During my first trip to Paris in November of 2005, I had or witnessed experiences that I wanted to eventually assemble as stories or (dream big) as a screenplay. It’s what I told myself with each scene that either appeared before me or that I imagined as I wended my way through the Parisian streets, in métro stations, or on the trains. Recently, however, while skimming through a friend’s tumblr, I was reminded of a moment that still clings to my memory — one that occurred on my 51st birthday in 2006, during my third trip to Paris.
I was on my way to meet with my dear friend Waleska, a native of Madrid, Spain, who was going to school in Lyon, France at the time. She had a friend in Paris who was in the hospital, so she timed a visit to see him the weekend of my birthday. We planned to meet at Le Train Bleu, a restaurant at Gare de Lyon, a train station in Paris’s 12th arrondissement, where she was scheduled to arrive from Lyon at about 11:00 a.m.
I was staying at the Woodstock Hostel, not far from L’Anvers métro station, so I boarded a train there at about 10:00. At some point during the journey, a woman boarded the mostly empty car and sat diagonally from me, just inside the door, on the drop-down seat in the corner of the car, facing away from the direction the train was traveling. I don’t recall much about her except that she was probably in her thirties, was attractive, and had dark hair. In that moment, I guessed that she was on her way to work.
As I didn’t go anywhere in Paris without my camera, I held it in my lap. It was a Nikon CoolPix 8800, a kind of glorified point-and-shoot camera. It was bigger than the typical point-and-shoot, and had a swiveling viewing screen that I found particularly useful for taking candid photos of people without them realizing it. The métro was one of my favourite places for photographs of people, so, I no doubt had turned it on in anticipation of taking a picture of this unwitting passenger-subject. I watched as she got comfortable in her seat (as comfortable as one might get on a drop-down subway seat, I suppose), crossed her legs, leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
And then it happened.
In the clickety-clack rumble of the shaking, quaking métro train, I watched her face. Maybe I was waiting for the moment that I would absolutely know she wasn’t going to open her eyes and catch me taking her photograph, or maybe I was just looking at her and wondering what her story was. Was she indeed on her way to work or had she just left her lover’s place, heading home to catch up on her sleep? I know I wanted to take her photograph, but I only watched. Then, with her eyes still closed, a smile began to form on her face. Very, very slowly, the corners of her mouth lifted until her smile was full and her face was completely aglow, her eyes still closed.
And I, with camera in hand and itching to use it, refrained from lifting it to record the moment. I have made six trips to Paris since the fall of 2005 and I have made many friends there. I have walked along the banks of the Seine, visited Eiffel (a ritual I perform on my last day of any trip to my favourite city), the Louvre and many other significant historical sites, sipped espresso (and gulped caffé Americano) in cafés, missed flights, and have been propositioned by une vieille fille de joie, but this is one of my most treasured memories of Paris.
A woman and her smile. The photograph that I didn’t take.
