Down the Champs Elysses
Jun. 16th, 2018 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If I had my way
I’d just walk out those doors
And wander
Down the Champs Elysses
Going café to cabaret
Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody calling me up for favors
No one’s future to decide
(Free Man in Paris: Joni Mitchell – 1974)
About two months ago, Kathy, my personal muse, announced that her grandniece Grace Parker had started a blog called Good Gracious. She reminded me that Grace had just graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, and was spending some time in Paris and London, before beginning work in New York.
“It’s about her experiences living and traveling alone in France”, Kathy explained. “It’s pretty good. I think you’d like it”.
I think I gave her a noncommittal response, like “Uh huh”, or “Sure”.
About 10 or 11 years ago I stopped reading blogs, and I don’t remember why. I was an avid reader in 2006, about the time I started writing my own blog. I was new to the genre and I wanted to see how it was done. I especially wanted to become a better essayist and writer. I figured the best way to begin was to write – and read the works of other essayists and bloggers. Initially I started with my son’s blog, Tablesaw: It’s the Saw of the Table, and slowly developed a library of about eight favorites, starting with Joan Didion. I even wrote a few essays about the bloggers I was discovering (see A Personal Narrative). However, slowly over time I stopped checking on these blogs and concentrated on writing my own. Perhaps I’d reached a level of confidence in my own personal style that I didn’t feel the need to compare or copy others. I just kept writing, with little curiosity in other blogs. It wasn’t until I read an obituary in the L.A. Times in May about the life and death of Ninalee Allen Craig, that the significance of Grace’s blog really hit me.
Ninalee Allen Craig became famous for her collaboration with another woman, Ruth Orkin, a photojournalist who, in 1951, was seeking a subject for a magazine photo spread about the experiences of women traveling abroad alone – a rare thing at the time. Ninalee Allen was a 23-year-old, adventure-seeking graduate of Sarah Lawrence College who had been traveling solo for months through France, Spain, and Italy. She agreed to the photo shoot in Florence, and there, in less than a minute Orkin captured what would become one of the most iconic photographs of the era, titled “American Girl in Italy”. The photo was fascinating – catching the trepidation, excitement, and courage of a young woman traveling alone in a foreign country. Suddenly, in my mind, the girl in Orkin’s photo was transformed from Ninalee into the newly minted, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Grace Parker, and it reminded me of my own experiences of traveling alone in a foreign country, and I felt the strongest need to read her blog and find out how she was doing.
Grace is the elder daughter of Jeff and Lynn Baber Parker, and the first granddaughter of a very special Greaney sister-in-law, Deborah Parker. Debbie passed away in 2003 (see New Beginnings), but she was always committed to the education of her children, Jeff , Christy, and Alicia, and supported all their personal and artistic pursuits and endeavors from their earliest years. Jeff, the eldest, concentrated on the arts and acting, beginning with local play productions in his youth, and graduating from USC with a BFA in acting. During that time he met Lynn Baber while participating in the Cherub Acting Progam at Northwestern University, near Chicago. Lynn came from an acting family with strong connections to Chicago Theater, and Jeff soon fell in love with her and Chicago. After their marriage they settled in Chicago, raised two daughters, and continued their mutual careers in acting, drama, and theatre. Grace would continue that artistic tradition, but in her own way.
I watched Grace grow up in vignettes of time, with, I must confess, no real in-depth or lengthy conversations. Jeff and Lynn would bring the girls to Los Angeles for holiday celebrations, or to visit family members, or Kathy and I would see her when we visited Chicago to watch Jeff perform in a play or musical. Grace would spend most of her time with her cousins, and I would concentrate on Jeff and Lynn. Kathy was my real source of family information. She was the conduit by which I heard about, and kept up with, what Grace, and all of Kathy’s other 25 nephews and nieces, was doing. I learned that Grace graduated high school in 2014 at Loyola Academy Chicago, and passed on USC to attend her mother’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and pursued a BFA. She graduated in May of 2018.
There are probably no greater transitional moments in the life of a young person as their graduations from high school and college – although they are very different. Upon leaving high school, one leaves their childhood behind and begins a period of experiential learning that will lead to adulthood. We separate from parents and tutors, physically and emotionally, begin mapping out our own course of study, and start practicing at life – albeit in the controlled environment of a college, college dorms, or off-campus apartments. It’s a heady time, never to be repeated (thankfully – if you remember some of the boneheaded decisions we made and actions we survived). Graduating from college, on the other hand, is another proposition. With diploma in hand, a young college graduate faces the vast, unknown territory of The Future. Hopefully with a solid intellectual, ethical, and moral compass in hand, but without a map to follow. It is a paradoxical moment filled with conflicting sensations and emotions. We feel scared and excited, meek and determined, courageous and cowardly. Yet as any explorer, we can only move forward with the aid of guides we meet along the way, and faith in ourselves. Sometimes the only way to find the path forward is to first discover ourselves. We need to experience life in new and strange places, filled with new people and sights. It is one of the roads less traveled, and it can offer boundless rewards – and I think Grace Parker is on one this summer as she travels through Europe alone.
I envy and admire what Grace is doing this summer, perhaps because I once shared something of her imperative to travel alone when I graduated from college in 1970. When I received my diploma from UCLA, I just wanted to get away. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next with my life. Join the Peace Corps, go to graduate school, or look into applying to law school? The Damocles Sword hanging over my head was the draft, since by graduating I’d lost my deferred status and was suddenly reclassified 1-A. The prospect of military service in Vietnam loomed threateningly on the horizon that year. So a summer trip to Mexico seemed eminently appealing. I could get away. Away from my parents, brothers, sisters, and even friends who lived in Los Angeles. I could leave everyone and all my doubts and questions behind, and experience something new, wonderful, and unknown. Mexico City held that promise for me. During a two-month stay I fell in love with this ancient cosmopolitan metropolis. I improved my Spanish and walked its broad avenidas, plazas, and mercados alone. I studied the architectural charm of its colonial homes and buildings, churches and patios. Everything was new and different, so I saw everyone as unique and fascinating. I filled those days with endless sightseeing and exploring. I discovered the new Metro subway system, and spent hours traveling up and down its routes, sitting in station plazas, and surveying the surrounding neighborhoods. I walked throughout the Zona Rosa, with its restaurants, cafés, and coffee houses, stopping at bookstores, and inspecting interesting shops and booths. On that trip I also brought along all my college vices (tobacco, caffeine, and alcohol) and cultivated them in new environments. I found comfortable male-only bars and pubs and sidewalk cafés where I could sit all day reading, writing, smoking, drinking, and just watching people go by. I even participated in a failed attempt at hiking up Popocatepetl, an inactive volcano outside of Mexico City. However, despite these similarities with what Grace is doing in Paris, I was never really ALONE. I may have traveled and explored by myself, and interacted with strangers and new experiences alone, but I LIVED with family members who were always nearby. Reading Grace’s blog gave me a window to her unique experiences. Kathy was right, Grace is a gifted and insightful writer and I would invite you to share in her adventures through Europe during this summer of ’18. You can find her at goodgraciousblog.com .
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If I had my way
I’d just walk out those doors
And wander
Down the Champs Elysses
Going café to cabaret
Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody calling me up for favors
No one’s future to decide
(Free Man in Paris: Joni Mitchell – 1974)
About two months ago, Kathy, my personal muse, announced that her grandniece Grace Parker had started a blog called Good Gracious. She reminded me that Grace had just graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, and was spending some time in Paris and London, before beginning work in New York.
“It’s about her experiences living and traveling alone in France”, Kathy explained. “It’s pretty good. I think you’d like it”.
I think I gave her a noncommittal response, like “Uh huh”, or “Sure”.
About 10 or 11 years ago I stopped reading blogs, and I don’t remember why. I was an avid reader in 2006, about the time I started writing my own blog. I was new to the genre and I wanted to see how it was done. I especially wanted to become a better essayist and writer. I figured the best way to begin was to write – and read the works of other essayists and bloggers. Initially I started with my son’s blog, Tablesaw: It’s the Saw of the Table, and slowly developed a library of about eight favorites, starting with Joan Didion. I even wrote a few essays about the bloggers I was discovering (see A Personal Narrative). However, slowly over time I stopped checking on these blogs and concentrated on writing my own. Perhaps I’d reached a level of confidence in my own personal style that I didn’t feel the need to compare or copy others. I just kept writing, with little curiosity in other blogs. It wasn’t until I read an obituary in the L.A. Times in May about the life and death of Ninalee Allen Craig, that the significance of Grace’s blog really hit me.
Ninalee Allen Craig became famous for her collaboration with another woman, Ruth Orkin, a photojournalist who, in 1951, was seeking a subject for a magazine photo spread about the experiences of women traveling abroad alone – a rare thing at the time. Ninalee Allen was a 23-year-old, adventure-seeking graduate of Sarah Lawrence College who had been traveling solo for months through France, Spain, and Italy. She agreed to the photo shoot in Florence, and there, in less than a minute Orkin captured what would become one of the most iconic photographs of the era, titled “American Girl in Italy”. The photo was fascinating – catching the trepidation, excitement, and courage of a young woman traveling alone in a foreign country. Suddenly, in my mind, the girl in Orkin’s photo was transformed from Ninalee into the newly minted, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Grace Parker, and it reminded me of my own experiences of traveling alone in a foreign country, and I felt the strongest need to read her blog and find out how she was doing.
Grace is the elder daughter of Jeff and Lynn Baber Parker, and the first granddaughter of a very special Greaney sister-in-law, Deborah Parker. Debbie passed away in 2003 (see New Beginnings), but she was always committed to the education of her children, Jeff , Christy, and Alicia, and supported all their personal and artistic pursuits and endeavors from their earliest years. Jeff, the eldest, concentrated on the arts and acting, beginning with local play productions in his youth, and graduating from USC with a BFA in acting. During that time he met Lynn Baber while participating in the Cherub Acting Progam at Northwestern University, near Chicago. Lynn came from an acting family with strong connections to Chicago Theater, and Jeff soon fell in love with her and Chicago. After their marriage they settled in Chicago, raised two daughters, and continued their mutual careers in acting, drama, and theatre. Grace would continue that artistic tradition, but in her own way.
I watched Grace grow up in vignettes of time, with, I must confess, no real in-depth or lengthy conversations. Jeff and Lynn would bring the girls to Los Angeles for holiday celebrations, or to visit family members, or Kathy and I would see her when we visited Chicago to watch Jeff perform in a play or musical. Grace would spend most of her time with her cousins, and I would concentrate on Jeff and Lynn. Kathy was my real source of family information. She was the conduit by which I heard about, and kept up with, what Grace, and all of Kathy’s other 25 nephews and nieces, was doing. I learned that Grace graduated high school in 2014 at Loyola Academy Chicago, and passed on USC to attend her mother’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and pursued a BFA. She graduated in May of 2018.
There are probably no greater transitional moments in the life of a young person as their graduations from high school and college – although they are very different. Upon leaving high school, one leaves their childhood behind and begins a period of experiential learning that will lead to adulthood. We separate from parents and tutors, physically and emotionally, begin mapping out our own course of study, and start practicing at life – albeit in the controlled environment of a college, college dorms, or off-campus apartments. It’s a heady time, never to be repeated (thankfully – if you remember some of the boneheaded decisions we made and actions we survived). Graduating from college, on the other hand, is another proposition. With diploma in hand, a young college graduate faces the vast, unknown territory of The Future. Hopefully with a solid intellectual, ethical, and moral compass in hand, but without a map to follow. It is a paradoxical moment filled with conflicting sensations and emotions. We feel scared and excited, meek and determined, courageous and cowardly. Yet as any explorer, we can only move forward with the aid of guides we meet along the way, and faith in ourselves. Sometimes the only way to find the path forward is to first discover ourselves. We need to experience life in new and strange places, filled with new people and sights. It is one of the roads less traveled, and it can offer boundless rewards – and I think Grace Parker is on one this summer as she travels through Europe alone.
I envy and admire what Grace is doing this summer, perhaps because I once shared something of her imperative to travel alone when I graduated from college in 1970. When I received my diploma from UCLA, I just wanted to get away. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next with my life. Join the Peace Corps, go to graduate school, or look into applying to law school? The Damocles Sword hanging over my head was the draft, since by graduating I’d lost my deferred status and was suddenly reclassified 1-A. The prospect of military service in Vietnam loomed threateningly on the horizon that year. So a summer trip to Mexico seemed eminently appealing. I could get away. Away from my parents, brothers, sisters, and even friends who lived in Los Angeles. I could leave everyone and all my doubts and questions behind, and experience something new, wonderful, and unknown. Mexico City held that promise for me. During a two-month stay I fell in love with this ancient cosmopolitan metropolis. I improved my Spanish and walked its broad avenidas, plazas, and mercados alone. I studied the architectural charm of its colonial homes and buildings, churches and patios. Everything was new and different, so I saw everyone as unique and fascinating. I filled those days with endless sightseeing and exploring. I discovered the new Metro subway system, and spent hours traveling up and down its routes, sitting in station plazas, and surveying the surrounding neighborhoods. I walked throughout the Zona Rosa, with its restaurants, cafés, and coffee houses, stopping at bookstores, and inspecting interesting shops and booths. On that trip I also brought along all my college vices (tobacco, caffeine, and alcohol) and cultivated them in new environments. I found comfortable male-only bars and pubs and sidewalk cafés where I could sit all day reading, writing, smoking, drinking, and just watching people go by. I even participated in a failed attempt at hiking up Popocatepetl, an inactive volcano outside of Mexico City. However, despite these similarities with what Grace is doing in Paris, I was never really ALONE. I may have traveled and explored by myself, and interacted with strangers and new experiences alone, but I LIVED with family members who were always nearby. Reading Grace’s blog gave me a window to her unique experiences. Kathy was right, Grace is a gifted and insightful writer and I would invite you to share in her adventures through Europe during this summer of ’18. You can find her at goodgraciousblog.com .
