Today, as I walked by the Seine with a few friends after class, we passed by little shops attached to the Seine's wall. A quick search on Google tells me there are called "Bouquinistes," and second-hand sellers have been lining the river for centuries (although the process became more formal in the early 1900s).
The Seine is described as being "the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves." What a beautiful description.
One of the students walking with us is nearly fluent in French (unlike me) and asked one of the vendors to show us a few of the books available for purchase. After showing us around, he eventually pulled out a large, heavily-bound book with an ornate cover. He flipped open to one of the first pages, yellow and spotted with age, and told us it was a first edition of Jules Verne's writing (which book, I couldn't tell, as the cover was in French). He continued speaking to my friend, and as he did, I gently picked up the book and held it in my hand.
It's incredible to think how much history that book must have. Who was the first bookshop owner to sell this? Who was the first owner? How many times had it been sold since? How did it survive so many years, overcoming aging, war, and even simply being lost? I wish I knew.
As I browsed the Bouquinistes, I couldn't stop thinking about my love for old things.
Like with the Jules Verne book, old things have such rich history. It's fun to imagine back on its origins, and all the trials it endured to last so long. And in many cases, how you are just the tiniest sliver of that history. In the centuries that book has survived, I picked it up one day, and now it's a part of my history in memory and in writing on this blog. It's in your history for reading this. It's just a single old book, and in fact, a new Jules Verne book still has history as it travelled from the publisher to the printer to Barnes & Noble last week.
I hope I can bring this perspective back to America more. I do have the perspective sometimes at home, to be certain. The last time I felt this way was at the end of the school year, going through the Yale Women's Center archives. There are dusty notebooks and letters and senior theses and publications from when women first walked onto Yale. Inserting a few my own documents into the archive seemed sacred. Similarly, when I sit next to the Women's Table and do work. Most of the time, however, I get too caught up into the daily rush or going through the motions to think about the history that was made where I stand. I probably shouldn't do that every second of my life, either, because it would be really exhausting. But it's worth doing more often, because it reminds me of how incredible moments in history don't just happen at monuments documented in textbooks and travel guides. It's like when I hear about the powerful rallies and activism that culminated on Yale's campus, and a professor shows you a photo and you see your dorm building in the background.
I think that's one central reason of why I love traveling abroad, though. When I'm in the U.S., I rarely think about the history of items and locations because it all feels so new. Abroad, especially in a city as old and old-appearing as Paris, everything I touch makes me feel like such a small piece of such a rich narrative, extending for earlier in history than I can imagine and infinitely beyond the present.
Ok, but enough existentialism.
I promise I'll write a more classic what-I've-done-so-far in Paris post shortly. But writing a blog like that feels, to be honest, boring. I've had an incredible time in the city so far. I've loved seeing monuments, exploring the streets late at night, trying new things (like eating duck! yum), and finding my favorite spots to do reading (or "reading" for 20 minutes and then taking a nap).
But also writing a full post like that feels super weird. Should I just write a list of places I went each day? It would probably be pretty uninteresting. Today: "I woke up, ate breakfast super slow, went to class, ate a falafel lunch, walked across the Seine and saw old books and monuments, read/napped at the Tuileries Garden (if I wrote every blog post in this format, napping would be mentioned EVERY day), went home, made dinner, read and socialized, wrote this blog, and went to bed."
Picking and choosing what to write about is overwhelming sometimes, on both days when it feels like you do "nothing" or opposite days where you do "everything." That's definitely part of why this is only my second blog post. Well that and jet lag. But on the other hand, I can't have every blog post be like this one, all self-reflecting and sounding a little too "deep." I'll get sick of myself .
Overall, my first few days in Paris so far have been breathtaking. There are dozens of things to see or do on practically every street corner. It makes me sad how little time I have hear to absorb it all, but I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I can't wait to see Musée d'Orsay tomorrow, so expect a blog soon on my never-ending love for Impressionist Art!
xoxo
The Seine is described as being "the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves." What a beautiful description.
One of the students walking with us is nearly fluent in French (unlike me) and asked one of the vendors to show us a few of the books available for purchase. After showing us around, he eventually pulled out a large, heavily-bound book with an ornate cover. He flipped open to one of the first pages, yellow and spotted with age, and told us it was a first edition of Jules Verne's writing (which book, I couldn't tell, as the cover was in French). He continued speaking to my friend, and as he did, I gently picked up the book and held it in my hand.
It's incredible to think how much history that book must have. Who was the first bookshop owner to sell this? Who was the first owner? How many times had it been sold since? How did it survive so many years, overcoming aging, war, and even simply being lost? I wish I knew.
As I browsed the Bouquinistes, I couldn't stop thinking about my love for old things.
(I was very much channelling my favorite one-episode character of all time, seen above. Who is this? Check the bottom of this post for the answer!)
Like with the Jules Verne book, old things have such rich history. It's fun to imagine back on its origins, and all the trials it endured to last so long. And in many cases, how you are just the tiniest sliver of that history. In the centuries that book has survived, I picked it up one day, and now it's a part of my history in memory and in writing on this blog. It's in your history for reading this. It's just a single old book, and in fact, a new Jules Verne book still has history as it travelled from the publisher to the printer to Barnes & Noble last week.
I hope I can bring this perspective back to America more. I do have the perspective sometimes at home, to be certain. The last time I felt this way was at the end of the school year, going through the Yale Women's Center archives. There are dusty notebooks and letters and senior theses and publications from when women first walked onto Yale. Inserting a few my own documents into the archive seemed sacred. Similarly, when I sit next to the Women's Table and do work. Most of the time, however, I get too caught up into the daily rush or going through the motions to think about the history that was made where I stand. I probably shouldn't do that every second of my life, either, because it would be really exhausting. But it's worth doing more often, because it reminds me of how incredible moments in history don't just happen at monuments documented in textbooks and travel guides. It's like when I hear about the powerful rallies and activism that culminated on Yale's campus, and a professor shows you a photo and you see your dorm building in the background.
I think that's one central reason of why I love traveling abroad, though. When I'm in the U.S., I rarely think about the history of items and locations because it all feels so new. Abroad, especially in a city as old and old-appearing as Paris, everything I touch makes me feel like such a small piece of such a rich narrative, extending for earlier in history than I can imagine and infinitely beyond the present.
Ok, but enough existentialism.
I promise I'll write a more classic what-I've-done-so-far in Paris post shortly. But writing a blog like that feels, to be honest, boring. I've had an incredible time in the city so far. I've loved seeing monuments, exploring the streets late at night, trying new things (like eating duck! yum), and finding my favorite spots to do reading (or "reading" for 20 minutes and then taking a nap).
But also writing a full post like that feels super weird. Should I just write a list of places I went each day? It would probably be pretty uninteresting. Today: "I woke up, ate breakfast super slow, went to class, ate a falafel lunch, walked across the Seine and saw old books and monuments, read/napped at the Tuileries Garden (if I wrote every blog post in this format, napping would be mentioned EVERY day), went home, made dinner, read and socialized, wrote this blog, and went to bed."
(My favorite reading and napping spot: the Tuileries Garden. I literally woke up from a nap, thought, "wow this is pretty," took a photo, and went back to my nap.)
Picking and choosing what to write about is overwhelming sometimes, on both days when it feels like you do "nothing" or opposite days where you do "everything." That's definitely part of why this is only my second blog post. Well that and jet lag. But on the other hand, I can't have every blog post be like this one, all self-reflecting and sounding a little too "deep." I'll get sick of myself .
Overall, my first few days in Paris so far have been breathtaking. There are dozens of things to see or do on practically every street corner. It makes me sad how little time I have hear to absorb it all, but I'm so grateful to have this opportunity. I can't wait to see Musée d'Orsay tomorrow, so expect a blog soon on my never-ending love for Impressionist Art!
xoxo
P.S. Answer: My favorite one-episode character? Sally Sparrow from the Doctor Who episode, Blink.
