Maternal Dementia

It was a workhorse, working so hard – harder than it should have. European appliances are known for their interminable cycles, but even after the very dry setting, lasting much more than an hour, I’d have to add another 20 minutes. And sometimes more. The fatigue was apparent.

I should have cleaned the filter more often. Not the regular lint filter in the door, but the one in the tray underneath, the über-filter. It’s not that this didn’t occur to me. Along with the all other should do things that come to mind over the course of a day, it was on that list I never quite get to.

Last week it just gave up. It turns and turns and turns, but it doesn’t dry. The handy guy who always helps us out with these questions said the repair would be difficult and costly. And he’s a scrapper. If he wouldn’t fix it, then it probably isn’t fixable.

The dryer is dead. Long live the dryer.

Except there won’t be an accession. We’ve decided not to replace it. We’re leaning green, going line-dry.

We all say we care. We do care. But are we willing to change our habits – really change them – to help the environment? It’s easy to justify our choices in the name of convenience, or make excuses about how such a little energy-saving gesture saves nothing compared to the amount of energy wasted by entities far larger than our household. The same goes for recycling. What difference will one family really make, given the amount of garbage that is disposed of so carelessly? Is it even worth the time and effort it takes to wash those bottles and containers and separate plastic from paper from glass? Half the time I wonder if it all doesn’t just end up in the same landfill anyway. Do we really know what happens to the contents of our recycling bins?

In the scope of things, it is a small gesture. One tiny green decision not to replace an appliance. But I am reminded that small changes add up. Maybe the kilowatt hours of electricity we save won’t make a difference, but at least I can mean it when I tell Short-pants and Buddy-roo that I’m concerned and conserving. Walk the green talk, at least a little.

There is another reason that De-facto’s so pleased with this decision: it’s cheaper. Except for the touchy issue of the crunchy towels. Fortunately (or maybe not) there is a laundromat across the street from our building. So when I’m not dutifully hanging small garments across the wires of the drying rack that creates such an elegant aesthetic in our living room, I’ll be collecting coins and running up and down four flights of stairs with a laundry basket, just to give those towels a softer touch.

How long do you think this will last?

I’d like to suggest a new definition of the term RSS, otherwise known to mean Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. Mine is: Really, So Sorry.

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Really, so sorry. Thanks for taking a moment this emerging geek-girl out.

I was (still) on the rue Pastourelle, refusing to believe that the silversmith shop was no longer there. Like being relentless about looking for it would make it reappear. I’d finally gotten around to taking my ring to be repaired and my mission was being thwarted. I didn’t want to give up.

A few doors down from where (I think) the orfèvre used to be, I saw a sign for an atelier, some kind of metal workshop. It looked aged, like it’d been there a while. Maybe because they work with metal, they could do it. Or they’d know someone who could.

A loud buzzer opened the door and let me into an amazing world of little metal pieces. I asked about the whereabouts of
the silver shop. (Yes, it was a few doors down. No, it’s closed now.) Then I was compelled to inquire, “What exactly do you do here?” It seems I’d stumbled into an archive of metal stamps and stencils. A fantastic display of little bits of brass and metal with all manner of designs or messages used for printing and molding. Some of them even date back to the French revolution. Who knew such a place existed? And that it could employ three people?

But did they know another silversmith? There was some talk between the three of them, and then a recommendation. Down the street, just keep going straight, for many blocks, until you cross the boulevard. (Which boulevard? Just the big boulevard.) Not on rue St. Sebastian, but look for the Passage St. Sebastian.

And so I walked. The street names changed but I stayed the course and then sure enough I came to a boulevard and crossed to the other side where I saw the street I was told to avoid and hunted for the passage I was told to find, which is where I came upon a hidden city of ateliers and workshops.

Walking down the cobblestone alley I could peek in the doors of all the workshops and artesian micro-factories with their Dr. Suess-like assembly lines. Up a dirty staircase, a lime green door screamed at me, and then beyond it, another door – in a location so obscure I would never have found it had I not been directed – with the name of my destination: Cendor.

And now I know Mario. Apprenticed at 14-years old, he’s been a silversmith for more than 50 years. I showed him the broken
silver ring that had been my grandmother’s. He cared about the story. I also brought along my silver medallion of San Fermin, patron saint of Pamplona, to reinforce the loop for the chain. So he switched to Spanish and he rattled on about his love for Spain, his homeland.

He offered no receipt for holding my items, and just a few gruff instructions about when to come back. But I have the feeling my silver is in good hands. I have found the orfèvre of my dreams. Not the same one I was looking for. But better.

I was sure it was on the rue du Perche. Or else it was rue Pastourelle. I didn’t even know its name, just an idea of the location. I’d been to this silversmith many years ago, before I learned not to put my good knives in the dishwasher. A man in a blue apron with dirty fingers flipped the silver blades back and forth in his hands and took them into his custody. A week later, when he handed back my knives, they looked like new.

Carrying a ring I inherited from my grandmother, I went searching for this silver repair shop (in French, an orfèvre) following the vague map in my memory. Everything looked different than I remembered. The rusty-gated storefronts and messy, eclectic repair shops have been replaced with a row of minimalist art galleries. I wandered up and down any of the streets that might have been where this dusty silver atelier was once (I think) located. I cursed my memory. I cursed the changing times. I cursed the gentrification of Paris. I couldn’t find it.

I asked at the nearby café and a corner grocer – both establishments have been there a long time – but the barman has only worked there for 6 months, the grocer simply shook his head no. My orfèvre had gone missing.

This is too common an occurrence these days; the neighborhood’s services are one by one disappearing. My favorite dry cleaner had to close last summer because her rent was bumped up too high. “I’m too expensive already,” she told me, “my customers can’t pay any more. I have no choice but to retire.” Same story with the little old couple who ran the fresh produce stand, the little corner convenience store, Mr. René’s (the greatest dive bar in Paris), and the sweet little bakery, Tout Au Beurre. Regular people can’t afford to do business in my neighborhood anymore. Their storefronts are being replaced with chic, trendy clothing stores, like LaCoste and Adidas. This makes me sad.

The most recent shock was the copy shop. I hadn’t been in a while – I used to go every week, in the days before my ink-jet printer was also a photocopier. When my clients required workbooks or training materials, Armand with his cobalt-blue eyes would take on the order with meticulous care. He’d adjust his reading glasses and carefully review my documents, treating them as canvasses to be framed. I once brought in a sample handbook I’d bound at some other copy shop when he was closed for August (or something preposterously French like that) and he reviewed the work with disdain. The paper was too cheap. The cover didn’t have enough weight. The plastic binding has been clamped on backwards. It was shoddy work. He scolded me, but with affection.

He had a sidekick who was as light-hearted and joke-cracking as Armand was serious. Like the guy who spins plates at the circus, he’d make copies for one client while fixing a paper-jam in the self-service machine for another, all the while sailing around the shop effortlessly, as if he were on roller-blades.

They did good work. They knew me. They knew my girls. When Short-pants was in the hospital and I’d come into make photocopies for the insurance claims, they’d refuse my coins.

But the other day the gate in front of the closed door was locked tight, the windows painted with whitewash. The sign wasn’t apparent at first, but when I found it and realized they were closed for good, I felt as if someone the neighborhood had died. And I had not had the chance to say goodbye.

At least when the dry cleaner closed I’d had notice. I brought her a good bottle of Bordeaux and had a chance to thank her for all her years of lifting out my stains. But the copy shop was a done deal. Then I remembered that once I saw Armand and his assistant eating lunch on the terrace of the café next door. I presented my case to a waiter, about my need for closure. The owner was summoned, and after my passionate explanation he gave me Armand’s cell phone number. A patron standing at the café bar shook his head in approval. “But yes,” he said, “the chance to say a proper goodbye is not just a privilege, you have the right.”

Armand said the raised rent presented him with a predicament much like my dry cleaner and so he opted to sell all his equipment and start again somewhere else. He promised to call me when he set up his new shop.

Listen to me: I’m lamenting change. It’s not easy, but change is the necessary engine of our lives. To resist it is to resist the creative process itself. But those familiar faces and places, they anchor and comfort us, weaving us into the fabric of our surroundings. The longer I’m here, the harder it is to watch them disappear. Maybe I’ve lived in this neighborhood too many years (thirteen). Maybe I haven’t been restless enough to move beyond what’s become so comfortable. Maybe I’ve forgotten to appreciate that the disappearance of one favorite place often means the opportunity to find another.