Illusion

Every time it is sunny here and if there is enough free time, going to a park is obligatory. Me and N. decided to try a new one last Friday.

This magical park Buttes Chaumont lies in the north-eastern part of Paris and is a real gem when you need some more nature than what most of parks in Paris offer (which is a lot of nicely arranged walkways and precisely cut bushes, but no walking on the grass is one of the first things that tells you this is no place for a relaxed nature treatment). There are even little waterfalls! And a Temple of Sybil on the top of an island in the middle of the lake is completely fairy talish. What is more, just outside the park a bunch of Parisian grandpas were playing lawn bowling. 

Being an eternal tourist here is one of the biggest funs. You live somewhere, yet you breathe life with full lungs. Routine is impossible. Infinite discoveries are there for you. Illusion will break one day, if not before on the day of departure home. However, this is the time to make the most of it. We will think about everything else later.

A Sunday smile

An invitation for lunch. 

Sun was smiling on this careless Sunday.

So we took off, straight to Montmartre.

Italian food awaited us in a cosy french apartment. 

Lots of people.

Lots of laugh.

Autumn colors.

Dance in the tiny streets.

Twinkling at the sun.

Jazz concert afterwards was the third dessert of the day.

Grazie mille dear A., it was a magical Sunday.

G'morning!

Here I am, returning home at almost 5 AM again. Not sleepy at all of course. And it is almost the same every day for almost two months now — going out practically every night, discovering different bars, clubs and arrondissements by night. I don't know when do we actually sleep. I have no idea when do (will) we study anything. When my friends and family ask me what do I do here, I don't even know what to say. I can't distinguish one day from another even though none of them resembles another one, but my brain is always stimulated by so many events I cannot keep a track of the past. It's only the present I can keep up with. Sometimes not even that.

There is always a billion of us strolling around and trying to enter pubs or bars, then when we finally find one that has enough space for all of us (even just standing places if necessary) or that is opened at that late night hour, we get kicked out because only three people out of twenty-five wants to order something. And then we wander through the dark streets lightly lit up by street lamps and lights coming out of Parisian chic apartments. We always end up on the road then (But no matter, the road is life, writes Jack Kerouac). We finish the night by taking the night bus that is crowded with other night birds like us and spend an hour or two or three to get back home. 

Crazy things happen on the way. 

And so, suddenly it's morning. 

Imagine

Imagine a morning breeze above the calm sea waves lightly hitting the shore. The sun is just about to rise, there is an infinite tranquility, an eternal peace, an unbreakable stillness, an illusion that the sun will not yet rise, the breeze will not keep blowing, the sea waves will always soothingly caress the sand on the shore. There is nobody anywhere, it is too early for life to begin moving, to start making brutal noises, to smell fishing boats, morning coffee or of people's sweat. No, it is a time of calmness when everything stops and prepares itself for a fresh morning, a new beginning, just that it doesn't come yet, the night has yet to ripen into a new day.

This is exactly what I need right now in a European metropolis full of wild cars, loud people, violent ads, nicely smelling bakeries and screaming thoughts all around. Sometimes life is playful sometimes life gives you some hard kicks, but sometimes what you really really need is a horizontal line of a motionlessness. Just breathe in deeply, breathe out, take a break, take a break, before the sun starts a new day and everything starts moving again and your head starts spinning ...

(Photos were taken last weekend in Deauville, Normandy. It was a way too short rest by the ocean.)

The slippery walks

Le bruit des cabarets, la fange du trottoir,

Les platanes déchus s’effeuillant dans l’air noir,

L’omnibus, ouragan de ferraille et de boues,

Qui grince, mal assis entre ses quatre roues,

Et roule ses yeux verts et rouges lentement,

Les ouvriers allant au club, tout en fumant

Leur brûle-gueule au nez des agents de police,

Toits qui dégouttent, murs suintants, pavé qui glisse,

Bitume défoncé, ruisseaux comblant l’égout,

Voilà ma route – avec le paradis au bout.

*

The noise of taverns and the black mud of the sidewalks, 

The torn leaves fluttering in the wintry air; 

The omnibus, a storm of rusty iron and mud 

That creaks, unpleasantly, on its four grinding wheels 

And rolls its slowly burning eyes of green and red; 

The workmen going to their clubs and smoking each 

His short clay pipe 'neath the very nose of the police; 

The dripping roofs, the sweating walls, the slippery walks, 

The asphalt bulging and the filthy, muddy rills;

Such is my route —and at the end is paradise. 

(Paul Verlaine, La bonne chanson, XVI)

Is it the end of the aimless wandering around Paris and sitting in its numerous parks on the grass (crowded with people in their swimming suits as if the neatly arranged aristocratic parks were mediterranean beaches in the time of July) reading poetry for some time? When university courses start it's always like a brick has just fallen on your head as if it's trying to say: hello, there, summertime has gone away and so has all your previous knowledge!   

However, despite all the studying that is about to hit me soon, when in Paris... it is completely impossible not to wander about anymore. Not to be fascinated and disgusted by the city life. By the immense crowds. Beautiful buildings. Numerous cafés. Art galleries and museums. Concerts. Whatever you want. You feel it with all the senses. And how can you not - it's the same place so many artists lived and created, it's full of histories, life stories, art works, wars and poems. The city screams with its past and its present, you have to be blind, deaf and completely senseless not to feel it. Maybe the excitement will pass with time and the wild scenery will became the uninteresting everyday life. Perhaps?