The other day I woke with song lyrics on my lips and a melody in my head. “…And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy / French cologne….” Joni Mitchell. I knew why. The night before, I’d put clean white French linens on my bed. And though I do wear French cologne, every single day, my brain registered the less quotidian of the two and that’s what stuck. I woke up singing.
When I’m not in Paris, I’m thinking about Paris; and when I’m not thinking about Paris, I’m wishing I were in France. The bed linens get me there, at least metaphorically. They were worth lugging back—linens may lie flat, but a duvet and shams are surprisingly heavy—because they carry me back.
Who’s to say how and why our memories are carved? Which ones, out of all our experiences, are selected by some mysterious process to live on? I don’t have a clue, but of this I am sure: once memories are etched, it’s our senses that tease them out, again and again. I’m talking here about the small stuff. The scent of petunias, the smell of autumn in the evening air, the taste of scallops—all conjure a time and place for me.
And then there’s sound.
Quick! Tell me what the place where you live sounds like. Could you identify it by sound alone? We hear a lot about seeing Paris; not so much about hearing Paris. Language aside, if I were plopped down blindfolded in the middle of Paris, I would know I was there. Its aural sense is as unique as a fingerprint.
I know I’m in Paris the minute I hear the unmistakable five musical tones that define Charles de Gaulle airport. I know morning is on the other side of my shuttered windows when I hear la gardienne hosing down the courtyard and watering the flowers. The tiny streets of the Marais are an accepted alternative to the even tinier sidewalks, and also function as the pedestrian passing lane when you’re in a hurry. I know when to hop back up on the curb as a car approaches from behind because of the muted rubbery sound of wheels on the cobblestones. I know where I am by the castrato singing under the arcade at Place des Vosges every weekend.
One sound stumped me. The windows in my apartment have different open options, including one that converts to a transom. They face the courtyard three floors below, except one, which faces an open, narrow-ish shaft between buildings. It’s in the little entry, up high. I keep it cracked open at the top, day and night, whatever the weather. Not long ago, I was in the apartment working and paused, hearing a sound. I realized I’d heard this sound before, many times, in fact. Someone wearing floppy-heeled shoes was clip-clopping up the stairs but never reaching an apartment: an eternal clickety-clack to nowhere. That wasn’t it—I looked, just in case—but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, exactly. It echoed slightly, had irregular intervals. I forgot about it.
A few days later, I was on my way out, got down to the courtyard, and saw it was raining. And then it dawned on me. Of course! Fat raindrops dripping from somewhere, landing somewhere, were echoing back up through my open window!
It’s a soothing sound, a peaceful backdrop while working. And I have my own personal weather gauge, too, telling me without my looking outside whether I need to grab an umbrella on the way out. But it’s not at all like the sound of rain.
It is the sound of Paris.