t worry, I don’t need your name, your number or anything.  I just need one thing from you.’  ‘What do you need?’ she said.  ‘I just need you to go into Monoprix and buy me some plastic cups.’”

This is getting weird, I thought to myself.  I tried to interrupt him and say that I was kind of in a hurry and I really had to go, but he grabbed my arm in an amiable enough manner – as if to say, ‘Come on, this is fun, just hear me out,’ that I let him go on.

“So what would you do – if someone offered to buy you new boots, and all you had to go was get some plastic cups at Monoprix?”  He asked, terribly amused with the inquiry. 

“I probably wouldn’t do it.”  I said, then reconsidered, “Or maybe I would, I don’t know, it would make for a funny story.  Did she end up doing it?”

“She did!  And you know what, he bought her the boots and didn’t even ask for her name – no number, anything – and just walked away.  So what do you want, mademoiselle?”

“Oh what the hell, I want an iPad.”

“Okay, I’ll buy one for you!  Have a good day!”

We smiled at each other and walked away, and I laughed out loud all through the rest of the walk back to work.  There’s newness around every corner, I thought to myself, you just have to keep rolling with the pavement to stumble upon it.