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It’s difficult to explain to people who don’t live in Paris how easy it is to forget that I’m here.
I’m not saying this to rub it in your faces, honestly. Sometimes I find myself sitting in front of movies about Paris, and I get homesick for the place that I discovered in my carefree years at AUP, when the only work I had was done lazily with Emese on the train back from Cannes, completely forgetting, for a moment, that my métro, boulot, dodo happens in the City of Lights. Needless to say, my daily rhythm has changed a bit over the past four years, and without my apartment in the 7th and groups of bright-eyed visiting students arriving every four months to remind me just how amazing Paris is, it’s easy to forget.
Which is why I’m so, so grateful for my job. You see… I work at Versailles.
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Versailles is the name of the château and the town, so let’s clarify my word choice: I do, in fact, work at Versailles, not in Versailles. Every Monday morning, I drag myself out of bed and onto the RER C for the hour-long commute to the gilded place of residence of several of France’s most famous kings.
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My job isn’t nearly as glamorous as that of Louis XVI, or even really that of Marie-Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, or the guy who shoveled out the royal stables. I teach English to the manager of a restaurant within the château’s park, so while my actual job involves lesson planning and verb tenses–fun, sure, but not in any way glamorous–my morning walk to work is made up of fountains and perfectly manicured trees.
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It’s not a bad way to wake up on Monday morning.
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On Mondays, the château itself is closed, but the park is opened, and while several locals jog along the paths of Marie-Antoinette’s famous garden, I’m mostly alone, the sun rising slowly and the mist lifting off the expanses of green lawn.
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I’m reminded of a game I played when I was younger, when I visited castles or huge mansions now converted into museums, imagining what the childhood of someone raised here would have been like. Would she have played hide-and-seek amongst the trees? Lain on the lawn to watch the clouds disappear behind the stone walls of the chateau? Splashed in the impossibly intricate fountains on warm summer days?
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It’s still a little cool for splashing in fountains, but with spring has come early sunrises, and so 8 am is the perfect time for slowly walking up the paths, listening to the birds in the trees, examining the nooks and crannies that, on my walk back to the station at 11:30, with tourists taking pictures and the midday sun firmly in the air, just isn’t the same.
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I guess I can’t blame it entirely on them. By the time my three-hour class is finished, I’ve moved on to the next thing on my to-do list. With the two or three cups of morning coffee coarsing through my system, I’ve got the rest of the day’s plans on my mind. Like I forget that I’m in Paris, I can even forget that I’m in Versailles.
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Spring has brought lovely, sunny weather, at least in this part of the world, and that’s a good thing. But when I’m preoccupied with my thesis, work, school, friends and spending pretty much every weekend riding the train back and forth to the Country Boy’s house for this birthday or that party, it can be difficult to take advantage of it. Still, I smell spring in the air, and I remember my last spring here. I was “being a writer,” so I spent a lot of time wandering, exploring Parisian markets and discovering little corners of the city I’m getting more and more comfortable in every day.
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But after so long, it’s easy to forget. I can walk straight past the Luxembourg gardens without even looking. I duck into Gibert Joseph without a glance at the St-Michel fountain. I’ve gotten too used to Paris.
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Almost a year ago today exactly, I was complaining on this very blog about missing Paris, about New York not living up to my expectations. A-year-ago me would be very displeased with my blasé attitude towards the City of Lights.
Well, no more. I’m done staring at my shoes like the inhabitants of Reality in The Phantom Tollbooth, letting the world disappear around me as I stare at my shoes. And I have Versailles to thank for it.
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This is an especially interesting discovery for me to be making now; I hate to admit it, but I’ve been starting to feel the same way about cooking as well. I still make dinner every night, but I don’t relish the creativity of making meals as much. I make the same things often, I don’t try new recipes. I still bookmark things that look nice, but I tell myself I don’t have the time.
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The other day, I took a breath. I stopped my constant mantra of, “I can’t, I don’t have time,” and instead told the Country Boy to invite his cousin, whose husband and daughter are away on a ski trip, for dinner. I picked up a pork roast–a new cut of meat for me–and rummaged through the fridge, pulling out an onion, an apple, a jar of French mustard. This is what happened, and it was delicious, not to mention inspiring.
I’m looking forward to next Monday, to see what else Versailles has to offer me.
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Mustard Pork Roast with Apples
1 green apple
1 onion
1 tsp. salt
1 pork roast (~700 g.)
2-3 Tbsp. spicy French mustard (you can also use whole grain mustard, if you have it)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Slice the apples and onions into thin half-moons, about 1/8 inch thick. Toss with salt and spread over the bottom of a baking dish.
Coat the pork roast in mustard, using a pastry brush if you have one. Place the roast over the apples and onions and roast for 30 minutes.
At the 30 minute point, remove the roast and turn it upside down. Add 2-3 tbsp. of very hot water to the bottom of the baking dish and toss the apples and onions. Return to the oven and continue roasting for another 30 minutes.
Rest the roast under foil for 10 minutes, then slice and serve with the reduced onions and apples.