Last Night in Paris

The last full day in Paris is when I feel like I've got my routine figured out, walking around, dealing with things.  Only problem is I wake up feeling a little funky and don't know if it's going to get better or worse.  I usually recommend water and exercise to get de-funked, so I take my own advice and do just that. But, I do not feel better much faster at all.

Feeling crummy in a big foreign city is just the same as feeling crummy in your own home except you have to plan better.  I sit on my bed and think:  Okay, this is not a bad thing, it's just a not-so-great thing. It could be a lot worse. I am feeling stable, no fever, just a headache and kind of not on top of my game. Not so awful. What do I need to do?

I dress, gather my things, and go to the front desk of my hotel. "Ou est le pharmacie?" I ask.

"A droite," says the clerk. "C'est ici, a droite."  It's right here, to the right. Cool. Who could ask for better than that?

I buy a little packet of acetominophen and begin my walk to the 5th Arrondissement with waves of Not Feeling So Good coming over me.  Little waves, but waves nevertheless. Malaise. On the uphill walk along Rue St. Michel, a big long group of school kids overtake me, surround me and sort of carry me along in their energetic, talkative midst, going my direction for quite a way. I forget about waves of feeling Not So Good and imagine I've begun floating on a river with a lot of otters who are creating the current.  They peel off when I have only about a quarter mile to go and disappear. The air seems to go flat.

I reach the last corner and think about going back to my cafe, la salle de manger, I spent time at yesterday. It seems to be calling me, so I answer with a happy sigh and give in. I have quite a bit of time. If you are going to ever spend time looking for your perfect cafe, give it time. Do not rush the cafe experience. Most of the good of it is in watching the world pass by your table and thinking about your day, your evening, your plans, your everything. You need time.

I take my time and my medicine and my writing pad and pen and sit at a table where the attendant leans toward me, states what I want before I even say it, then brings it to me in about a minute. Same as yesterday, thank the angels in heaven, I munch on the croissant spread with cherry jam and sip my espresso. I take my medicine with a steady supply of water and after some writing and thinking about life and writing and the size of my feet and what I've learned this week, I feel better.  Not so random. You think about those things, too, admit it.

The Paris Writers Retreat commences on its final day and then has to draw to a close. Of the thirteen who started, twelve finish and of those, two or three have very unique and powerful stories that will nearly write themselves. In cases like that, the author almost has to just step out of the way so the story can flow out. The rest of us will have to keep working on story line, character development, and setting until it all hangs together. I am encouraged and discouraged all at once but I have lots more tools to use now. I feel it has been worth it.

We all agree that coming and going to and from one place where we have spent time and had many conversations has given us a unique and much-appreciated vehicle with which to experience this city. We are invited by Wendy Rohm, the instructor who also has her own agency, to send her our query letters once we get our manuscripts written. She has a little more sympathy for writers than a lot of agents do because she also writes.

I am well again, I feel pretty good, and I have an armful of new friends.  One of them, Fabrice, a French playwright, announces it's his birthday, so someone runs off to a patisserie nearby for goodies and comes back with a couple of boxes of pastries so delightful it seems a real shame to cut them up and eat them. We sing to Fabrice, snap a lot of photos and enjoy a classic traditional French meal at La Forge for a couple of hours.  My meal is a white fish wrapped in bacon strips and bathed in a delicate white wine sauce with braised leeks. I keep seeing things on the menus around town that I've no idea about and keep discovering flavor combinations and that you don't have to die to go to heaven. You can just eat in a restaurant in France.

There is so much I don't know, I wail to myself, so much yet to experience and discover.  One lifetime is not long enough. If anyone ever says "I'm bored," all you have to do is kick them out of the house and tell them to go travel. Boredom will instantly stop. If that doesn't do it, they're hopeless.

I finish my day by walking a different way home with one of the retreat attendees, Julia, and we say our quick good-byes. Wow, my last night in Paris, sort of. I'll be back at the end of next week but in a different part of town. It's getting cloudy and sunset will be upon me in a little while, so I duck into the supermarket across from my hotel, buy some groceries for dinner and hide out in my little hotel room.

The sunset is glorious, as if Joan of Arc could come tearing down the street on her white charger or Napoleon's army is on the march again. Italian tourists are whooping it up soon afterward in the cafe down on the street, singing in Italian and cheering for lots of things, small and large. Their voices are joyous, lifting all the way up to the highest rooftops, far into the distance to the river where they meet the currents and breezes that carry them far away in the night.

Jardin de Luxembourg and the Sounds of Paris Streets

I am in the Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris. Sun is glowing through the branches and leaves of the horse chestnut and plane trees, between the wrought iron fences that have golden spikes on their tips. There are murmuring pigeons circling and strutting near the green metal park benches and chairs. Crunching footsteps go by on the dirt pathways. 

I have a sweet roll and a cup of coffee in a sack and I am sitting facing the Senate building at the North end of this large formal park. The garden before me is planted with new flowers. No gendarmes in sight, but I know they lurk, keeping order and calm.  

A group of school kids, probably 13 and 14 year olds, cluster briefly around a sitting woman wearing a green cardigan. She speaks in French to them. They are wearing casual street clothes. They are handed pieces of paper with instructions that they read. Then they set off in twos, threes and fours, running. Three boys angle over in front of me, step across a border of flowers, look back, then dash across the forbidden lawn to a statue in its middle. They run to it, stop, examine it, keep running to another. Other kids are running to other statuary in the area. They run everywhere.

The kids are slender and seem very familiar with each other. A girl sits on a green chair like my own. A boy comes and sits on her. She yells at him to stop, he continues, she yells louder, he continues, she yells and squawks for real and he jumps up. She's fine. 

The woman provides no snacks or water. The kids run off again, and again, always running hard and shout about the treasure hunt they are set on. There are no cell phones, no walking, no complaining, no obesity.  

I don't understand enough French to know what it is they are looking for, but I can see these 15 kids who look energetic and healthy in the large clipped formal garden in the midmorning sun. 

After I've finished my sweet roll and coffee, I get up and walk through the park. There is a steady trickle of incoming visitors. It is a favorite park in the city for many. A Chinese man is doing tai chi by himself, his own interpretation of it that looks more like Kung Fu and dancing combined. He's focused and intent, though. He's on the bandstand under large shady trees, moving and grooving. 

There is something about sounds in Paris that I can't quite put my finger on. The blend of tiny sounds that always have a backdrop of louder traffic sounds seem less intense here. The loud police and ambulance wee-wah-wee-wah is the loudest, but it is not ear shattering like American fire trucks are. Many cars are electric, and buses run on an alternative fuel. I don't hear jackhammers or loud motorcycles. No Harleys or leaf blowers, thank God in heaven. No, it is definitely a quieter, less jarring city to move around in.  Thus, it feels safer.  However, traffic moves quickly and lanes can be narrow, so attention must be paid.  I have managed not to get myself into any trouble, but I am always reminding myself to keep my eyes open - not easy with so much visual distraction, i.e., shop windows and old buildings with flowers gushing from the window boxes.   

I don't have any intention of driving in this city. I've heard people describe it as a nightmare.  Walking around these neighborhoods is a very easy thing with signage for walkers separate than signage for drivers. There are separate lanes for taxis and the buses.  Gutters are flushed out every morning with a reverse-flow system where water actually comes out of spouts in the gutters, flowing downhill, carrying away trash and junk. What a good idea.

It's night time now, and the neighborhood down on the street is full of the rise and fall of many conversations. A little telltale jingle sounds; a bicyclist has just passed by. No more walking for my tired feet today, but I will be ready tomorrow. 

Details of a Day in St. Germain, Paris

It's almost 10 at night, and there is plenty of light left in the sky. The lights have come up around the neighborhood, and the cafes sound busy down below on Rue de Seine. An accordion has just begun to play, a meandering sound that stirs poignant memories of romance. Plates and silverware clatter and clink; crowded cafes are burbling with human voices in many conversations, an incessant flow of human sound. It has been this way for centuries. It is Paris.

A man shouts to someone, and I hear the buzz of a coasting bicycle. I cannot see the source of all these sounds, but I can see the dormers of the rooftop across from my window, an easy stone's throw away.  I like my plain room four stories up from the lobby in this little hotel.

I leave the hotel at nine in the morning the next day, wearing summer clothes and less fashionable but more reasonable walking shoes than yesterday, bandaids peeking out on my heels and arches. A cool breeze freshens the air. I turn right and walk past the fish shop, a chocolate shop and then the cafe. I am at the corner of Boulevard St. Germaine, named after a neighborhood church built probably 800 years ago. St. Germain is home base for a jazz festival going on these two weeks. Kyle Eastwood, son of Carmel's native boy Clint, played here last weekend. Home follows you everywhere you go.

I cross the wide boulevard with a covey of other walkers. No one says hello to anyone else as they walk. Even walking in  the middle of rush hour, there is no noise but that of traffic. A lot of people walk. You hear a quick "pardon" if they bump you or need to hustle aside for some reason, so you learn to do the same. I hear "jour" or "soir" when I enter places which is the equivalent to "evening" or "day" in the States, just like we do, shortening the more formal "bonjour" or "bon soir." When you buy something, the usual last phrase you hear is "bonne journee," all part of the "politesse" or polite way of conducting oneself. This civility is a pleasant touch that I try not to compare to Americans in general. Many Americans are polite and courteous of course. Overall, the French win. By a mile.

The walk to the Retreat apartment building is about 20 minutes from my hotel, and it takes me slightly uphill to the Luxembourg Gardens after I've gone past the big Odeon theater. I watch the scurrying people and take note of traffic. Women walk rapidly, on errands or to work, and some strolling tourists and young people in small groups move past me, slim and well dressed. I feel well assimilated today, able to blend into the crowd. I have to watch my step as I swivel my head back and forth looking around as I go so I won't accidentally whack my shins on bike stands or step off curbs with a lurch.

At the Retreat, we do a few exercises to sharpen our writing skills, pretend we are our characters. It's actually challenging, and we sigh deeply, each one in turn, as we take our lumps from our instructor. She's trying to free our minds up in order to look at the story and characters differently, with fresh eyes. She is patient. I am not achieving greatness yet and feel relieved when it's time to break for lunch.

We go as a group to a Greek restaurant nearby. Our waiter is handsome and valiantly attempts to understand our corrupted French. I order Moussaka and it arrives, fragrant and hot. My friends order a sample plate, which is delightful. We talk about living in France compared to the States. A couple of my companions are ex-pats who are content living in the South of France. We compare notes.  It turns out that they occasionally see young men with "jail break" style pants, which means the silly fashion of wearing the pants halfway off the rear end that is so laughable. I wonder if young men realize that every single older person who sees them thinks, "You look so incredibly idiotic wearing your pants that way."

I shop with Julia, a new friend, on the way home from the Retreat, along Rue St. Michel with throngs of students and then stroll through Luxembourg Gardens. We part ways on the other side of the gardens. It is a fine afternoon and the streets are full of people out on foot. The city feels safe no matter where I go. I don't mind being by myself. As a matter of fact, it has its advantages since I can window shop to my heart's content and wander any path I like.

It's evening again before I know it and I get a bit lost, which is both exciting and frustrating. In this part of the arrondissement, the streets are not laid out in a grid. They curve and narrow down to a lane with narrow sidewalks, but they're calm and quiet. I sense the echoes of time passing with the merest wink and shrug, unhurried and lovely.

Paris Writers Retreat

I've been in Paris for three days. Or is it four.  Time continues to zip and unzip itself from the usual bounds of reality.  Paris is old, new, fast and slow, and it is seeping deep into my bones.

The Latin Quarter throbs with life until well into the wee hours of the morning, and last night was no exception. It became obvious at 1 AM that a drunken young Frenchman had lost all inhibition, whacking things with a long rattling    stick and screaming who knows what in loud wailing French. Because I could not understand his words, I heard instead the voice intonations and emotion as he half-yelled half-sang, which did not sound angry so much as unleashed and undone. He quieted eventually, and I returned to sleep.

In the morning, random thumps and friendly shouts echo up from the street four stories below my hotel window as shops prepare to open. It is Monday morning and I am dressed in comfortable summer clothes, ready to try my hand at metro riding on my own, no help from my husband. We say good-bye at the Odeon metro stop; he is departing in a few hours for Chartres to take part in his own retreat while I am bound for the Fifth Arrondissement to meet co-retreaters who are taking part in the Paris Writers Retreat this week. I descend into the metro below the city street, pay my fare and immediately get onto the wrong metro train. After going two stations on it, I realize my mistake, hustle off the train, read the signs a lot more carefully and get myself straightened out.  I find out later my husband made the same mistake and we laugh about it since we thought we had it all figured out.

I arrive at my destination with plenty of time to spare. The door at this particular address is one of the typical ones I see in the area. I push it open and step into a courtyard. Inside that space, there is yet another keypad for the individual spaces in the apartment building within. I make my way to the indoor hall upstairs, and then find myself in a loft which is essentially a huge apartment with comfortable and eclectic furnishings and a collection of modern and tribal art. The space is very conducive to creative effort as the light is natural and the surroundings spacious. The Retreat has rented it from a man who uses it as a second home when not in his native Spain, we are told.

Anxiety is not exactly palpable in the room, but attendees are alert for cues from Wendy Rohm, our instructor, about what will be required of us. We are given plenty of tasty croissants, fruit, juice, coffee and tea. We make our introductions and dig into the meat of the work we are here for:  Developing ideas for books, plays, any written work that has a story line.  We are reassured with information like: Make a big mess and clean it up later; they are only words, don't be afraid to throw them around and get rid of them if you want to; there is a difference between personal writing and private.

We break for lunch and walk up Rue de Mouffetard for a delightful repast at a restaurant perched on an elevated corner lot above the street. I have the plat du jour (special of the day) consisting of a leg of guinea hen roasted in herbed sauce, potatoes and pearl onions. I want to lick my plate again, but I am in the company of polite people who know better than that, so I sit on my hands.

We are getting to know each other. The attendees are mostly professional people with an idea that they might like to write a novel or two, make their mark in the literary world somehow. We are getting along well, figuring out how this week will go. I notice that the slender women at my end of the table are leaving quite a bit of their meals uneaten and feel like I will never be able to get my appetite under control, that I don't have any idea in the world how these nice women can eat like mice. It's a mystery.

The afternoon session continues the work we began in the morning, and ideas are getting fleshed out a bit more. No one has much conviction as yet, so I feel better as I think my own idea is garbage and not worthy of any work at all.  Not so fast, says Ms. Rohm; the ideas will change quite a bit and we will be surprised at what we end up with. I decide to trust her and do not ball up my paper.  I will be patient and give it a good shot, this extended writing, as I am new to it and, after all, that's why I'm here.

We break for the day later than planned, and I walk back to my hotel area with two other women, Camille and Marilyn, who have a hotel nearby mine. I plan to do some more photography this evening, but by the time I make it out of the supermarket across the street from La Louisianne with items I've bought for supper, I decide to call it a day, even though there is some light out even yet.  Paris is out there, I think, but realize a lot of it is in my heart and mind, and it is there for good now.