After I successfully purchased mon saumon, I was ready to sling my bag over my shoulder and head home. Then I noticed a stand selling jus de pomme (apple juice), freshly squeezed. The scent hit me and suddenly I was no longer in Paris. They say scent is one of the strongest producers of nostalgia. And It must be true because it only took an instant, but I had left the market and arrived somewhere else entirely. I was transported back to a different place and a different time, when I was five or six years old, with my mom and brother going apple picking.
Hot apple cider and freshly baked apple-cinnamon donuts warmed the otherwise chilly air. Hay rides and halloween decorations dotted the orchard. For me, this was the greatest part of being a child. This was fall, the beginning of a new adventure, the beginning of holidays and their excitements, the chance to spend time with missed cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Picking apples fresh from the orchard is where I first fell in love with nature and all it gave to me, to us.
So you can bet that I bought that jus de pomme, and opened it up and poured a glass first thing when I returned home. And if the smell hadn't been enough, the taste, which was more like that of fresh cider than juice, continued to carry me through time. But now I thought of NY and NJ, back home, where many of my friends and family are enjoying the fall, perhaps apple or pumpkin picking on their own or with their loved ones, getting ready for Halloween, choosing costumes and raking leaves. I thought of how much I truly love our seasons, and the traditions that we use to celebrate those seasons. And I began to wonder what traditions and festivities do they have here in Paris? What creates les papillons** in the bellies of les petites enfants?
So I did a bit of research after cooking some petite dejeuner with the ingredients I bought from the market:
Le sandwich: pain avec un oeuf, les champignons et du beurre.
With my tummy full, I began my search for fall festivities here in Paris and found several exciting happenings including Festival Paris Cinema, Festival de Films des Femmes (Women's Filmes), International Dance Festival, Fete des Vendanges de Monmartre celebrating the annual wine harvest (thats right wine lovers!), mois de la Photo (photography month) and what I found especially enticing, a little something called Nuit Blanche, which literally translates to "white night".
Image taken from Nuit Blanche, 2014.
The all-night everything-artistic celebration known as Nuit Blanche officially began in 2001. However the concept that eventually birthed it was created back in 1989 in Nantes, France. In Paris, Nuit Blanche includes street art, high art, pop culture, spoken word and other live performance art, museums, exhibitions, and galleries to name but a few. The entire city is transformed into an artistic playground that literally lights up the night. Best of all? It's free for everyone!
Shot of Eiffel Tower lit up for Nuit Blanche.
While the concept has spread to several cities, Paris continues to celebrate their own White Night every October, choosing a different theme each year. Unfortunately, Nuit Blanche 2015 took place the night before I arrived (October 3rd), and one of the main events was just steps from my apartment at MLK Park! But I was delighted to learn that this year's theme was none other than good ol' Maman Nature, with a focus on climate change and rising water levels. Feed your appetite for culture and read all about it here: https://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.sortiraparis.com/arts-culture/balades/guides/54413-nuit-blanche-2015-paris-et-ile-de-france&prev=search
What better way to celebrate the fall than to focus on the environment? Although I may be in a new country, a different city, it's still one earth, to which we all are apart. Just like the warm apple cider I used to sip as a child, the jus de pomme I enjoyed this morning would not be possible without the generosity of the changing season. Nor would that annual wine harvest that brings pleasure to so many, or the pumpkin picking we all loved as kids. In its own way, Paris has illuminated the joy and necessity of being mindful of all of life's pleasures, big and small, new and old. If we are not, then they might not be around for our enjoyment (or our children's enjoyment) in the future.
Paris has found many ways to cherish it's history, while still making room for the implementation of modern, adaptive traditions, like that of Nuit Blanche, and even the Batignolles Saturday Market, which is 100% organic, 100% local, and 100% sustainable. Nobody wants to think of Mother Nature as getting older, but like everything else, she is aging (we haven't helped!) and with that aging comes adjustments. Sometimes these adjustments require not much more than simply taking a look back and remembering the joys of our youth, what really made us happy then? Do we need more now or Can we reinvent? Once we have our inspiration, our reason, perhaps the changes will become themselves an organic, artistic process. Perhaps in certain instances we will just have to go back to the basics, simplify. If nothing else, let us do as the French do and light up the night for a brighter tomorrow.
Nuit Blanche 2015 Celebration Addressing Climate Change
Pics from Batignolles Organic Open-Air Market:
* organic food
** butterflies
Oh and one other fact about small, local markets (where there is no room for grocery carts!): you can eat fresh everyday, never needing to buy in bulk (i.e. waste, for most), never eating food lacking in nutrition and never biting off more than you can chew!
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