AnonymousCoworker

Is everybody else just about fucking ready for the weekend or what?

When we were in Paris a few years ago we went to visit the Arènes de Lutèce in the 5th Arondismont. It’s an ancient Roman arena and the Parisians have it set up like any other park in the city. People can wander into or out of it at will. I was utterly humbled to be in such an old piece of architecture, and amused that it was treated so ordinarily by the locals.

We wandered around the arena for a while, but to be honest, the photos I was taking were just not going to make the place seem as interesting as I had found it to be. I snapped a few photos for documentation puposes and then we headed back to the Metro. I believe it was our last day in Paris.

As we left the arena I looked to my right and saw a typical Parisian street. It was crowded with parked cars and it adjoined a busier street that seemed to facilitate a heavier flow of traffic. Across that street was a wall about twice as tall as I am. The wall was the end of neighborhood that extended north toward the Seine. The neighborhood’s houses were built with their bases at the top of the wall, and there was a dual staircase that extended left and right, parallel with the wall, for pedestrians to enter and exit the neighborhood.

From my angle the neighborhood appeared to extend directly to the Seine. The view of the gap between the rowhouses on either side of the street was unencumbered by a perpendicular row of buildings at the far end, as in the case in many other parts of Paris. It was a narrow, though clear, view of the closest thing I had found to a natural horizon in Paris.

I knelt down to get a few pictures. The buildings had crept up on me so subtly I was surprised that I had missed the view when we exited the Metro. Everything about the stairs, the wall, and the end rowhouses were pulling me toward them. Something deep inside of me wanted to cross the road, go up the steps and see what the street looked like from it’s own level.

Instead I packed up my camera, took one last look at the steps over my shoulder, and walked back down to the Metro.

I still have the pictures I took of the fringes of that neighborhood, and it never fails that as soon as I see the picture I always wonder what lies beyond. If I ever make it to Paris again, I’ll be sure to make the arena my first stop, and see where those steps take me.