Sunday in Paris

It's Sunday morning. The streets are much calmer now and the weather is looking excellent.  Time to begin our walking tour of whatever suits our mood.

I end up stopping at a cafe near the Odeon on Blvd St. Michel to have breakfast, or the French version of it: pain et cafe. You take your chances at a cafe if you cannot tolerate cigarette smoke. We sit. Cigarette smoke lofts by, polluting perfectly fresh air.  Instantly a formal-looking waiter is whisking off our table, quickly shoving an ashtray onto the tabletop and shuffling the bistro chairs to accommodate us. He is dressed in black slacks, crisp long-sleeved white shirt and black tie, black vest and a long white apron tied around his hips. His hair is perfectly trimmed and combed. He is a professional. Very few American men dressing for their own weddings look as crisp and trim as he does.  The order is taken and in a matter of a minute, my espresso and bread arrive at my table and another minute later, my husband's omelette also arrives. Cafe waiters are quick as cats and are snappy about their work, part of the Paris cafe mystique.

You greet the waiter and indicate how many are in your group, you are whisked to a table and cartes handed to you as quickly as if you were caught in an acceleration vortex. There is no lingering conversatio or chat with these guys. Perhaps if I eat at a cafe daily for two years, the waiter will converse. Until then, I am not his friend. Courtesy and friendliness are not to be confused; courtesy is fully present, but friendliness is not required. It's okay. In the States, friendliness is mistaken for courtesy and you often have a waitress who attempts to be your casual friend and tells you about her life. She will ask you in a high plaintive lilt, "Everything okay here, you guys?" A waiter in a Parisian cafe will never ask, but he will rush past while eyeing your table and assessing for missing essentials. He will hasten over when you raise your hand politely to signal him you have a wish and it will be fulfilled as quickly as if you had waved a wand.

I am getting good already about adapting to the practice of eating very little for breakfast and then enjoying a delicious full meal at midday or later and finally supper after dark. After my meal, it is time to board the nearby metro and zoom away to the Fifth Arrondissement where I will be spending the next five days at a writer's retreat. My husband coaches me about how the metro works and how to read the maps. It seems easy. The metro is like the waiter, arriving promptly and whisking us to our destination with efficiency and no fuss.

There is a popular and well-established outdoor market on weekend mornings on Rue de Mouffetard, and it is jostling with local citizens and a few tourists. A vendor sings about his fruits and vegetables and tries to persuade me to purchase some strawberries. On a cobbled parallel street that is closed to traffic, a waltz tune sung by a lady with an accompanying accordionist compels a suave older couple dressed in ballroom clothing to turn and bend in looping circles of dance. They are drawing a crowd and receive applause when the tune finally stops. He dips her very low and she curtsies to the bystanders. He is wearing a white suit and large white plastic sunglasses that look like Girl Watchers from the 60s. Another tune begins, lyrics are handed out to the crowd and everyone is encouraged to sing the chorus when it comes around, "Bambino, bambino!" so we sing. What else would you do on a Sunday in Paris but waltz in the street like Fred Astaire? It's just the thing.

I need to find the address for the workshop and stand on a street corner looking up and down streets and looking like the confused tourist I am when a small wizened woman approaches me and carefully asks, "What are you looking for?"

"Rue Broca."

"Ah, Broca. Allez," she says slowly and indicates I am to follow her. She is bent over, pulling a small grocery trolley and has a scarf wrapped around her hair. She is not likely even 4 ft. 11 in., but she is briskly walking away and intends to show me where my street is. When it is in sight up ahead, she waves to it and says "au revoir," and then disappears so fast I end up thanking the air where she had stood seconds before.

The rest of the morning is spent strolling past the Muslim mosque and over to Jardin des Plantes where hundreds of people are enjoying the soft spring day with their families, walking or jogging or resting on one of the park benches. You don't lounge on the grass in this country apparently. You sit. On chairs or park benches. That's it. The beautifully tended gardens that consist of botanical specimens, vegetable gardens and tender shoots of what will become summer flowering plants are inspiring to see. The gardeners take an inordinate amount of care with the entire acreage and create something that is both natural and formal in appearance.

After the Jardin, we look for the Roman coliseum called Lutece nearby, built about a thousand years ago.  It looks very well preserved but we don't have English information to help us understand the dimensions or probable use in its day.  Boys slam soccer balls with their feet and resounding explosions of sound echo off the curved stadium walls of stone.  I imagine the hard-packed dirt arena soaked in blood with heaving beasts and gladiators grunting and fighting for their lives.  A thousand years ago.

The Cluny Museum represents medieval art and culture and today is featuring an interesting exhibits called Epee that depicts the history and construction of swords, epee and daggers.  Some of them are magnificently preserved pieces that served as ceremonial weaponry only.  Much of them, though probably whacked a few skulls in their day. King Arthur might have held one or two of them; at least it is appealing to think so. The Cluny is a museum worth seeing and occupies a former Abbey. Work brick work is evident all through the building, which is many centuries old.

We meander back to the Latin Quarter on tired feet and find we have roaring appetites. A bistro seems like a logical choice and our midday meal of boeuf bourguignon is really good. After a nap, we decide to take a tour boat on the Seine and set off on our hour-long cruise at 8 PM.  The sun is low on the horizon but sets the gold on various bridges and statuary blazing. For 15 Euro you get a bilingual tour and unique views of many of the bridges in the heart of the Seine.  Many long bateaux host parties and dinner tours.  Music thumps from one of them and a dance party is in progress. Girls have so many opportunities to be pretty and feminine here.  The dancing couples are having a good time and many young women in chic clothes are having the time of their lives with their handsome young dates.

The crown jewel, the one the Parisians initially thought would come crashing down on their heads back in the day, stands so far above all else in Paris that it's really bigger than life.  I've seen it up close; there is no view of it that seems ugly, and everyone on the boat snaps a few zillion photos of it, me included.

The day is done for us, but the cafes and bistros will be doing a roaring business for several more hours. My head feels like a heavy sack; time to go to bed and rest for tomorrow.

Paris: Enigmatic and Elegant

It is time to feel Paris's heartbeat and sense her vitality, this lady of the Seine, grande dame of Europe. 

We walk from the cafe, heading north to the Seine and then east to the glorious statue of St. Michael, a dramatically violent scene frozen in bronze.  The day is bright and nearly perfect, and humanity is everywhere. Throngs of tourists from all over the world make the whole city appear restless. Everyone is dressed as you would see them in San Francisco or other light-hearted cities with four seasons. That is, with an eye to what is pretty, trendy and attractive. Slim bodies dominate every view. Very few individuals are obese in this town. Unfortunately, many smoke, and I try not to think about their lungs, hearts and future health problems. So much else about the French lifestyle is healthy that I am amazed they embrace cigarette smoking so blithely. 

The day is warming up, and I am wearing too much clothing. It was suitable for a flight of nine hours in  the dark, but now I am liable to perspire with the least provocation. Luckily strolling is easy because shop windows arrest my progress constantly. I cannot help myself; I admire almost all of them. Every window outdoes the last, displaying whimsy, art, fashion and style. I try to choose the most interesting to photograph. I am very quickly finding myself frustrated, delighted and dizzy with choices. I hope I die in such a state of mind.

There are some narrow streets that I prefer to the broad avenues because of the sense of what might be possible to find behind them. Doorways are grand, and they are forbidding, standing like keepers of rare, highly guarded secrets. This is what Paris makes you do: Imagine.  You see massive facades, immense baroque structures built of dense blonde stones, curliqued and curving leaves modestly covering fat cupids and angels.  I can imagine the stone masons who built them and the people for whom they were built hundreds of years ago. And yet, there next to them are windows exhibiting the sleekest of modern kitchen designs and austere chic interiors.  Vespas and tiny cars that look like toys purr past on boulevards and everywhere you hear the tapping heels of walkers and French people chatting between themselves. The language is just comprehensible enough to me that I understand about every 10th or 20th word and make up my own sentences with them. 

It is not to say Paris is perfect. Peek under her petticoats and find a layer of dirt and grime, the trash left behind by heedless citizens and visitors. Find also miles of grafiti lining metro routes, freeways and apartment buildings. Other urban blight is present, but I, like every other visitor, choose to overlook the tired areas of blight and perpetuate the charm, panache and giddiness for which Paris is famous.  

Notre Dame cathedral's place is carpeted with tourists, everyone posing for each other's cameras. This spot is the exact center of Paris, and a bronze circle indicates it to be so. We decide that there is no way we are going to stand in the long snaking line to see the interior of the famous cathedral, so we walk west on the north side of the Seine - the right bank - past the grand buildings that flank the river. The massive grandeur of French officialdom, past and present, is at first beautiful, then imposing and finally exhausting to keep focused upon. I am fading fast, and I must sleep.  

We return to our hotel, which is ready at last.  A nap turns into a several-hour crash of body and mind coping with a nine-hour lag of time. Finally I stagger to the shower and freshen up.  It changes my personality; I am human again and ready for a meal.

We are off to try Le Polidor, a well-known eating establishment in the Fifth Arrondissement.  It is warm in the early evening when we step out onto the narrow street, and the city is humming with moving crowds. Again, store windows distract me, but so does the dappled light filtering through chestnut and mulberry trees along Boulevard St. Germain. And so does every pretty young woman and handsome man, every dash of color and splash of style. Paris is both lively and mellow, as if dipped in a warm wine. Young students are out for the evening, many of them smoking outside of cafes or standing in clusters or rolling past on bicycles. 

The backdrop of French language is a burbling white noise to me, like a babbling brook, and it runs like a thread through every scene, tying attitude, value and expectation into one whole. Separately, the bits and pieces of Paris might be whimsical, beautiful, stark or plain, but the language and what it represents to me about the people who speak it tie all into one physical place called Paris. It is enigmatic and elegant all at once, and so the city seems to me the same.  

Dinner at La Polidor is a very tasty and charming experience. It has been in business since 1865 and shows its bruises and sags, but the unmistakable golden patina of traditional French cuisine and style runs very deep in all that you see and eat there. I love my duck confit. It is exactly the meal I am looking for. Real food, simply prepared, grounded in centuries-old tradition that is unpretentious and proud. 

The young throbbing pulse of Saturday night is beating hard once we re-emerge onto city streets and lanes after dinner. It is such a balmy evening that no Parisian in their right mind would be left indoors. It is time for a good walk to aid digestion and see more of our city region.  Pont des Artes is spread with picnic blankets and lounging youth, living simply but well, on the bridge itself and on the banks of the Seine below. Thousands of people are out along the river, watching it, eating together, murmuring and laughing. It is very peaceful to see. The bridge itself consists of a boardwalk-style surface bordered essentially by a chain link fence set very low on both sides of the bridge. A few light standards and benches are arrayed attractively so that it seems more like a park than a bridge. The most unique feature that has emerged since it was built are many thousands of padlocks attached to the links of the fencing, each with a tiny inked-on message alluding to lost mates, true loves, parents or children. 

After crossing the bridge, a sad and mournful cello's echoing notes pull us toward the Louvre area, and then a flutist playing Bach lilts and lifts its notes to the cupolas and arches. The glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei reflects gray and silver hues off its surfaces in the Louvre courtyard. A small boy whizzes past on his in-line skates, weaving and curving gracefully and then ducking between startled tourists as he rounds a corner suddenly, out of sight, gone like a wisp.  So went the day, and then the night, flowing with youthful energy, grounded in a sense of the layered past.  

France: Time Travel

We board our A330 Air France Jet, begin to acclimatize to French culture: The language is French and secondary instructions and directions are given in English. The crew is professional, crisp-looking in their uniforms and attend to us quickly when we have questions.  There is only one child on board, a lovely five-year-old girl who seems not to have any inclination to be anything but be perfectly content and self-controlled.  A miracle.

My seat is meant for someone half my size, and I feel sudden kinship with sardines and contortionists.  I have no other complaints, but this one impacts me for the next nine hours.  I wish I wasn't tall; I wish I was only five feet and 90 lb soaking wet. Better yet, I vow to fly first class next time I go to Europe, but also know I'd better rob a bank first.

We are served a fine little dinner including pain (bread) served from a basket. Bread is the greatest source of French culinary pride besides wine. Before the  meal, we are asked to choose an aperitif. My choice is champagne. Mostly because I would normally have had to pay extra for alcoholic libations on a coach-class flight, but also because I am on my way to France and I am trying to be French, even if I am a sardine at the same time.

We arrive safely at Charles de Gaulle Airport, a very odd airport indeed because of multiple scattered and sometimes experimental-looking buildings, The outskirts of Paris look leafy and green, somewhat foreign, somehow not. I am addled. I have missed a night and a day but lived a span of time in midair traveling at 530 mph from continent to continent. I am interested in my surroundings but don't give much thought to them either, feel a little surprise at this. The shuttle bus arrives at Montparnasse train station where we descend into the metro station. A musician is playing a marimba while seated on the ground. The music is fantastic. We rush past smiling.

This is a rush of humanity coming and going from their various destinations. We are swept up in the clatter and clang of rushing and chattering students and workers streaming along the deep corridors of the metro. The halls are brightly lit, but there are occasional steps that interrupt the turns and sweeps. We keep our pace and arrive at Line 4's platform seconds before our train halts in front of us with squealing brakes. Doors whoosh open, we are engulfed, doors close again and the train rumbles and shrieks. It feels like I am a part of a swirling river whose energetic current never stops.

Ascending the final steps with clunking suitcases and sweating faces, we are suddenly in St. Germain, our neighborhood for now in Paris. There is nothing American here, but it is not really so foreign. The boulevard is tree lined and civilized but again the energy of a busy Saturday morning is present, less so than down below in the metro's halls.

What is it that tells you This Is Paris? It seems similar to San Francisco with the buses accelerating and braking along the street, people walking with lightly sounding footsteps and low conversations, but of course it's French. There are a lot of curving surfaces, wrought iron grates and balcony fronts. But those are first impressions. There is so much that is Paris that if anyone or anything might feel ambiguous, the environment around it influences it to be Parisian. I don't know how else to put it.

I'm tired. We find our hotel, a nearly invisible establishment that does not advertise itself at all and yet is up to its neck in a busy cafe-lined area of the Sixth Arrondissement very close to the Latin Quarter. It is Hotel La Louisianne. We are early to be checking in and are allowed to leave our bags until later. The hotel host is friendly and - what? - French. Yes, French and kind, and I am grateful for his kindness. He is a young man and laughs when we ask where to have lunch. It's 11:30. There's no one thinking about lunch yet in the area, he says but coffee is every 20 meters. About 30 seconds later we have found a cafe we feel satisfied with on a lively corner. We have been whisked here in a time span that seems both long and short. The tired energized feeling of jet lag knocks on our brains. We must pace ourselves somehow.  But first, this lovely petite dejeuner (breakfast). Ces't bon.

France: Beginning our journey

At the predawn hour of 4:30, my iPhone's harp plays a soft riff of notes and awakens me from a restless sleep at the City Garden Hotel near the San Francisco airport. This is the beginning of our two-week journey to the land where I was born as second child to a young American military couple 55 years ago. France awaits. First, though, we must begin a series of travel chores including catching an early shuttle bus to the futuristic San Francisco Airport in half an hour.

My husband and I have been planning this trip in fits and starts since last November when we first proposed the idea over a cup of cappuccino in Boise, Idaho, with dear ones there. Arduous work schedules conspired to prevent us from traveling, but when we actually determined that we must hit the road, planning fell into place. It was time, we felt, to explore land beyond the boundaries of our own country.

We found two separate retreats to attend in France, both during the same week, but in two different cities. My husband will make a retreat to the fascinating and mysteriously beautiful Chartres cathedral while I meet other writers in the heart of Paris for a week of honing writing skills and ideas. After that, a week in Provence and then home. Of course, those are the beginning points, but beginnings are only that, a place at which you step into a stream of life that then carries you where it will.

I sit up in bed and feel a familiar lack of sleep clogging my consciousness and know this will be a long day. Hydration is key at this point. I gulp a cup of water and fumble for my clothes, assemble my few belongings and in short time I am ready to depart the hotel. I spent all day yesterday imagining what I'd need for the next two weeks as well as living in the present time, an odd split of conscious mind that left me feeling disoriented for a while. I think I've got everything I need.

It seems a treat all of a sudden to listen to American English as we board the bus. A disconcerting plunge into a culture dominated by a foreign language will signal the real beginning of the journey, so for now, the familiar slang, customs and courtesies Americans extend to each other by smiling, gesturing and allowing for each other's needs on the shuttle bus and in the airport are comforting. We Americans are a shuffling lot today, stopping to read signs and orient ourselves to terminal building layouts.

The flight to Seattle is quick, smooth and easy. Seattle's surrounding snow-laden mountains look like a rim of teeth guarding the waterways and undulations of the spreading land below them. It's a beautiful day. "The mountain is out today" is the phrase that folks say in the Northwest when Mt. Rainier stands regally naked in the midday light, unclothed of clouds or mist. If that volcanic mountain ever comes back to life, havoc will surely ensue. It appears very close to a vast and complicated metropolitan area.

We await our flight to Paris now, playing with WiFi, 3G and Data Push settings on our iPhones in order to learn how to prevent massive phone bills from AT&T. The main terminal is new, airy and offers lots of fish at its food court cafes. Airports are usually focused centers of whatever the regional economy and culture offers. Some of the most interesting art exhibits I've ever seen have been at airports.

We are on our way. The world is out there and we intend to shed almost all intention and let our noses lead us. This is good travel, in this river of humanity and life. Time to begin.

PBS: The Audience is Intelligent

A friend sent me a web link showing the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor that blasted off yesterday morning.  It was a remarkable and fascinating thing to watch not only because of the very thing that was happening but because the announcer was so adept at interpreting the action and giving analogies to compare sizes, volumes and speeds as they were shown.

It was remarkable because so little of what is shown on television today is presented this way.  That is, for intelligent viewers whose curiosity and ability to think does not require dumbing down of information and for whom journalists have some degree of respect.

Respect for an audience's good taste and intelligence is often missing, replaced by fear of losing the audience's attention and that the material will be boring.

The launch was not presented as anything but what it was:  A rocket-powered jet launching into outer space with five human beings strapped into it.  And what it was not:  Entertainment.

I do not need the space shuttle launch to include a bikini-clad blonde with breast implants and veneered teeth to pose beside it to make it awe-inspiring.  I do not need loud thumping music and beer commercials sold at $6 million dollars per 30-second spot to rivet my attention.  And I do not need to be shown in 10-second sound bites that it went off well.  None of those things were remotely represented in this television coverage and yet my heart was pounding and my mind locked onto the scene and the details that were announced.  It was brilliant and I applaud PBS for what they did.

I only want to be informed of the event and given information that's accurate and unbiased.  When a space shuttle blasts off, a lot of things need to go right and go right very rapidly in the correct order.  Huge amounts of fuel are burned at a rate that is inconceivable to we who drive cars that get 24 miles per gallon.  In a matter of 10 seconds, the shuttle had traveled a distance that would take a regular old jet an hour to go.  The space shuttle is now circling the earth every couple of hours, replete with its five busy human beings carrying out tasks and deploying equipment as they streak through space.

There are a few hundred thousand citizens of this country who are intellectually curious and interested in any number of topics.  They and I do not want pandering to, nor do I want loud-mouthed opinions spouting from people with axes to grind and agendas to keep.  I want news and information that's real and possibly very complicated so I can think and be informed.  For the launch of the space shuttle, I got it, thanks to PBS.