Smaller Than A Baguette Box

We are creatures of comfort and of habit. Sometimes it takes stepping out of the box–or into a smaller one–to realize the limitations of our entrenched patterns.

Melissa and I were excited to arrive in Paris. I had taken the Eurostar from London to meet her at Charles de Gaulle airport. On the RER train into to the city, we enjoyed a French accordion player setting the mood for us: soon we would arrive at my improv friend Simone’s apartment in central Paris, relatively close to the Louvre, the Seine, Notre Dame and a number of other landmark spots. His place promised a haven in the chaos, a rooftop view in walkable distance from the train station. Simone’s warm invitation had also allayed any fears I had about his warning that the apartment was small. We would only stay in Paris two nights before heading on to Italy. A sweet little taste of Parisian flavor. We’d be fine.

We followed Simone’s excellent directions from Gare du Nord, strolling through surprisingly quiet streets to arrive safely at Rue de l’Exchequier. We felt like royalty as we entered the security codes our host had provided, first at the tall red doors on the street and then for the metal screen inside the front hallway. We were in. We were home.

And then we faced the stairway. Simone had mentioned that his place was on the top floor. Improv trickster that he is, he had not mentioned that the top floor was six stories up. Round and round we circled, hauling our luggage with us up flight after flight. I’m not surprised that Simone heard us coming. The sound of our heavy breathing and of our thighs bursting into flame must have made quite a racket.

Glad to have reached the summit, we exchanged warm hugs and big smiles. Simone and I had not seen each other since the International Improvisation Summer School in Calgary two years earlier, but our connection still felt quite natural–I do so love having delightful friends. As we stepped into his little front room, we quickly realized it wasn’t actually a front room. It was the room. “You might be wondering where your bedroom is,” Simone astutely intuited. Pointing to a small trap door underneath the sloping roof line, he said “It’s right there.” Sure enough, as we crouched down, we could see a small bed tucked into the crawl space below the insulation. “You can leave your stuff out here and we’ll just move around it as we need to.”

Simone informed us that, because he only had the apartment for a short while and had gotten it from friends who were traveling, he had to store a bunch of their stuff with him. The books reaching in from shelves, the tower of sundries impinging on the front door: those weren’t his. As he stepped over the microwave to open the one window and show us the rooftop access, I asked “Is there, like, a chair up there that you can sit on?” “Well,” he replied, “there’s a stool, but it’s kind of steep so it may not be real comfortable. Just make sure not to look down.” A quick glance at the long drop off the narrow ledge and the 45-degree slope to the left suggested this was sage advice. Simone left for work and we got to work settling in.

Fatigued from our red-eye travels (Meliss flying overnight from Boston and me getting a 3 AM start in London), we figured we should start by washing up and then taking a nap. I hopped in the shower and quickly realized it was designed not for someone of my 6’1″ stature (185 cm for the Europeans following along), but instead for Napoleon. Shortly after I closed my eyes to soap up my face, I bumped my head lightly against the sharply sloping roof to the right. When I pulled my head quickly back to avoid more damage, I hit the side wall to the left. Recoiling from that impact, I instantly found the shower head in front of my teeth. Concussion trifecta! I quickly developed and improved my contortionist skills to finish up and towel off safely, threading the needle of my movements through the eye of open space I had around me. Once I got dressed, I assumed my best belly-down commando position and crawled through the tiny door in the wall into our sleeping alcove. As a wave of afternoon heat from the roof outside hit me, I realized the cave felt somewhere between a womb and a firing kiln. We might get some sleep, but we might also come out with a bit of a glaze.

The acclimation continued when Simone came back for the night. With three of us in the apartment, it felt like we were playing the improv game “Stand, Sit, Lie Down” where only one person can be doing each of the actions. If one player changes positions, the other two have to adjust to reestablish the equilibrium. You’re reclining on the futon? OK, I’ll stand by the mini-fridge and she can sit by the sink while she washes her face under the eaves. You need a drink? She can snag the futon to check her e-mail and I’ll brush my teeth.

It became quite an exquisite and hilarious choreography, like a well-intentioned Keystone Kops episode. It was clear we weren’t in Kansas any more, nor were we in western Massachusetts. No screened-in porch, no king-size bedroom sprawl, no yoga and meditation mat.

I’m joking because the settling in did generate a stream of exasperated laughter. I quickly realized, though, that every difference I was noting pointed to an assumption or limitation of my own. For many–most?–around the world, having a space like Simone’s would register as a luxury, whether for one or for three. Like us all, I’m a product of my culture. I aim for ecological and aesthetic simplicity, but I’m still American. We like big houses. We like big cars. We like big portions. We historically have had big space so we feel cramped without it. But it’s like when I wrote about getting used to the roads in the UK. Maybe such small spaces aren’t wrong. Maybe they’re just different. I wasn’t uncomfortable because of some absolute spatial requirement but instead because I had inherited a cultural inflexibility.

Simone certainly didn’t seem to have such limitation. His apartment had seemed small when he first got it but he had adjusted. An Italian studying theater in Paris and hopping from job to job and apartment to apartment as needed, he exhibits impressive flexibility. He can speak four languages comfortably–Italian, English, French, and Spanish–and makes use of them all to connect with customers, whether waiting tables or doing IT work with Ferrari. When he met his Japanese girlfriend, they shared no common language at first and so communicated through gestures and intuitions. Rather than creating a roadblock, the wordless courtship established a valuable foundation of intimacy. Simone makes use of trance masks in his theater work where different faces allow for different expression. “I’m loving the chance to reinvent myself,” he offered over an afternoon snack on our second day. “I don’t know who I’ll become.”

I’d love to find such fluidity. Yes, it’s good to know myself. I am a big guy and I am an introvert. It makes sense that I’d prefer not getting hemmed in too tightly. At the same time, too much rigidity cuts off all sorts of possibility. Just becuse I’m uncomfortable at first doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t adapt. If I allow the discomfort and continue anyway, I can grow into dimensions and capabilities I wouldn’t have imagined. Humor and openness work wonders. Mindset matters.

When Melissa and I left Paris on the overnight train to Verona, we chuckled to graduate to our palatial estate of a sleeping cabin.

We also sighed in relief when our hotel in Venice upgraded us on arrival to a larger room. But I had learned a lesson in Paris. That stairway had been steep and Simone’s studio small. Over those two days, though, our legs and lungs had grown stronger. Our self-limitations had loosened. Traveling makes a great teacher.