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« ... j'ai cru qu'on pouvait définir l'aventure : un événement qui sort de l'ordinaire, sans être forcément extraordinaire. On parle de la magie des aventures […] Pour que l'événement le plus banal devienne une aventure, il faut et il suffit qu'on se mette à le raconter…»

- Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Anonymity

When you're living in a city with some 2, 233, 818 other people, it's easy to feel a little lost in the crowd sometimes.

Before coming to Paris in January, I remember watching a French film, called simply "Paris", which centers around the theme of a main character who watches other people's lives go by from the balcony of his apartment.  Looking out my own window, I feel a bit of a connection to the main character in that film.  

Coffee and Paris
Scene from "Paris"

 My friend Dan's window looks out on an incredible view of the Eiffel Tower on the far left, the Arche de Triomphe, la Défense and Sacré-Cœur. It's a view I've looked at almost every day for the past 16 weeks and 4 days since I arrived here, and yet I don't think I could ever get tired of it.

But, looking closer, I'm also captivated by the other details. After the view, the first thing you notice is the quietness. Most nights, you hear nothing but the sound of the gentle breeze, occasionally even a few birds chirping. But in comparison to my window, which faces the street, from this side there's no traffic noise...it's calm. And then your thoughts will inevitably be interrupted by the sound of laughter or chatter from the balcony of a nearby apartment. In connection to the film I mentioned, I, too, find myself surprised by how much I can observe of other people's lives. Little details -- like that, from my window, I often see the same little old lady walking down the street, carrying her groceries, taking her sweet time. Or that the family in the apartment across from me has a cute black & white cat who loves to nap on the windowsill.


Paris sunset -- view from Dan's window
  
In a world where we feel connected to friends and family 24/7, making the adjustment to city life can be a bit overwhelming at times. A couple weeks ago, feeling the need for a break from work, I decided to take a short walk, leaving behind my phone. It hit me that for the duration of that 20-minute walk, no one in the world was able to contact me or knew my precise whereabouts. I was somewhere in the 7e arrondissement of Paris, no phone, most of my friends and family across the Atlantic Ocean. I couldn't have possibly been more anonymous than I was for those short moments. It was a bit liberating.

Paris is a city in which it's easy to maintain a certain degree of anonymity. On the métro, we have short encounters with people. We make eye contact, sometimes give each other an understanding glance or a smile, or offer our seats to those who look laden with heavy grocery bags or weary after a rough day at work. But after this fleeting instant of connection with a stranger, we leave, knowing it's improbable we'll ever see each other again. Only in a huge city like Paris would that type of interaction be possible. 

And yet, despite this anonymity, oddly enough, I feel a part of a sort of community. By understanding a sort of unspoken pattern of social norms and behaviours that identify me as a local, I feel oddly connected in some ways to those around me. Interactions with tourists are what make me realize that my behaviour has indeed been adapted to my surroundings, because I realize I've adopted the typical parisian norms and social 'rules' for behaviour  that distinguish me from the tourists who don't behave in that way. From norms such as speaking in a low voice in public places to biding by the rules of "métro étiquette" (especially important during rush hour), my behaviours are something I now share in common with all of those 2.2 million other habitants of Paris. It's pretty remarkable.



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