Printemps

Printemps means spring. Printemps is also the name of the great French department store.

After my French course on Friday I decided a little people watching was in order. In Lyon it is beginning to feel like spring and Friday was a particularly lovely day for sitting outside and having a café and a patisserie on a park bench. I procured the necessary items: a delicious pastry filled with cream and coated with granulose sugar and an espresso from a quaint side street bakery and an “American style” bagel café respectively (for in France everything is sold separately).

Next I installed myself on a wooden park bench carved with pleasantries like “Tiphaine, je t’aime” and “Sarkozy est un voleur”. In Lyon, the general practice is for businesses is to close down for a lunch period from 12 o’clock to 2 o’clock. An American in France has a difficult time conceptualizing such a lazy lunch. After two weeks of barging into stores during this grace period and interrupting les temps de repose I feel like I am finally learning to take it easy for those 2 hours. It’s still a mystery to me what most workers do during this time, it appears some of them stay around their shops to deal with unaccustomed Americans but otherwise it seems to be one of the many unsaid rules in France to stay away between 12 and 2.

Consequently during the lunch break the overall pace of the city slows to a graceful meandering and people walk around the squares window shopping, buying baguette sandwiches and sitting on park benches eating patisserie and drinking espresso. Rue de la Republique is the main thoroughfare that bisects the Presqu’ile. It is wide and devoted solely to those who walk. Pedestrians rejoice. It connects all the major points of interest on the Presqu’ile from Perrache, to Bellecour, to Hotel de Ville, to l’Opera (and that’s as far as I’ve ventured but there could be more). And therefore Rue de la Republique has all the fabulous European shops one could hope for.

My chosen park bench was idyllically located on Rue de la Republique facing a groundfloor shoestore, upperfloor Spanish style apartments. Off to the right was the carousel. C’est juste comme ca en France, there are carousels in the street, that’s just how it is. On a park bench, in Lyon, it felt like spring.

People in France are complex. They are incredibly practical whilst being superfluous. They are kind and sincere all the while being snobbish and precocious. They are rational and irrational. They are a nation of contradictions. For example in France you can walk into a store and buy a cellphone in a matter of 10 minutes but to get the internet takes 3 weeks (and counting) of hard labour (sense the bitterness). People are generally very happy and law abiding, I think that this comes from the 5 weeks of vacation every French citizen is entitled to each year (everyone), but then again every day as I walk through the metro station I feel the ominous presence of the national army. They walk around with their fingers on the trigger of their rifles; keeping the peace. It seems to me that the army would have better things to deal with than the possible mental breakdowns of it’s citizens in train stations… um, like war perhaps? It seems to me that someone with 5 weeks of vacation a year would not have a mental breakdown in a train station. Besides they are more likely to be on vacation than in a train station.

It is a well-known fact that the French are very fashionable and I will attest that it is indeed, very true. Oh so true. Every single person is dressed incredibly well. It is as if Coco Chanel, displeased at the aesthetics of post-revolutionary France, decided to dress the entire country. Everyone, from the very old to the very young, from the rich to the beggars on the street is dressed impeccably. And there are no exceptions; since I’ve been here I’ve been looking for someone, anyone wearing a pair of sweatpants, I would even accept a leisure suit on a Sunday. Maybe catch someone out of the corner of my eye running out to get the paper. But no, the best I’ve come up with was a pair of track pants and they were nice and the guy looked Japanese. Everyone is a la mode. And this is the source for a contradiction that I am still having a hard time relegating in my mind. Clearly the French are spending a lot of money dressing themselves. Likely they are spending a large part of their income, the other part being devoted to Mediterranean vacations. This leaves a lot less capital to spend on fancy houses and cars. Which seems to be evident: the French live very simply. For the most part they live in studio apartments, townhouses, and small homes without yards. They drive very small commuter cars. Unlike most North Americans who strive for a bigger house, a bigger, faster car to measure success and happiness; the French would rather wrap themselves in the latest Jil Sander scarf and head to Corsica for a beach vacation. An interesting difference.

To demonstrate my point about France’s relation to fashion I will tell you about my visit to Printemps. After consuming my light pastry and struggling through my bitter espresso I decided to take a stroll through the great department store. I suppose, if you insist on an example, Canada’s The Bay would be something like France’s Printemps. But not really. I entered into the hats and scarves section. Every hat, every scarf was unique, creative and exquisitely made. Then I walked through the purse section. Much the same except in various shades of dead cow. Up one floor into the makeup section: so clean, so elegant. Up another floor and into the clothes. And the shoes. And the dresses. Sigh. So much attention to beauty; so much attention to exquisiteness; it distracts from reality but oh so easy to surrender to.

It was the perfect finish to the perfect French après-midi. I felt euphoric. Perhaps it is a positive sign that I am integrating into French life that a department store full of expensive things could incite this reaction. But I know it’s a bad sign for my budget.

“Truth is beauty, beauty truth. That’s all ye know on earth and all ye need to know” – John Keats