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.