fair, well, & good.

it is the most beautiful day in the world today, & i am going to buy fancy fruit & read russian utopian literature in the luxembourg gardens. then, i might walk to rue mouffetard & buy a croissant aux amandes from my favorite bakery. i might meander over to the mosque & the jardin des plantes, find a cafe for a creme, & see about the turkish hammam baths so that d. & i can get "gommaged" this week. it is a day when any activity is an accomplishment, any plans are made just before, & spontaneity is just following whim by the heels.

lately, i have been: riding velib' down one-way cobble-stoned streets around saint sulpice & ecole militaire; making & eating mussels; pretending to read; writing things in my head; booking plane tickets; talking to little girls about magic & wishes.

a little girl came into the bookshop with her mother last night; her mother petitioned her to wait for "juste une minute, cherie." the girl was wearing party shoes & a had a big bow in her hair. dragging her elongated rabbit toy, she came up to me & asked, in that wide-eyed wonderful way that children ask questions no matter what the language: "pourquoi est-ce qu'il y a des petits pieces dans une trou?" for those that do not know, there is a well in the middle of the bookshop, between the new fiction table & the politics-philosophy sections, that is full of coins. a burnished copper plaque before the water-empty, coin-full well shows a barely discernable hunched figure, a vague monk perhaps, handing alms to an impoverished man. i am not sure which came first, the well or the plaque, but everyone - including the perpetually drunk cowboy who routinely frequents shakespeare & company - always drops in a handful of change on their way in or out.
the little girl's curiosity was not satisfied when i told her that the well was an old religious tradition coming from the monastery that used to stand where we were standing then. she was not satisfied when i told her that the well, the money, & the plaque were there because we believe in magic & wishes: "mais pourquoi, pourquoi?" she was silenced, however, when i told her that she could (she should) drop a coin or two in the well, as well.