A certain panic struck the women in the apartment as they realized that this was the final shopping day before leaving Paris. We decided that it would be a boys’ club morning and, as the girls sped off to relieve shop owners of their souvenirs, we made our way just a few hundred yards from the apartment to the Picasso Museum. After a bit of confusion in gaining entry – cash only, exact change, please – we entered what must be a converted mansion, situated as it is in the middle of the residential 3rd arrondisement.
How does one prepare two small boys for the absurd art of Picasso? I must admit, I anticipated pulling them to the side to remind them not to snicker and point at the funny pictures. Yet there is something classic about Picasso’s paintings, something in the fractured features and tortured torsos of his subjects that precludes ridicule. They challenge the viewer to understand, and my sons were genuinely curious about the exhibit and the man that created the art. We viewed virtually the entire exhibition, and bought a book on the museum to match the one I purchased after our odyssey at the Louvre.
After letting off a little steam at the park, we men made our way south across the Seine to find lunch. Just before Notre Dame, we came across a low brick building that held a small bistro. The entrance was around the corner on a side street. A few patrons were watching the television over the bar as I looked up to make sure that my head would clear the ceiling, because it surely didn’t clear the doorframe. A little waitress took us to the back room, which boasted a half dozen stout wooden tables, and we sat at a small one next to an open window that allowed us to watch people pass outside along the street. This was far better than the television for pure entertainment value.
I spoke with the boys about Pablo Picasso and our week in Paris, and tried to pry their impressions from them as I sipped a beer and they some cola. An Italian father and his youngsters took the table next to us as our lunch arrived. I really didn’t pay much attention to them, for two reasons. First, the people watching on the street kept my head turned in the other direction, and I was marveling at the quality of food, at very decent prices, at a small bistro in the middle of one of the top tourist areas on the planet. Nonetheless, as we finished and were paying the waitress, the dad next to us told me in simple Italian that I had very well – behaved children. “Grazie,” I responded with more than a little pride. Sometimes it takes a stranger to remind us of the good around us. The three kids had been marvelous, having endured long walks, Parisian heat, the prospect of a night over in the Louvre, and a whole host of unique foods. Through it all they seemed to stay aware of the fact that this was a trip of a lifetime, and they were managing to enjoy the changes and, even more unbelievably, get along with each other (most of the time).
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