i am sitting in the open doorway of café soufflot in the 5th arrondissment, the Latin Quarter. the waiter slid across the floor to welcome me: “bonjour, mademoiselle!” my café au lait came quickly & with a separate silver carafe of warmed frothy milk to add at my discretion. I took the metro alone for the first time, listening to Edith Piaf. she sounded perfect: strong, desperate, passionate. the graffiti scrawled on the tunnel walls made sense. I understood the desire to claim ownership & desire permanence.
I have no map or phrasebook or sense of direction except for some strange innate comfort that keeps surfacing; a sense of familiarity & curiosity. while walking here, I could not even listen to music out of a sheer vastness of stimuli to look at, observe, absorb. I walked down narrow cobbled streets lined with tall, creamy-gray stone buildings; apartments on top with iron gates & shutters & sometimes baskets of red begonias or faceless pansies. I walked into a French philosophy bookshop & then into the Luxembourg gardens. It was full of sculptures & straight trees, men playing chess, kids playing in sandboxes. I found a small café on the other side of the flowers & sat on one of the chairs sprawled across the lawns watching men in suits setting up their orchestra in the gazebo in front of me. hungry from walking & being so engaged with my surroundings, I ordered a crepe au sucre & ate quickly. it was warm & papery & the sugar had melted inside to make a sticky syrup that I mopped up with the crepe with what was still crunchy on top. I thought about how Hemingway wrote that hunger was the best discipline.
I have a French cell-phone & a French bank account: I suppose I am a true Parisian.
I have no map or phrasebook or sense of direction except for some strange innate comfort that keeps surfacing; a sense of familiarity & curiosity. while walking here, I could not even listen to music out of a sheer vastness of stimuli to look at, observe, absorb. I walked down narrow cobbled streets lined with tall, creamy-gray stone buildings; apartments on top with iron gates & shutters & sometimes baskets of red begonias or faceless pansies. I walked into a French philosophy bookshop & then into the Luxembourg gardens. It was full of sculptures & straight trees, men playing chess, kids playing in sandboxes. I found a small café on the other side of the flowers & sat on one of the chairs sprawled across the lawns watching men in suits setting up their orchestra in the gazebo in front of me. hungry from walking & being so engaged with my surroundings, I ordered a crepe au sucre & ate quickly. it was warm & papery & the sugar had melted inside to make a sticky syrup that I mopped up with the crepe with what was still crunchy on top. I thought about how Hemingway wrote that hunger was the best discipline.
I have a French cell-phone & a French bank account: I suppose I am a true Parisian.
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