Ali and the Contact Juggler

Okay guys--I know a video was supposed to go up here next. But that was Renée's thing, and unfortunately, because her computer had the clap (which turned out to be terminal), she had to reformat. She hasn't lost her video...it just isn't playing sound. We will figure it out A.S.A.P. and get it up here as soon as possible.

In the meantime, so all our faithful readers do not believe us to be dead, I'll do another post. This story took place the very same day I wrote "Ode to Grève" on the blog and is quite obviously about me and a contact juggler. Does everyone know what a contact juggler is? Everyone seen "The Labyrinth?" With David Bowie? It's a children's movie. Anyway, what they do in that movie with the glass ball is contact juggling. For those of you who haven't seen "The Labyrinth"...google it, you lazy asses!

And now for the story.

So I'm at Place de Clichy waiting to change to the 13 to get home. I just left a dinner party because I was miserable. I'm so homesick and I'm afraid everything at home is changing without me so much that everything will be different when I get back. Unrecognizable. And to top it all off, I can't make friends here. Because my French is awful! Stilted and peppered with errors. I continually sound like an idiot, every minute of every day, and everyone knows that's not cool with me.

So in my sour mood, I'm just wishing my gosh darn train would arrive. I turn my head to impatiently look for the train (as if it will make it come faster) when I see a scruffy-looking man with a glass ball on his head. Being that "The Labyrinth" was hands-down my favorite childhood movie, I know exactly what this glass ball is for. And I crack a tiny smile.

The man sees me smile and I think, "Oh, great, this guy thinks I'm hitting on him now" because it is against the social code to smile at anyone in the metro. In Paris, you have to look spitting-mean all the time. No smiling. No laughing. No fun. But seeing that I had smiled, the man began to juggle.

Now everyone on the platform is watching. And I'm grinning like an idiot. Of course there are people who pretend not to see. Who keep to the rule that fun in the metro is outlawed. Taboo. But then there are the rest of us who think that contact juggling looks like magic. And it does, if you've ever seen it. It looks like the glass is floating and the guy is just moving his hands around it.

As he's juggling, the train arrives. So he stops and begins to follow me on to the train. And I think, "Great. Another French man is going to tell me how beautiful my eyes are." So just in case this man thinks he's going to sweep me off my feet, I choose a car on the train filled with military men in camouflage carrying M16's. They've got my back in case this man wants to rape me.

Now we're in the train, and the contact juggler begins talking to me rapidly in French. Usually, anyone talking to me on the metro would get the cold shoulder. It's the cultural norm: in the metro, there is no smiling. No talking. No laughing. No fun. But I figured, I've got the M16 men in case it goes sour and this guy made me smile during a time when my smiles are rare, so I'll talk to him for a couple minutes. He get's the benefit of the doubt...

Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, my French is atrocious. And I couldn't really understand what he was saying oh, so quickly. So I tell him (in French) that I speak English waaaayyyy better than I speak French. So he tries it in English, which is a disaster. I got one word: tubes. So I finish my thought with "If you speak slowly in French, I will understand you. I hope" (in French, of course.)

So he says to me (again in French, but veeery slowly this time) "I can't believe this little glass ball has the power to make people smile in the metro. Parisians never smile in the metro. And that, in my opinion, is real magic."

At this point, the train is stopping at La Fourche. So he gets out and begins juggling again, right in front of the doors. At this point, everyone in the car is straining to see. And I mean everyone. At the end, he mimes biting a string above the ball and let's it fall to the floor. He takes a bow. And those military men behind me with tough guy expressions and the guns? They clap. And they say to each other how amazing that was, big smiles on their faces.

I think this moment right here--knowing that magic is real and humanity exists--has improved my mood for the better. I think this is the turning point of my depression here in Paris. When I get homesick or when I feel like an idiot, I just have to remember that I know a secret. Magic is real. And I discovered it in the Paris metro.