NINE WALKING

The Grains of Wood

In 1965, the 16th arrondissement reaffirmed itself in cinema as the district of affluence and power when a traffic warden retracts his order to Emilio Largo’s illegal parking when the Bond villain steps out of the car in Thunderball. The notion that the atmosphere of a neighborhood varies with its average household income is compelling. However, I made an conscious effort to not hold any expectations of the neighborhood before my walk in it. It was out of my past experience of reality falling short, or being simply different, from my imagination. 

The weather had the poise of a goddess — beautiful outlook and piercing coldness. Perhaps I had grown accustomed to the aesthetic of Paris, the monotonous Haussmann residential buildings of the 16th did not sweep my feet off the ground. I did notice the steady lines of vacant taxis in the curves of the roads as I ascended from the metro station. The metro is for servants. Someone said that somewhere to account for the taxis. I giggled to myself at the thought of that. 

The low temperatures and caustic breezes of wind made me choose to walk on the sides where the sun shone. It, along with sunscreen, was becoming a habit since I started walking in Paris. I never liked being in sun. Shying away from it was as intuitive as a mimosa touched. Legs shrugging back into the blanket when the window light hit the bed. Detours taken in place of sunlit routes.  Yet the sunlight in cool weather was much appreciated. Whatever amount of warmth it provided, sometimes corresponding with its brightness, sometimes not, was a rare commodity. 

This walk is remembered in a faint golden hue, as the literary flair of Balzac had speckled the 16th with fairy dust. Parisian Green served as the detail accent of Maison de Balzac and its neighbors.  This shade of green is particular to Paris, reminiscent of the many bronze statues that scattered around the city. 

The residence of Honoré de Balzac had a panoramic view of Paris with the Eiffel Tower. To have been situated in a scenery with such wealth of inspiration it would have been inhuman to not be a creative. The environment always had a hold on me that it determines what I choose to do in order to get where I want to be. I remain curious about the surroundings of the Maison’s two other peers, museums dedicated to literature, Maison de Victor Hugo and one with the most distinctive name, Maison de la Vie Romantique of George Sand.

Perhaps de Balzac shared my sentiments, seeing he arranged outdoor furniture in his garden of flora. Their remarkable pristine condition is indubitably intentional. In fact, their existence possibly even staged by later guardians of this house museum.The table is a severed French oak sessile tree, Quercus petraea, of the white oak genus. It is mainly used in construction, shipbuilding and in France, it is most appreciated for making the oak barrels for wine. The oak for this special function is measured against its own set of standards. 

The wood grain is assessed to identify the environmental conditions where the tree is grown — in particular, water and climate. Sessile oak has fine grain. Its ring spacing is examined to determine the presence of wood characteristics that affects the spirit it contains such as whiskey lactones and ellagitannins.

Wood, like the French aristocracy, reflects its history in itself. The conditions it grows in, soil, macro climate, micro climate, ecological cohabitants and underground aquifer specifics, present themselves in the physical attributes of the wood. Furthermore, since the temperament of nature is ever so fickle, conditions are never consistent throughout the region. Hence, each tree is unique.

De Balzac, on the other hand, has a family history that deviates from the regular household of the 16th. The Balzac family did not descend from generations of wealth. Balzac’s father, born Bernard-Francois Balssa, came from a poor family in the south of France. His ambition to elevate his social status was achieved in after 16 years of struggle in Paris when he finally became Secretary to the King’s Council and a Freemason. In the French tradition where appearances are everything, he changed ‘Balssa' to a more noble-sounding ‘de Balzac’. 

The nosy hearsay I picked up in Paris inform me that even today, households whose wealth decayed with the basic principle of imperialism, capitalism, globalization etc — greed — try their best to keep their estate, utilizing three to four rooms of the the thirty-odd in the mansion. In my walk, I looked out for lifeless windows, suspicious of the financial situation of the family behind it. It brought back memories of walks in the Upper East side, and Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. Manhattan, with her menacing bankruptcy laws and coercing property prices, is much more unforgiving towards those who had fallen out of grace and tumbled down from riches. 

In the August of the year before this walk, I strolled the rows of vineyards in Bordeaux. There, I encountered many other French-speaking visitors, whom hailed from Paris. I deduced that they were familiar with the 16th, but not as residents. Instead, of the nine or ten encounters, six worked or owned businesses there while I never was able to figure out the historiography of the other three. Later, I was told that the stores of this gentle neighborhood suspend operations for the month of August. The residents vacation elsewhere to escape the waves of tourists and the members of its industry see summer holidays as a necessity too. C'est la vie. 

I completed this walk in the Champs des Mars beneath the Tour Eiffel. All of Paris had came out for the sun and I was seeking out for cherry blossom trees. Wuhan, Hangzhou, Tokyo, Kyoto, Washington D.C., Seattle, were overgrown with cherry blossoms at the time and I wanted to be part of the epidemic very badly. To my disappointment, Parisian urban landscape planners only saved not more than five plots for the parks I had visited thus far. It was like eating cheese-pairing, blander European Anjou pears in France while craving sweeter, juicier Korean Shingo pears, a mediocre substitute to a gastronomical fantasy. This kind of disappointment from the distance between reality and expectation is a symptom of nostalgia, wanderlust and homesickness. I believe I am diagnosed with all three.