The Blue Hour in Paris

“The light here is different,” you say. “It glows, suffusing the world with a light unfounded anywhere else. And at certain times of the day, it’s blue.”

So I wandered, and I watched, expectantly like that time I stayed up all night waiting for Maggie’s pupppies to arrive. And they didn’t. Unlike the fulfillment of eight fuzzy blobs from our queen, I saw nothing that excited me. Not at first. It wasn’t that I saw nothing, I promise you. I looked, stared, and even photographed, attempting to find what my instructors had described as that magnificent suffusing glow.

In that search on the first day of The Blue Hour workshop in Paris, I found something else entirely. It isn’t the light that interests me the most. It is the people. So I studied them.

There was the relief etched on the face of the eightyish woman who sat beside me at the bus stop, the stress of her day oozing from every inch of her body as her argumentative daughter ignored her full shopping bags. Then there was the bus driver’s face as he patiently watched my daughter struggle with her first electronic ticket of the trip, one that refused to download and beep into the system. His nod of understanding and the tip of his head for us to have a seat was followed by a smile.

The delight of a shopkeeper in an empty store when we were interested in her shoes that didn’t fit was followed by her flippant expression, telling us she didn’t care whether we bought them or not. Yet her voice showed otherwise at her angry retort to the employee in the basement hole below, desperately trying to find another size, another shoe, another anything to make a sale.

A frustrated bicyclist dodging pedestrians mumbled words under his breath. Even though I had no idea what those were, I didn’t have to know. The squinted eyes, the shake of his head, and the tight grip on his bike said everything I needed. Stay out of his way.

The salesman at the men’s clothing store passed me off to another man, who, uninterested in talking to me, took me to a woman. All of whom had faces that made it clear to me that I was unimportant and unlikely to be a customer. It was my husband’s favorite brand, and I was ready to spend. But they were bored with the foreigner and not interested in me being their customer. I hope they worked on commission.

I stopped after that and looked in a mirror on my way out of the store. Had I done something? What had my face said to them?

I don’t need to speak the language to see. It isn’t the light here that is different. Nor is it the people. The expressions are the same as the light. I see the same frustrations of everyday life here as I do in every city I travel to, no matter the country or the light filtering down.

But the same delights are here as well, not just the frustrations. The broad smile of the florist in the garden market when she sees my face light up with delight at the exploding color of the tulips. The slight smile at the Vietnamese waiter when we say thank you makes me wonder if the other visitors here have no manners.

And then there was the quiet competence of the twenty-something clerk who handed me my afternoon dessert, quickly switching languages to make sure I understood how much she appreciated our business.

The French have a reputation for being extremely rude, and twenty-plus years ago, I experienced a significant dose firsthand. Yet France is no different than any other country, just a little slower in its response. If you give a smile, you will receive one, regardless of the language.

Everyone understands how they are treated. It is the basis of communication worldwide. So it isn’t the light that is different here, it is you. How you feel here, how you treat others, and the result of how you are treated in return. 

Or maybe it’s that you are the light.