I am trying to get by spending as little as possible here in the universe's most expensive city, which is more challenging at some times than at others. For example, when I get the majority of my weeks 's worth of groceries for 8 Euro? Easy. When I pay 2 Euro for water because I forgot my bottle at home? Hard. When I read enough Hemingway that I feel full? Easy. When I pass the billionth pâtisserie in a row? Hard. You get the idea.
But something that makes it very easy is all the free entertainment. I suppose that most parks are like this in most real cities, especially in the summer, but indulge my suburban bias. I could sit in the Jardin de Luxembourg for hours and hours, and if, miraculously, I tired of it, I could go sit in another park for a few hours more. It's not just people watching, it's everything watching. The children running away from their nannies. The traveling families having budget picnics on the benches. The ducks! They're so colorful when they flap the water out of their wings and Bob their beaks under water. The purple and green. Gorgeous! Who knew? Probably everyone, but they still delight me. There are the flowers and the fountains and the innumerable statues. The old men reading their newspapers and the children shouting on the playground. But my absolute favorite thing to watch and the world's most generous offering of free entertainment are the sports.
There's everything. Tennis and squash courts. Basketball. Soccer anywhere that two stationary objects lie close enough together to resemble a goal. And I feel that I'm constantly discovering new corners of trodden down greenery where completely unfamiliar or entirely made up games are being played. The act of discovery is an adventure unto itself, without even mentioning the delightful pleasure of watching. Perhaps this is a bit voyeuristic, but I choose to embrace it as one of the many luxuries afforded the solo traveler, and free luxuries are not something I pass on quickly.
Today I sat for some time and watched a game whose name I do not know. I want to call it bocce, but that's a largely unfounded temptation. There's a set of...plots, I'll call them plots, under the shade of the trees by one of the western entrances to the jardin de Luxembourg. Its divided in two and surounded by a 9 inch high wooden wall. The whole space is roughly the size of an elongated basketball court and it's split in two by some coat racks, because, I suppose, the French men are nothing if not gentlemen. The winner of the previous round flicks a small neon sphere of plastic across the gravel, and from what I could gather there are two teams and each man has the challenge of getting his brass balls as close to the speck as possible, throwing these (pretty heavy, if I were to guess from the thud they made when they landed) balls from a prescribed circle. That's the basic premise.
Beyond that there are two ways to throw and two ways to play. There is the high arching, tip toe climbing, beautiful toss of the get-it-as-close-as-possible. It looks like a man releasing a bird he has personally nursed back to health only for it to turn to splatter paint at the moment of release. Why does no one make statues of this? Then there is the low to the ground, straight shooting, aggressive, full of targeted precision. The men cycle through their superstitions, grind their teeth and aim with confidence, knocking enemy brass out of their territory. An upsetting if not useful truism for life: there are two ways to live: lightly, concerning yourself with your own success, or heavily, ensuring your accomplishments by cutting down those who threaten you. At least in this there is an obvious winner.
But there is a third option, which brings me to my other favorite spectacle. Across the street from my apartment there is a croissant shaped park that hugs the corner. On the right side of the smile are benches and flowers and small looping footpaths, big enough for a children's bicycle race. On the left side of the smile is a playground in the corner and a large staircase, sweeping might be apt, that curves down from a building I have not been able to identify with four walls of trelices and finishes in the park with a fou rain marking the mid point between four well defined goal posts.
Every day there are games: Boys v girls, brother v brother, older siblings v younger siblings with the youngest toddling around in their elders' shadows. A few days ago there was a great game between a group of 7 ten or eleven year olds. They picked teams by putting their arms around each other. They rotated goalie when the goal tender got bored. The younger sister who watchmen from the fourth step up within one of the goals was not abused or reprimanded. When a goal was scored everyone smiled at the play well made. No threats were made against the goalie. No gloating was to be had. And the game was ended not with a score or an injury, but with a call from home to watch the masters perform in the world cup game. And so we have the third option, the best of all. Live in such a way that others' joys are your joys, that individual happiness becomes group happiness, and you will be both light and successful.
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