Métro Magic

You know, a funny thing happened to me on the métro last night...

I was on my way home after an unexpectedly longer-than-usual stop at the Monoprix at Péreire-Levallois, as I needed a few things in order to assemble a halfway decent meal for my boy and me. I had also just come from my regular weekly English lessons with the little French boy from hell, and although things pretty much seemed to be going wrong all around (including the mile-long lines at the caisses in the supermarket) I was still in a fairly decent mood. I refused to allow myself to be pulled down by any negativity -- something I've really been working on lately -- and I wanted to enjoy every positive moment of my evening, in spite of whatever life decided to throw my way.

After tumbling out the market door and down the street to the subway stop, salmon, white wine and mesclun green salad (along with some other random comestibles) in tow, I waited patiently on the quai for the train to arrive. For some bizarre reason, every time I stop for groceries after my English lesson, the wait at the station afterwards always seems interminably long. Once the train showed up, I squeezed onto the rush-hour-packed car and tried to keep my balance with both hands full. Normally I would have set one bag down and grabbed the bar in the middle, but I (mistakenly) assumed that this particular métro line wasn't as violent as some others, and that by some miracle I wouldn't collide into the person next to me. Ahem. Again, mistakenly. As the train screeched to one of those completely inexplicable halts, the conductor hitting the brakes as hard as possible, I careened forward, and out of the blue a petite gal with long, curly dark hair next to me held my arm and acted as a sort of pillar for me for the next station or two.

She smiled knowingly and said, "T'inquiète pas. Pleins de sacs, heure de pointe, beaucoup de monde -- je sais ce que c'est !" No worries -- you've got arms full of bags, it's rush hour and the train is super-crowded. I couldn't help but laugh and smile back, nodding in agreement, and from that point foward the mundane métro ride became enjoyable somehow. A bit further along, after shifting around the train carriage a bit to allow more passengers to climb on, she looked down and said, "En plus vous lisez de la super bonne littérature ! J'ai adoré ce roman... Je n'ai lu que deux de ses livres, mais c'est génial." She was admiring my choice of reading, which again was unexpected, because most people usually don't say a thing -- they just stare at your reading material, or read over your shoulder. I had one of my recent purchases with me, Nancy Huston's Dolce Agonia. I started to answer, wanting to add my agreement on how I was enjoying the novel so far, but suddenly I realized I had reached my stop.

Oh, this is me! Merde ! And I had to hop off the train, awkwardly, arms and hands fumbling with my bags. "Bonne soirée !" And that was it. Such a nice interlude, a great parentheses in the middle of an ordinary day.

And there you have it, folks: proof that Parisians really can be kind and lots of fun! I wanted to stay on that train and get to know her better... Shame I didn't have a few more stops...