I’m not sure if this is a cliché (yet), but I always thought, at some point, someone should have said “Young Americans visit Paris to find themselves, but the lucky ones lose themselves.” The koan-like notion is neither advice nor admonition, but somehow instructional-sounding nevertheless. I recited similar words to Three House MultiMedia intern extraordinaire Alex Freeman last night, while he hosted his own going-away dinner at Rin’s Thai with the west end denizens of Building 3.
At 19, Freeman is no slouch in the expat department, having visited locales hither and yawn on at least three continents so far as I could count. Next, he leaves for a protracted stay in Paris as part of a “semester abroad” program. There is no doubt that Freeman has both lost and found himself several times on his travels, so my remark was surely more toast than tutelage. However, I couldn’t help but be struck by our traveler’s age and that of 19th century Parisian enfant terrible Arthur Rimbaud (who would write everything that he would ever write by age 19 before turning to a life of gun-running and general excess). Though a markedly different fate certainly lays in store for Freeman, I’m sure at some point during his adventure, Rimbaud’s poem “Sensation” might make some sense.
Through blue summer nights I will pass along paths,
Pricked by wheat, trampling short grass:
Dreaming, I will feel coolness underfoot,
Will let breezes bathe my bare head.
Not a word, not a thought:
Boundless love will surge through my soul,
And I will wander far away, a vagabond
In Nature – as happily as with a woman.
