Bonjour a tous.
Merde, I have abandoned this poor blog for way too long.
So here I am, once again, staring at the foreboding blank screen and trying to battle my inner demons of laziness and resistance. It is a difficult battle, but I think that on this fine Sunday morning the inner spark of creativity, that desire to create which pulses inside all of us, is finally going to burn through my feelings of resistance and allow some sort of creative juices to flow once again.
I am still, however, not really in the mood to filter through my thoughts and chip away at my writing in an attempt to make it clearer. So today I present you with something which was scribbled in my notebook sometime in the not too distant past. It is unfiltered and unedited (for the most part :p) and it is my way to ease back into this blog.
Enjoy.
Those early years in France...marked a crucial period of transformation in which I found my true calling...and experienced a profound awakening of the senses...
- Julia Child
An Awakening of the Senses
Sense #1 - Hearing
Peaceful sounds, familiar sounds. The silence of the snow. My ears are fine tuned here.
Yuh hadda look fuh de music boy, yuh hadda find ah way tuh catch de words. How do they sound? Is that how it sounds?
Always trying to tune in to the subtilities and the nuances. I listen. I eavesdrop. I listen to the world go by. I maco. I have become a macoer. Je maco, tu macoes, il maco...
Slam the apartment door behind me. Walk. Walk and think, and keep on moving forward.
Miniature cars scoot by, children chatter excitedly to their parents, and old people click their canes against the pavement. Grumbling stomach. Sometimes other people can hear that sound. I think. Sometimes it stays trapped inside. Silence gives way to the daily drama at the bakery. Orders are shouted out with precision. No time to linger here. The sound of bread cracking, and fingers tapping on glass displays filled with sugary goodies.
In the train station.
So much time spent on the train. Hours spent zooming underneath the city surrounded by thousands of silent commuters. The endless throng of street musicians. I know them by heart now. Accordionists who all play the same songs. Beggars clothed in dark veils who kneel on the ground with hands outstretched, and eyes turned toward the ground. Their trembling hands speak a language that everyone can understand.
On the train. Loud buzzing means that the doors will close.
Pardon. Excusez-moi. Pardon. A voice echoes from the ceiling, announcing the next destination. She says it twice, her voice calm and whispery. It is she who has taught me how to pronounce these names.
Chatou-Croissy, Rueil Malmaison, Nanterre Ville, Nanterre Universite, Nanterre Prefecture, La Defense, Charles de Gaulle Etoile, Auber,
Chatlet les Halles. People spill out of the train here. The doors open and spit out a mass of humanity, all clothed in black, who click their way across the platform.
It's so noisy here. The biggest and busiest metro station in all of Europe.
New train. Same voice. Saint Michel Notre Dame, Luxembourg, Port Royal, Denfert Rochereau, Cite Universite, Bourg la Reine, La Croix de Berny, Antony, Correspondence pour l'aeroport d'Orly, Correspondencia para ir al aeropuerto de Orly, Change here for Orly Aeroport, Attention, ce train est en direction de Saint Remy les Chevreuse, il desservira toutes les gares, merci, Massy Palaiseau, Palaiseau,
Palaiseau Villebon.
Ah reach. Walk down the street, boots and sneakers banging on the street. They walk heavily. Teenagers. Adolescents. Pass in front of the lycee. The sounds of teenage French. An angry, rebellious sounding French, words twisted and placed upside down so adults, and foreigners, can't understand them. Femme becomes meuf, and musique is zicmu They win. I can't understand most of it.
I am starting to feel a cut above the tourists. I can understand some of the French that these teens are speaking. I belong here more than the tourists, don't I? Integration is a long process. Who am I kidding? I can't understand a word of it.
Memories of the City.
Just walk and think. Walking would be a lot quieter without thinking.
The brown Seine gurgles beneath us. The Notre Dame. Organs, echoes, prayers, familiar and fading childhood beliefs, snapping of cameras, a thousand different languages. Confession. You have the choice between English, Francais, and Italiano with Fr. Cicero, and Francais, and Espanol with Fr. Amblard. They sit in soundproof glass boxes. Only the confessors know what thier voices sound like.
The Train. Always on the train. The train is silent during the morning. Faint sound of rustling papers. So many people read on the train here. Think back to New York where everyone had an ipod, immersed in their own noisy world. Here people are immersed in their own worlds of silence. Time to think. The train, usuallty quiet in the morning, wakes up at night. Tongues loosened by liquour.
Cafes. Watch the world go by. Stare at strangers right in the eye, it's ok. Listen to the world move. Big city. The endless sounds of movement, of talking. Big city. Quiet city.
New York.
Remember that?
There was an endless roar in New York. A roar that wakes you up and makes you feel alive. Actors and musicians flock to New York. They always have. They need this roar to inspire them, to shake them out of the daily humdrum. Why compare Paris to New York? It's more difficult to compare this city to my island, I suppose. We live a more insular existence there. A world apart.
What am I trying to say?
Writers flock to Paris. They always have.
Things are slower here. Thicker.
There is time to think.
