Dispatch From LA

almost my last tango in paris

I apologize for holding you hostage in Paris, but I can't help it.  I get things stuck in my brain and can't move on until I'm completely finished.

I went to stock up on cat food today and had the best conversation with the Parisian woman who owns the pet supply shop.  She asked if I'd gone to Berko, the cheesecake place on Rambuteau.  Hells yes!  Apparently it's VERY popular with the locals for the American style cupcakes served.     I was smitten when I saw the salted caramel cheesecake slices.  Salted.  Caramel.

I know... American style cheesecake in Paris.  Don't judge.

Anyway if you go to Paris and stay in the Marais, get thyself to Berko for a slice of the afore mentioned nirvana-inducing yum.

Where was I?  Oh yeah I was just getting ready to take you into Angelina on Rue de Rivoli.

You did want to go didn't you?

I thought so.

We'll share one of their famous mont blanc chestnut whipped cream (like buttah people!) meringue confections.  Chrissy and I split one of them when we went.

Maybe you'd prefer this.  Just sayin'

We'll go on the longest walk along the Seine when we're done.  Not that we'll need to - what's eaten in Paris stays in Paris.  I promise.

I just resumed my walkabouts here in LA this week.  Feels good to be getting back into the moving routine I began in December.  I won't be breaking speed records anytime soon and I still have to stop and catch my breath on the hills, but I feel stronger and can go further than before.

In 25 years I want to still be tramping around foreign cities with my camera.

~

Day By Day

I've been swimming underwater.  Occasionally rising to the surface to look around in puzzlement.  Dreaming strange dreams.  Readjusting.  Walking around with my swim fins on.

But I'm getting home more and more.  Day by day.  There is something unnatural about boarding an airplane and flying to another continent.  You arrive too quickly.  I have traveler's bends.  I imagine arriving by boat or train would be easier on the psyche.  But don't feel too sorry for me.  I enjoy the out of focus feeling - the dream it takes awhile to awaken from.  Especially if it was a good one.

And it was a good one.

I'm adding photos to my travel journal.  I make my selections based, not on content necessarily, but on color and shape.  Sort of like the way I selected the ones for this post.  A mishmash.

White on white.  Bliss.

The patron saint of my travel journal, Jean Paul.  Much more on him in an upcoming post.

On one of rambles in the double digit arrondissments I came across this tiny cemetary surrounded by tall apartment buildings. 

My journal.  It's growing!

~

Will be featuring this journal structure in the June class (along with 1 or 2 others) so won't go into details about the construction or process here.

A Veritable Fake Wood Paradise!

Last week at this time I was rambling through a hillside park next to Sacré Coeur in Montmartre.  Throngs of people cluttered the steps admiring the views of Paris.  I did the same then tramped off looking for quiet.  I walked around the to the right and found the loveliest park I hadn't seen before on my last visits up here.  Twisting paths and sets of stairs led down the hill.  I expected to run into people.

Instead I found faux bois logs poured into faux bois steps leading to...

Surprise,  faux bois railings!  A veritable fake wood paradise!   A Parisian cat posse were having a meeting on the stairs.

I stood under a canopy of green with tall groves of apartment buildings clustered along the edges.

Windows opened and closed.  Balconies waited for their owners to arrive home from errands, or work, or walks.

I know it seems like it's all I did in Paris - wander through parks and stare at pretty things.  Listen to birds.  Think about how plants grow.  It's true.  That's what I did.  I would like to go back right this second and do it for another month.  I wouldn't get bored.  I love cities.  Getting small glimpses into other lives.  Listening to busses roar past.  Metro doors spring open and snap back closed.  Small wooded spaces to rest and drink in the sun.  Each person tilting back on their own axis, making their own rotations, taking trips.

Living.

Next time I go to Paris I will endeavor to write down the names of the parks I visit.

Or at least take photos of the signs.  I went to so many.  Suzanne and I thought we should make each other felt girl scout badges for each place we visited.   Museums for her and parks for me.  Plus I'd like another one for Metro & Bus lines.  Imagine little handstitched applique badges with big numbers on them.  Um.  wow.  that'd be cool!

Wouldn't it?

I've been sort of stunned all week.  Like a bird that flies into a window.  Working life is a real shocker.  I haven't had the luxury of staring into space while I gather my wits about me which is my usual adjustment strategy upon returning from a holiday.  

My school is changing to a traditional calendar next year.  We'll have summers off like most schools in other parts of the country.  Instead of 2 - 6 week breaks I'll have 1 long break in summer.  The good news is I'll be going on vacation again at the end of June.  But for right now I'm still in Paris.  Getting ready to fall asleep on a park bench.

 

So French! So Fabulous!

Hello my Paris travel companions!  I really loved having you accompany me on this trip.  Many nights in the apartment I would read your comments to Suzanne (who is now in Bologna, Italy) Your words made us smile, laugh, pause, reflect.  I'm slowly readjusting to life back in cold wet LA.  Can you believe Paris was warmer than Southern California when I left?  I have never seen Paris sunnier.  And to think we had a full moon on top of all of that.  What bounty!

John C. Reilly & Jody Foster (not together) were right in front of us going through customs on Friday night.  Everyone in LA is too cool to go, "look!"  But I opened my pocket and said that very thing to you.  We high-fived each other.  Happy Sunday.  Here, have a macaroon while you enjoy some Parisian street art.

Another Leo & Pipo

More from the Parisian street poet:

I think of the day when horses will have learned to cry

 

All of these will find a home inside my travel journal...or I may begin a street art journal.

and below...not street art, but how gorgeous is this hand illustrated poster I spotted in a storefront around the corner from our apartment?

Most definitely going in the travel journal.  Which, as you can imagine, is already bursting at the seams.

One last look at the charming & delightful Roland who told us one day, "Since I was 6 or 7 years old all I wanted was to live in Paris!"  When he grew older it was still his dream.  His father would say, "Yes, but what will you DO there?"  To which Roland would reply, "I will LIVE there of course, what else?"

Over 50 years later he is a true Parisian in every sense of the word.  So French!  So fabulous!

last postcard from paris xo

i'm literally dashing out the door.  here is one last video from paris.  i have more and i have MORE paris posts, but they will be broadcast from LA.  see you soon!

goodbye paris.   you have kissed me on both cheeks and for that i THANK YOU.  merci bien,  au revoir.

 

xo,

 

mary ann

Another Postcard From Paris

More strange photos from Paris!   While Suzanne has been mansion & museum hopping and absorbing the finer things of French culture, I have been absorbing the street & metro scene.  Finding out-of-the way gardens and parks.  Small neighborhoods like nesting boxes, inside bigger neighborhoods nestled inside the big city.  My feet just refuse to go inside.  

When I return to Paris for a month (sometime) I may be able to chisel some time away from tramping the streets to see pretty things and ingest some information.   Maybe.  I might.

The weather has been pure joy.  Perfect walkabout sun & skies.  I have watched leaves open on the trees.  A haze of green settling over the bare limbs in all the parks.

Yesterday I made my way to the Saint Martin Canal area.  Funky, worn.  Easy to miss in a city like Paris with all of its fine monuments and gilded domes, but definitely a neighborhood of Parisians living their lives.  High arched footbridges curve steeply over the canal.   Cobbled walkways.  Street art.

Explored a community garden alive with children tending small plots, men playing.  Fields filled with children out of school for the day.   So many mothers and babies and small children!   So many ways for city dwellers to engage with the natural world here in Paris.   After 2 weeks of quiet observation, my studies are incomplete.  I must return in summer when the trees are fully leafed, vines thick on the walls, plants rambling out of window boxes.

More Leo & Pippo!

A giant train station.  Some things you just don't find except by accident.

If you've always wanted to see Paris and a companion is the only thing stopping you, COME ALONE.  It is the most glorious visceral place.  Whatever kind of travel niche you would like to make for yourself you can do it.  If you have mobility issues the city busses are so fabulous!  You can ride in comfort and watch Paris roll by your window.  You will get lost and turned around.  You'll drop your map, dribble caramel down your shirt front, stick your ticket in the wrong slot, step on someone in the metro.

But you will be so happy.  Your heart will find new ways to be moved.  Every.  Day.   Your senses will rise up to greet you.

You will be, as Mary Oliver writes,  a bridegroom married to amazement.

And won't that be grand?

Won't that be grand?

we were here.

we rode le métro aérien.  soaring above the city.  then the parisian tom waits boarded.  and began to sing.  we jabbed each other with our elbows at the exact same time.

what i don't have on video is the part where tom started singing TO ME.  and winking.  i'm not kidding or imagining.  he was searching for a face to deliver his funny lines to, and i was the big smiley headlight in the back.   a natural audience participant. 

thoreau in paris

I went to the park because I wished to live deliberately, 

to front only the essential facts of life,  such as knitting

or writing a poem,

dozing in the warm sun,

and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,  

about camaraderie,

reflection,

making a grocery list,

 
recalling things we'd forgot,

 finding our way,

love 

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

i can see paris in the moonlight

From my window I can see Paris in the moonlight.  I sit each night and write in my travel journal and feel in communion with the people in the other apartments across from me.   Sometimes they are reading.  Or in their kitchens.  Looking in a mirror.  Faces illuminated in the glow of computer screens.  Standing in an open window.  Leaning back in a chair talking to someone, their arms folded behind their heads.  Yesterday I saw an elderly woman with white hair putting her hand on her brow as she looked down into the street.  Last week a young redheaded woman was leaning against the railing of her balcony.  She looked defeated.  Her small dog stood next to her.  She stood there for a long time smoking in the late afternoon sun.  Heartache in Paris.  Or headache.  I can't tell which.

A thousand stories for every window.   Charles Dickens, among many others, runs through my mind when night falls on Paris and I am up here in my perch.

 A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret;  that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret;  that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

In the day there is visual poetry in the streets.  I have never seen so many flowering trees in all my life.  I marvel at the variety, color, and scent.  Small clusters of bouquets hanging off the branches.  The world and all the things in it feel so sharp and focused.  Animated.  Glowing from the inside.   I love.  I see.  I love again.

I found some Leo & Pipo paste-ups I was searching for here and further afield in the 16 arr.

And other street art.  

Chrissy who is fluent in French, translated the one below for me.

Give me your hand to go into the snow.

A rogue poet on the streets of Paris!

I love the paste-ups.

I bow to your mastery, unknown stencil artist.  Oh the intricacy & layering involved!  

Bravo clap clap clap!

Parisian umbrellas have style.  If you open them in the rain you will have a perfect fondant cake floating above your head.  This is not a bad thing.  Not at all.

Getting in and out of the tiny tables is fraught with peril.  So far I haven't toppled anything or crushed anyone.  Not yet.  There is still time.

So many windows.  

Conversations.  Heard and unheard.

further walkabouts in paris

paris walkabouts from MAM on Vimeo.

A Week Left In Paris

Every morning I awake to a bedful of sun.  

The view from where I lay and other details of my bedroom...

Flea market finds!  These are all from Foire nationale à la brocante et au jambon the twice yearly flea market that comes to Paris.  And that I only know about thanks to Jeanne from Kansas! 

Falling to pieces old books with incredible covers.

Sweet monogrammed napkins.  I'll use for dishtowels.

A small mountain of paper, only some of which I'll tease you with here.   Some with a stamp of the Napoleonic Empire!

Embroidered tablecloths.  The white one is COVERED with embroidery with red stitching along the hem, in perfect condition.  10 euros!

My "stranger" for dinner was another blogger who lives in La Borne, France, a small village of potters a couple hours south by train.   Chrissy arrived bearing gifts made by her husband Hugh along with a lovely bottle of Sancerre wine.  I was especially thrilled by that as I'd written it down as one to try while here in Paris.  

I was utterly charmed by my new friend and enjoyed spending the last few days together.  What a rare treat.  Especially for someone like me who leans towards introversion.  You wouldn't know it from all the yacking we did.  Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

where you & i go to the brocante for ham & chocolate & treasure

a find from  foire nationale a la brocante et aux jambons.  

where i ate THIS:

come on!  you didn't think we were going to the special twice yearly flea market featuring HAM and not have a big old luscious plate did you?  you sat next to me and with your own identical plate.   the dark crispy pile in the middle?  the best part!  i think you agreed, but couldn't quite here you over our the sounds of smack smack crunch ooo yum smack.

all of the vendors here were exceptionally kind.  good prices.  i almost couldn't believe my good fortune and my trader joe's bag was brimming over before i knew it.  i felt lucky.  happy.

there was this fellow.  he was pleasant and interesting.

we bought steaming cups of warm chocolate avec creme chantilly.  more moaning and sighing as we warmed our hands on the little paper cups.

see that other cup there.  that belonged to the "stranger".  we've been chumming around the last couple days.  a new friend.  

100% awesomeness

Breakfast of champions.

The writing in italics is directly from my travel journal.  We're traveling back in time to MONDAY...

Began the late morning outing on the metro.  Rambuteau 11 to the RER B Cite Universitaire.  Straight off the train and up to Parc Montsouris.  The late morning was grey but not cold.  Verdant slopes of green, bulbs opening everywhere, primrose, rose bushes beginning to leaf out, trees with magnolia blossoms that are poised to explode into bloom any second.  More of the brilliant yellow forsythias, white, pink flowering trees dense with blooms. 100% awesomeness.

I watched a red-winged blackbird hopping around with a branch in his beak.  Then a big parrot surprised me by swooping into the scene.  I got his picture.  He was eating buds I think!  an interloper!  I sat on a bench to take it all in.  Spied a mass of purple crocus and wide swaths of daffodil tapestry.   Ruffly and swaying in the breeze.  

Stayed in the park for awhile then ventured out onto Rue Emile Deutsch de la Meurthe which borders the park.    Walked up and down the little offshoot streets and alleys.  Pièce de résistance was Square de Montsouris. mama mia plus a healthy dose of ooo la la.  Small villas wrapped with vining branches.  A veritable paradise

Promise me if you come to Paris you will come out here and explore this part of the 14th arr.    You'll be the only one walking around with a map.  Have a picnic in this park.  Unwind.  Read a book.   A million ways to do nothing and be so pleased about it.

 I stared into windows and up to rooftops.  Looked in patios.  Walked in circles.  Finally stopped for a cafe creme at a sidewalk table.  The sun came out.  The sky was blue.  I revisited the other side of the park.  Sat on a bench by an idyllic lake and people watched.   Utter tranquility.  A Monet come to life.  The sun felt so good.  I wandered some more.  This park is layered with loveliness.   Saw ducks and old people and babies and women reading books, men jogging, lots of people sitting, someone had their laptop.  I looked for a bathroom but didn't find.  woe.

Now I know why everywhere in Paris serves such tiny glasses.  No bathrooms!  Your bladder will readjust in a few days.  Or not.

Like yesterday the streets were vacant.  I moved at the pace of a snail.  Each house more fabulous than the next.  

 

 Finally got back on the RER B and exited at Luxembourg Gardens.  More garden bliss.  Got a caramel crepe from a darling man who let me film the entire sequence of deliciousness.  I ate it hot while I sat.  Then i DRANK the rest of the caramel from the bottom triangle of paper.  finger licking good. 

 

Statues of former French queens, stood guard behind me. i watched the other sitters.  Some couples kissed while  I silently cheered them on.  The light rippled across the water.  What a fabulous place.  It's official.  I am in love with Parisian parks.  

Since Monday I've been exploring in the 16th arr.  

Went to read today in Tuileres gardens.  A day of relaxment while I await tonights completion of item #33 on my LIST!!!

Thanks for the mountains of comments.  I am enjoying your company!

xo from paris

The Double Digit Arrondissments

I hope you're not waiting for the post with me and the Eiffel Tower in the background.  Or me waving from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, or scaling the gold statue Génie de la Liberté atop the Bastile, hanging from a gargoyle's neck at Notre Dame, sliding down the Louvre pyramid.   Um.  You aren't are you?

Whew.  I'm relieved.

I have some "villages" to explore this time around.  Right in the middle of Paris.   3 metro lines and about 20 staircases later I landed HERE:

In the 13th arrondissment.  More walking.  Looking.   When I stop and close my eyes I  got wafts of fragrant air.   Things were blooming!  And there were birds!  I could hear them in the trees!  
   

and of course very few people which i loved most of all.  

I am in my true deep element when i am out tramping alone through foreign streets.  My wanderings have quirks.  I stop.  Start.  Turn around.  Go back 3 paces.  Look up.  Lots of looking up coupled with moments of intense scrutiny of  the ground.  What is that?  Where did that come from?  Where is that sound coming from?  

Camera in one hand - video in the other.  I am a stranger from a strange land who has come to record every detail of the empty space.  the time in between other times.  the part of the day when almost everyone has gone home and left me to worship the streets alone.  So happy!

 THIS is why I'm here.  THIS is what I came to see.   I am happiest in these outer reaches, besides I've seen the highlights on other trips.  Now I am out to conquer the double digit arrondissements.   I have a dozen outings like this planned.  Plus some more traditional places I just HAVE to visit on the regular Paris circuit.   Those will come eventually.  For now, street art:

Today you tapped me on the arm and asked if I was ready to stop acting strange and enjoy a treat.  You don't have to ask me twice.  We went into a patisserie and I picked out the prettiest confection with the longest name I couldn't begin to pronounce.  The nice lady wrapped it in crinkly bakery paper and handed it to me.  We walked to a tiny park with a tiny bench and I took this picture.  Then I put this in my mouth, closed my eyes, opened my eyes wide, started making this-is-good noises, licked my fingers.  Maybe if it had a big crunchy snail on top it would have been something other than extremely delicious.  

I don't know what you had, but it was twice as big and twice as messy.  I didn't look at you when you ate it.

There were pretty yellow trees blooming nearby.  We felt giddy.  The park bench was high and we swung our feet while eating.

We took the 67 bus back home.  I wrote in my travel journal and uploaded photos for this post.  You snuck into the kitchen and swiped your finger through the sea salt butter.

Several hours later it was time for dinner.  I love that.  The way you get hungry and are forced to eat something really good again.  We went to the place that  nice Mim recommended in the blog comments yesterday.  Turns out it's only a few blocks from l'appartement.  And it was full of French people!  We knew it was going to be good.

The house wine was red and smoky.  Perfection.

I ordered duck in prune sauce.  You didn't bat an eye when I cut my napkin in 2 and tucked it into my white shirt.  Thanks for that.

On the way home through the dark streets I looked up and saw this window.   Maybe inside there is a child on a feather bed reading a storybook.  Dreaming about a trip she will take when she grows up.

~

Corky my cat nanny, wrote a post over HERE.  She sends me funny emails and tells me what the cats are doing.

today

the sun shone into the apartment this morning.

i woke early itching to climb aboard some form of public transportation.  i went off in search of le marché aux puces de vanves.  a flea market in the 14th arr.  thanks for not making me show you the ropes since i don't know where they are.  also next time you might want to leave the booth i'm at when you see me ready to ask a really dumb question, or when you see me knock something over.  twice.  

there's a lot to see.  of course there is.  

there are watchdogs to guard it all.  the french pooch let me rifle through the box.  i selected a dozen lovely postcards.  most had writing on them and were addressed to paris.  also found a cool old letter and other assorted ephemera to use in my travel journal.

 green leaves unfurled while i watched.  daffodils held their shining faces up to the sun.  trees blossomed.

carousels spun around.
 

By 2 pm I was home for travel journaling and napping.  you were tired too, but fell asleep with a smile on your face.

We went for dinner on ill saint louis, a lovely island in the seine.

It began to mist, but i didn't care because i'm the owner of a lovely lilac umbrella bought at BHV.  you told me to get the one with the ruffle.  so i did.  i've never had a ruffled umbrella before.  it's pretty, but you keep trying to take it from me.

here's the cheese plate we shared with dinner.  an enormous basket of assorted salamie and a giant knife came before dinner.  i did not embarrass myself or you with my cutting technique.  but i almost did.  also i used a public toilet today and almost got sprayed with disinfectant, but then i didn't.  

I made a little video.

 

night falls in paris

i've arrived!

roland gave us an entertaining tour of  l'appartement.  i will give you a brief tour via photos.

we unpacked and strode out onto the streets.  had a small cafe lunch.  went to the grocery store around the corner for provisions.  wandered dazed through the streets.  came home in a french stupor.  sleep deprivation beginning to set in.

i did this:

drunk on bubble bath love.  tired bones crave hot soaks.  fresh pj's.  clean socks to slide around the floors.

I stepped out on the little balcony for a few street shots.  the seine is in this direction.  i thought i might walk down tonight for a stroll, but know now that i won't.  tomorrow.

the journal and supplies are on the table waiting for me in the morning.  i'm too drowsy to put pen to paper now in my waking dream state.

now night is falling on paris.  the sky is violet.  it's 7:34 pm.  i'm sitting at the dining room table.  i just finished eating a simple dinner of max poilane bread and sel de mer butter found at the grocery.  imagine the freshest butter possible with a bit of sea salt crunch.  throw in a few strawberries with ruby red centers.  so good!  

i went back on the balcony.  amber lights flickering on in all the buildings.  

a fluffy bed is calling me...

loved getting my email and reading all the comments on the last posts.  so glad you're here with me.  i'll wake you before i head out for tomorrow's adventure.

your seat can be used as a flotation device

ARMCHAIR TRAVELERS PREPARE FOR TAKE OFF.  those of you in my pocket snuggle in.  it's going to be a non-stop 10 hour and 40 minute ride.  bring snacks.  i'll wake you when we land.

~

um.  bags are packed.  sweet corky, the cat nanny has arrived.  flight leaves later this afternoon.

decided to sew a journal bag for safekeeping.  its total guerilla manic made in an hour grab the nearest thread you can find style.  sort of like if charlie sheen suddenly got a wild hair to make a vera bradley bag.  you know?  

this travel journal was an extra special labor of love so didn't want to just stash it in my purse. it's a big fat scrap happy duct taped mess.  you'll see more once i get to paris... from that cafe i mentioned.

i HATE to turn this post into an advertising pitch.  blech.  but quite frankly if you're interested in my next online class, (debuting in june) i want you to get a jumpstart on finding a few things you're gonna need!  vintage photo frames, vintage photo album, maybe an old ledger with a cool spine, a mountain of scraps.  get yourself over to ebay and be persistent.  find auctions that end at strange times and swoop down at the last minute.  go to flea markets, yard sales, raid your grandmother's attic.  even if you find not one single one of those things...  your imagination is going to lead you down alternative paths.  not going to mention the class thing again until i have more succulence on the bones of my BIG IDEA.  promise.  the old photo album travel journal gig i've been on the last few weeks sparked a wildfire.  just sending you some smoke signals.  letting you know what's up.

{au revoir les enfantes!}

see you in paris.