samedi apres-midi

The tiny challenge of yesterday - getting to my friend Michele's in Gif-sur-Yvette, a suburb of Paris, at rush hour on the suburban train line. I walked to Denfert-Rochereau, where I used to board the train every day to and from school when we lived here in '64-65, in Gentilly, a suburb on the same line but much closer. The trains were jammed beyond endurance but I managed to squash my way in and survive.

Not even an hour from Paris, Michele's house is in the country, an old stone farmhouse with a huge garden, trees, a vista of fields and nature. Nature! Her son Sylvestre and his wife and young children were driving in from near Versailles to have dinner with us; it was a holiday weekend Friday and they got stuck on the jammed roads. We finally ate at 9.30 - spinach tart and blinis, Russian pancakes with sour cream and caviar - in honour, Michele said, of my roots. Sylvestre is a sunny 40 year old man with the same smile he had at 14 months. And his mother Michele, like my friend Lynn, is an ageless woman with joy in her face.

I began today with errands; events that are boring at home are so much fun in a strange city. I stopped in the local grocery store, for example, to buy a pot of jam, and stood paralysed for ten minutes before leaving without choosing. I'll have to go back with a clear head. In the equivalent of my local Korean store, there were about 25 different kinds of Bonne-Maman jam, including quince and chestnut, and I simply could not decide. Behind the cash, I noticed, were bottles of Veuve-Clicquot Champagne. Can you imagine, my Canadian brethren, if we suddenly felt like celebrating and could run to the corner store for a bottle of the finest? 

In yer dreams, as my kids say.

I was also paralysed in front of the notebook selection at Monoprix - beautiful Clairefontaine colours for days. And, joy, today is the day "Elle" magazine comes out. The Paris "Elle" is the best women's magazine in the world, say I, who hardly know any of them. I can easily spend an hour reading the book reviews and articles; yes, the articles, though I know it sounds like men pretending about "Playboy." The fashion is great too, but the book reviews are wonderful. 

The day was too beautiful to stay home reading "Elle," however, so I set off to walk the length of the Boulevard St. Germain. Here, I have to say, was my first disappointment - the Boulevard was packed with tourists and much less authentic and interesting than I remember it. So many tourists! Whereas I, of course, am not a tourist, no no no, I am a local. I was wearing a bright green spring jacket bought at Goodwill, a Joe Fresh design which is sold at Loblaw's grocery stores, and I'm happy to report the success of inexpensive Canadian design - several people asked me directions, so I must have looked like I belonged.

I eventually ducked down and along to the narrow Rue Jacob and the Rue du Bac to the Seine, almost went to the Musee d'Orsay which was right there - but not the thing to do on the first hot stunning afternoon of spring - and walked back along the river looking at the bouquinistes, the wonderful booksellers with great prints, postcards, books and old magazines.  Several sell imitation old dark blue and white ceramic signs to post on the door, like "Chien mechant." I laughed out loud at one, must buy it for my daughter and our cat: "Chat fort mechant et peu nourri." A very nasty cat, underfed. It just doesn't work in English.

A few things I noticed: the chocolate in the chocolate stores for Easter, treats of mind-blowing delicacy and beauty. I even thought, "Wow, look, they've made chocolate in the shape of eggs," before realising how silly that was.

- Everywhere, people with maps, standing on corners, in the middle of sidewalks, at cafes, poring over maps, trying to figure out where the hell they are. 

- An old man driving one of those miniscule cars-for-two. At home only young people drive them because they're trendy.  Here they're necessary.

- Paris is amazingly clean, much less garbage-strewn than Toronto, even on its densest streets, because of a simple, clever innovation - all along every street are stands from which hang sheer green plastic garbage bags. You can see how much garbage people have thrown in and are encouraged to do so yourself. Then someone comes to remove the full bags and put in a new one. I think of the ugly unwieldy street containers in Toronto, with the ground around strewn with garbage, and shudder.

- The Great Canadian Pub right along the Seine near Notre Dame. I didn't go in.

- On the way home, right beside the Sorbonne on the Rue St. Jacques, a huge number of policemen and police cars and vans. Because the universities are on strike, they must be expecting extra trouble today? No idea. What I loved, though, was at the end of the long line of cars was a special police snack car; it has a little table inside where two men were eating, and I saw the floor was covered with picnic hampers. Trust the French police to make sure they monitor the revolution with a packed lunch.

Speaking of lunch, at home I heated up a vol au vent and some ratatouille, and sat in the sun by my open window, with a glass of wine, to eat. I am learning, once again, to slow down when I eat. At home I'm finished in five minutes; here, it's a crime, in fact it's impossible, to eat fast. I closed my eyes and savoured every bite, and then cheese and then chocolate. Not fancy, exquisite chocolate, just good dark Swiss chocolate. 

La vie, mes amis, est bonne. Happy Easter, Happy Passover, happy feasting to you all. 

a pretty Good Friday

The church bells have been ringing all day, because it's Good Friday. And the clochard - the homeless man who sits all day on the street outside the bakery next door, waiting for coins, must think I'm either busy or crazy, because of the many times he has seen me march by today.

I decided to conquer the Velib system of bike rentals this morning, after rereading an article I cut out last year from the Globe, telling me how easy it is. All you have to do is swipe your card and off you go, says the cheery travel writer, zooming all over Paris. Then when you've finished, presto, you stick the bike back somewhere.  So off I went, to the long line of Velib bikes just down the street. 

Okay, but I see nowhere to stick in my card. There's a green light sensor on the post that locks the bikes; I try running my Visa card over it a few times, but nothing happens. I look around for a sign or a meter or something, but there's nothing except a phone number to dial. I have no pencil or paper with me. So I walk the 3 blocks uphill back to the apartment to call; by the time I get there and have entered the two entry codes to the apartment, I've forgotten the phone number. 

The website, though, makes it look easy. So off I go again; this time I try another place that also has the bikes. Again - no explanation, no post, no nothing. Humiliated, I write down the phone  number and go grocery shopping instead. I feel briefly like a real Parisienne, loading my little basket with endives (which they sell in bulk here), kiwis, fantastic cheese, Poilane bread. But what I need most is laundry detergent, and I stand for 15 minutes in front of the display, trying to figure out what product does what. No, that's to get rid of calcium in the water, and that's softener, and that's for dishes. A man who works there gives me a hand with my choice, and I don't feel quite so Parisienne. 

At home I call the Velib number and get the guy to explain it to me. Easy. Back I go, marching past the bewildered homeless man. And again - there is nowhere to unlock the bikes!! Am I blind? In despair I ask in a nearby computer store. Oh, it's across the street, madame, he cries. So I go across the street, which happens to be in front of a cafe, where the patrons watch me walking up and down looking for something, anything, a clue. I go back to the computer store. No, not across that street - he comes to the door to point - way way on the other side of the avenue down there.

Aaah. I cross the avenue and find the post, MILES from the bikes I was looking at.  There's a screen and you push buttons. But it's incomprehensible - it keeps asking me for my subscriber number. I'm not a subscriber, I just want a bike for a day. Impossible. I am nearly in tears when a nice young man comes up to get a bike, and I beg him to take me through. He shows me the routine, and I can tell you, there is absolutely nothing simple about it. This button and that button and then the card goes here and then you answer questions by pressing more buttons, and then you get a card with a number on it and then you enter the number of the bike you want to take, and then - and then you're done, you can unlock your bike. He shows me how. I want to hug him but he's French. Mind you, even if he were Canadian, I might not hug a stranger, even such a kind and patient one - but certainly not a Frenchman.

I set off on my heavy, sturdy Velib. It's mine for the day if I want. But now I realise I've planned the day badly - I'm on a great big bike, and I'm hungry. It has taken so long to do all this that now it's lunchtime. I don't want to figure out how to lock the bike up so I can have lunch, and anyway, I don't want to tour Paris on my first day. I take a spin around the neighbourhood and for a bit am overjoyed - my new silk scarf is blowing in the breeze as I tool around. Here, a row of small, extremely old, beautiful houses, there an array of spring blooms - and now, yes, I am completely lost. My sense of direction is bad, true, but this city is so incredibly dense and confusing, such a tangle of little streets. I do find my way back along a big boulevard, and am relieved to return Bike #18 to its niche - under half an hour, so it's free. Next time, I think I'll be able to do it by myself, and I'll plan it better.

I buy more groceries - soon Easter Sunday and Monday are coming and many shops are closed. There's a - well, at home it would be a gourmet take-out place; here it's just a butcher store with meat but also some wonderful stuff already prepared. I buy ratatouille again, cauliflower au gratin, and a pastry shell stuffed with something delicious.  But it's a beautiful afternoon and instead of going home to cook, I find a small cafe on the Rue Mouffetard and sit watching the crowds and reading Edmund White's The Flaneur, a stroll through the paradoxes of Paris, while eating my salad. No wine - without Madame Blin, it's just not the same.

And then, one last purchase - I can't resist some flowers. For only 10 Euros - around $16 - I assemble a giant bouquet. In fact, I got carried away - there aren't enough vases here for so many flowers, so they're stuffed in bottles all over the place.  

And soon I am going to see old friends for dinner. Their son was a toddler when I last saw him; now he's a father in his late thirties with children of his own.  The family lives just outside of Paris. I will not be getting there by bicycle.

************************************************

Sat by the window in the sun this afternoon, after all my adventures, finishing Wayson's book. It's exquisite, my friends - stunning, achingly beautiful.  I couldn't wait to tell him so, so I called. There he was, on the other side of the world, this wonderful writer, mentor and man. The book is #9 on the Maclean's bestseller list. 

"Keep yourself healthy," I said to him, newly aware, after reading the book, of his fragility. 

"Do everything you want to do - enjoy everything," he said to me.

Stage deux

It's a heavenly warm day in Paris, and I'm alone chez moi. Just came back from the Gare de Lyon, the most spectacularly baroque train station imaginable, a giant decorated wedding cake, to accompany Lynn to her TGV. The high speed train will take her to the other side of the country; in 2 1/2 hours she will be in Avignon, near her weekend home in Provence. 

Even our little jaunt around the station reminded me of the stress of travel - they only announce the platforms 15 minutes before the train leaves, so then you have to rush to find it. We, of course, got completely lost, ended up at the other end of the very crowded station, then speeded back to find the right one. You have to stamp your ticket at a machine before you get on, something I would not have known. The train itself is very long and has both an upstairs and a downstairs, something else I would not have known. 

Before she left, we went to the TGV internet ticket office to ask about something I have booked on-line (you're supposed to print your ticket and I have no printer here) - the hours were listed on the door, in the afternoon 1.30 to 4.30 p.m.; it was 4.10 but they were closed. When I gestured to the time, the woman inside shrugged. Aaaah. I'm not in Kansas any more.  In Kansas, when it's says 4.30, it means, pretty reliably, half past four.

This morning we strolled around the quartier, discussing among many other things the transitions and changes of language and which self-tanning creams are the most effective. Lynn gave me last minute advice - where to buy laundry detergent and which kind, important things like that. We had lunch outside on the Rue Mouffetard in the hot spring sun, with a little carafe of wine. When I think that for years I would not drink wine during the day for fear of getting woozy - what a waste. What's a little woozy among friends?

I am sad that my beloved friend has gone, but it was time. I have to begin this part now - me alone. I am here to write and to think, not just to talk and to eat. I stopped at two stores on the way home, to buy wine and fresh bread. Now that my very French friend isn't here, I can revert to my slovenly Canadian ways - it's only 5.50 and I'm going to have a glass of wine and a bit of cheese. Vive la Canadienne libre.

PS. A few minutes later: I will confess that I am feeling the great void here now, and wondering how I'll cope with what's next. It has been a great gift to have someone to steer me around and explain everything; even if Lynn's sense of direction is worse than mine, she has lived in this country for 40 years and understands its ways. I got lost twice on the way home, once actually in the train station, and then when I got off the bus. But I did find my way. Then in the wine store I wanted Lynn to tell me what to buy - but then I thought, there isn't a single bad wine in this store, and chose two at random for about $7 each. I will figure things out. And I do know a few people here - two families from my distant past, and two or three other people. This is not Kuala Lumpur.  And luckily, despite lots that whizzes by me, I do mostly speak the language.

Listening to my friend, I realise how different it is to have lived in Europe, just from the point of view of travel. It has helped, mind you, that her husband and five children are all travellers, so that even when the kids were young, they camped all over the place. I remember her telling me how they lost one of their daughters, at the age of 4, in Dubrovnik, and found her a few hours later protected by a kindly stranger and eating an ice cream cone. But also, the adult children of Lynn and Denis have situated themselves, at various times, in England, Japan and all over Africa; that same daughter now lives in Mauritius. Lynn's conversation is peppered with mentions of Zimbabwe, Egypt, Denmark, Japan, Zanzibar, Scotland etc. I felt like a stick in the mud; there are only two places I have been that she hasn't - Istanbul and India. In fact, those happen to be practically the only two places I've travelled to in the last 20 years. While my kids were at home, when I could find time and money to travel, I have tended to come here to France, to visit her. 

I wonder why.  

 

Mmmmmmm

Later that same day ... we are home, it's late, my friend is marking, and I am groaning with a distended belly.

We walked to the Pompidou Centre this afternoon - a half hour to the modern art museum on the site of the old Les Halles, a fantastic once-futuristic building designed to bring great art to the people - "and it worked," said Lynn. We had to line up for half an hour outside just to have our bags inspected, and another twenty minutes inside to get tickets. And then, up the hamster tube escalators on the side of the building, gazing at an incredible view of Paris - the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur on a distant mountain, the kilometres of very skinny tall pale elegant buildings with big windows and grey roofs - to the 6th floor for two very special exhibits, Kandinsky and Calder.

Kandinsky has for years been my favourite modern artist, just before Klee, Matisse and David Milne. In fact, one of the Kandinskys looked a great deal like a David Milne and others like Klee and Matisse. He paints in explosions of colour, great joyful sloshes of green, blue, yellow, red, the early ones at least, emotional colour and shape spilling out of the frame. Later, he grew more abstract and difficult, funny little blobs and spikey things, though even so, his arrangements are satisfying and absorbing. I will return; there were too many people and it was too vast to take it all in.

And then Alexander Calder, the American sculptor whom we all know for his mobiles. I did not know that he passed most of his artistic life, and died, in Paris. And here he did the most wonderful fun things - he created circuses out of wire and cloth - animals, acrobats, amusing and amazing. He did "busts" of his fellow artists and Parisians out of wire, and again, quirky animals and people - all wire with additions like door knobs and buttons. Such a sense of humour and fun. I felt I'd made a new friend. 

By now I was exhausted, and my friend suggested we have a drink right there on the 6th floor of the Pompidou - a very austere, modern restaurant with a panoramic view of Paris. I decided that the prerequisite for being a waiter or waitress at this place was to be anorexic and cold - but the view was extraordinary and the wine was fine. We saw a few more exhibits on the way down, and then made our way to the adventure of dinner. Lynn had the "Guide Routard," a guide to the best restaurant deals in Paris - but we didn't realise that the fact that it was from 2006 was a handicap. We read a few pages, picked the right place, and walked for a good twenty minutes - it was now 8.30 p.m., before which, Lynn said, we would only be eating with Americans; the French wouldn't darken a restaurant door before 8.30 or 9. I, you understand, usually eat my humble fare at 6 or 6.30 and am happy to be done with that chore for the day. I was ravenous and exhausted when we found the place, so picturesque in a back alley near the Places des Vosges - but the name was different, the ownership had changed, and we could see by the menu outside that it was no longer affordable.

Off again - we found a new one in the Guide, walked back around the Place des Vosges - which is even more beautiful at dusk though it was disconcerting to see television sets behind those many centuries old windows - and found the second restaurant. This also had changed hands and was now expensive. I almost lost my sense of humour, friends. It was drizzling, I was starving, we had been on our feet for many hours - but no, we kept going and found what looked like a passable, cheery, ordinary and affordable bistro.

Well, there are only two ways this story can go - disaster or redemption. The waiter sat us at the back right next to the toilets and went off to chat to his boyfriend - a bad start. But the menu was very reasonable - 24 Euros for a three course meal with wine - around forty dollars. And then we found out that the place is fantastic.  I had oeufs mayonnaise with marvellous bread, a superb rabbit stew with the best fries, and tarte tatin, with wine. We ordered another half litre which added a few Euros to our bill, and talked, as we have not stopped doing, about L'Arche this time and Jean Vanier, about the terrible choices parents have to make sometimes, about adoption and knowing where you come from. And we ate so much, it hurt. So we walked home, 45 minutes in the cold drizzle at a fast pace.  

It's midnight. Lynn leaves tomorrow to go back to her life in Montpellier, and I will begin a more solitary leg of my adventure. Things will be very different solo. Another way to see Paris. Perhaps we'll slow down a bit, readers, and I'll take a bit of a breather. 

Or perhaps not.

talking in the rain

A cold, drizzly Wednesday here. It's now 1 p.m., and once more, Madame Blin and I have just stopped talking, briefly. Today she is going to mark and I'm going to write to you early in the day, rather than after a bottle of wine in the evening, so you can see if my blog today is more sensible and distant ...

We talked a lot about religion and the Bible. How little I know, having never read the actual book - though I've always intended to. My friend, as a practising, intellectual Catholic - and this is not an oxymoron, as I'd judgementally assumed - has spent a great deal of time considering matters philosophical and theological. 

But then, also, she lives in a country where people love to spend time considering matters. This is one of the first things noticeable here - people in cafés, large or small groups, young and old, mixed groups of men and women sitting around small tables smoking, drinking coffee or wine, and talking talking talking. People gather here, constantly, to talk and to eat. I told Lynn that when my marriage ended and I was a single woman, I was no longer invited to dinner parties. In Canada, dinner parties provide one of the only occasions for people to get together and converse. It was as if my intellectual life ended with my marriage, because there was nowhere else, for me as a stay-at-home mother, to get together with a group of people and talk about the world. Here, it's a miracle that they ever stop talking and actually go to work.

I think book clubs chez nous are so needed and popular now because they give North Americans a pseudo-café - somewhere to gather to discuss ideas and to gossip. I do not think there are book clubs in France - not in a country where one of the most important television programs of the week is a kind of televised book club, with a host who knows everything, an author with his/her book and a group of people to discuss it. And where everyone is already sitting around discussing books, and everything else, on a daily basis. No appointment needed.

Lynn also told me about the French university system, which allows everyone in and which is free for all. But this equality presents a huge number of problems, because she says in the eleven years she's been teaching at the university level, the level of the students and their knowledge has dropped precipitously; that now she has university English students who can barely read and write French. Lynn's theory is that France purports to be based on "liberté, egalité, fraternité," but that the reality is that there's lots of a certain kind of liberty, very little equality, and no brotherhood at all. That this is the most elitist society on earth.

And that Nicolas Sarkozy is a disaster, even worse than she could have imagined. And my friend is not a crazy radical, or even a leftist like her old Canadian buddy.

In a little break from intense discussion, we put on some YouTube music and relived our youth through headphones, one ear bud for her and one for me. We listened to the wonderful McGarrigles with Rufus and Emmylou sing the traditional American ballad "Hard Times," and then James Taylor and YoYo Ma perform the same song. We heard Joni Mitchell sing "A Case of You" twice, once in her youth and once more recently, with a much deeper and more knowing voice, much more moving.  But in both Joni versions, when she hit that gorgeous "Oh, Ca - na- da," I was moved to tears. It will be interesting to see my country at a distance. There's a mention in a blog post just down the page of my huge problems at home with raccoons, and now it sounds like someone writing from the frontier of a savage land. 

After being gone only a week, I think of Canada as a huge, relatively uncomplicated place with lots of space, lots of trees, incredible natural beauty - but not nearly enough conversation.