Au bar

The advantage to having conversations with a group of drunk people in French is that they sometimes forget what you've already talked about (or perhaps your accent is unintelligible and they didn't understand the first time), and you get asked the same questions over again, which gives you the opportunity to practice saying the same things over and over - your age, your profession, what you're currently writing, why you were ensconced in the corner of the bar yesterday busily writing in your journal, what Americans tend to think of the French, etc.

I went to my regular cafe/bar today around 1pm for my daily café au lait. I got my coffee, retreated to a table in the back and began observing my fellow bar-goers/writing in my journal/watching the news on the bar's television. At one point I looked up and met the eye of a 50-something blue-eyed bald man wearing a baseball cap, who gestured and repeated in French until I understood.

"Your eyes are very pretty." He slapped the bicep of the older gentleman beside him with the back of his hand and pointed at me, saying something I couldn't make out.

The older gentleman looked at me. "Yes," he said. "Eyes like the Mediterranean sea."

"Thank you," I said with a warm smile, and went back to writing.

The news: pro-Palestine protests (some violent) followed by sports. Tennis. How can one hold in one's heart simultaneously the grief & outrage assoc. w/ ppl killing ppl alongside that which brings us joy? My heart is not big enough, my feels organs not skilled enuf to recognize & live both simultaneously. After seeing that news segment (signs in French

I was interrupted by Angel, the owner-wife, calling my name. She said something rapidly in French and then repeated in English, "This man wants to invite you to a drink." She gestured to the man wearing the baseball cap. "What would you like?" she asked in English. I nodded to the man and asked for another café creme.

I don't know the etiquette for accepting a drink from someone, but since I want to practice my French and these men had made the first move, so to speak, I grabbed my stuff and joined them at the bar. Angel informed them that I'm Américaine. I tried to start a conversation with them, but they seemed discomfited by my sudden nearness. I guessed I'd broken code without knowing it. Or maybe they just didn't want me to think they were hitting on me?

The older gentleman rummaged around in a plastic sack he'd brought and took out two wigs, which he and the baseball cap wearer put on, much to the amusement of everyone in the bar.

No sooner was I done with my second coffee than Angel informed me that the couple across the bar - she blond and about my age, he a little older with intense hazel eyes and a spiderweb tattooed across the back of one hand - wanted to buy me a glass of something. I had noticed he was drinking Leffe blonde, one of my favorite beers. I ordered one of the same and took it over to drink with them.

Several introductions and a heated debate about whether Sacre Coeur is a church, a cathedral or an abbey (in the end it was decidedly a basilica) later, the older gentleman who'd compared my eyes to the Mediterranean offered to buy my next beer.

And so it was that I was initiated into the community.