A night in a bar in the Marais
Occasionally, you look around your life, flash on a memory from ten years earlier, and come full circle.
Tonight, I had dinner at Le Marche. It's something I do every time I come to Paris, for two reasons. One, their duck breast in spiced honey is otherworldly, but more importantly, when I came to Paris solo for the first time in 2004, Le Marche was the first restaurant I found and wandered into on my own. It's my first real memory of Paris as a solo traveler, and it carries the weight of ten years of memories.
That night back in 2004, I finished dinner, nervously - I hadn't gotten the hang of French restaurant manners yet - tipped exorbitantly, and wandered out into the night. Next door was a bar, a bar with English in the windows and on the sign, a bar that promised lots and lots of options for single malt scotches. It was called The Pure Malt, and I went in. The bartender took my order, shook his head disapprovingly, and thumped the scotch list on the counter in front of me. I tried something different and new, which turned into my favorite whisky, and ended up spending the evening chatting with my fellow bar patrons. One had been the hairdresser on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, while the other two were Australian lawyers on their honeymoon with extensive advice on how to get out of jail in Bali if you were caught for pot possession.
I have never been to Bali. I have never been arrested for possession. The closest I have ever come is when I tried to smuggle some primo German smoked meat back into the States on a flight from Bucharest and was told by a customs officer at JFK, "Sir, would you please show me your sausage". But it was a hell of a night.
Tonight, after eating at Le Marche, I went to the Pure Malt. It's still there, under new ownership. The bartender was a friendly sort, and we chatted about drinking and Halloween decorations and drinking and video games and drinking and, you get the idea. And then the couple at the table behind me got up to settle their tab. Lovely folks, very nice, and it turned out they were celebrating her birthday, which called for one more round, which I picked up because it was her birthday and strangers had been kind to me in this bar once upon a time, and then they started talking about Halloween and the makeup they'd done and how the gent of the couple hadn't played a video game since his fiancee had arrived in Paris and drinking and there were shots and another round of beers and then another round of shots to toast the ongoing birthday, which has rolled over the midnight mark but not yet elapsed in the young lady's former residence of Hawaii and...
And at a certain point I realized that it was still 2004 in that bar for me, that it would always be 2004 in that bar for me, only now I was the old-timer (of a sorts) raconteuring stories and damn if things hadn't come full circle.
I am older now. I am possibly wiser. I am certainly better at my craft, and possibly better at life, and happier with who I am. And a single night in a bar that ended without a fight, a collapse, an illness, a hookup, or a bill in the quadruple digits wouldn't seem to be a likely candidate for a touchstone. And yet, there I was, and there I was, and here I am.
Slainte.
Tonight, I had dinner at Le Marche. It's something I do every time I come to Paris, for two reasons. One, their duck breast in spiced honey is otherworldly, but more importantly, when I came to Paris solo for the first time in 2004, Le Marche was the first restaurant I found and wandered into on my own. It's my first real memory of Paris as a solo traveler, and it carries the weight of ten years of memories.
That night back in 2004, I finished dinner, nervously - I hadn't gotten the hang of French restaurant manners yet - tipped exorbitantly, and wandered out into the night. Next door was a bar, a bar with English in the windows and on the sign, a bar that promised lots and lots of options for single malt scotches. It was called The Pure Malt, and I went in. The bartender took my order, shook his head disapprovingly, and thumped the scotch list on the counter in front of me. I tried something different and new, which turned into my favorite whisky, and ended up spending the evening chatting with my fellow bar patrons. One had been the hairdresser on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, while the other two were Australian lawyers on their honeymoon with extensive advice on how to get out of jail in Bali if you were caught for pot possession.
I have never been to Bali. I have never been arrested for possession. The closest I have ever come is when I tried to smuggle some primo German smoked meat back into the States on a flight from Bucharest and was told by a customs officer at JFK, "Sir, would you please show me your sausage". But it was a hell of a night.
Tonight, after eating at Le Marche, I went to the Pure Malt. It's still there, under new ownership. The bartender was a friendly sort, and we chatted about drinking and Halloween decorations and drinking and video games and drinking and, you get the idea. And then the couple at the table behind me got up to settle their tab. Lovely folks, very nice, and it turned out they were celebrating her birthday, which called for one more round, which I picked up because it was her birthday and strangers had been kind to me in this bar once upon a time, and then they started talking about Halloween and the makeup they'd done and how the gent of the couple hadn't played a video game since his fiancee had arrived in Paris and drinking and there were shots and another round of beers and then another round of shots to toast the ongoing birthday, which has rolled over the midnight mark but not yet elapsed in the young lady's former residence of Hawaii and...
And at a certain point I realized that it was still 2004 in that bar for me, that it would always be 2004 in that bar for me, only now I was the old-timer (of a sorts) raconteuring stories and damn if things hadn't come full circle.
I am older now. I am possibly wiser. I am certainly better at my craft, and possibly better at life, and happier with who I am. And a single night in a bar that ended without a fight, a collapse, an illness, a hookup, or a bill in the quadruple digits wouldn't seem to be a likely candidate for a touchstone. And yet, there I was, and there I was, and here I am.
Slainte.
No comments have been added yet.
