Full Time Work

Is what I have.

I just realized that as I posted the rest of today’s photographs up.

It is not paid in the conventional sense of the word.

Yet it is what makes my life so rich.

I walk, I write, I take photographs.  I walk some more.  I write some more.  I post pictures up.

Writing

Walking

Watching

It really is a full-time job.

I got up this morning, finally getting my timing down, I got up early enough to eat breakfast, ask direction, write three pages long hand, wash, drink two Americanos, and meditate (before the Americanos hit) and get off to my noon commitment without having to ditch one or the other.

Usually what happens is that I drop the meditating.  I do the writing, I do the breakfast, and you can be damn sure I do the caffeinating, but I don’t always get in those minutes of stillness that I need to have more and more as I move forward.

I headed out to the American Cathedral and hung out there for a little bit, then I went a walking.

The plan was to walk along the Seine from Pont D’Alma to Ile de la Cite and see Notre Dame.

I have not been inside Notre Dame since the first time I was in Paris back in 2002, and I was hung over.  I remember the feeling that came over me then, flushed briefly with something other than alcoholic defenestration, I had a brief connection.

I wanted to go back and say hello to that space again, I also had been given the suggestion to climb the stairs of the towers and see the view.  I did get to Notre Dame, but I did not climb the stairs. I just went inside.

I took no photographs.

I also did not take any phone calls.

Seriously.

I have to restrain myself from the dirty looks I am so capable of tossing out.  I am not the church police.  It is not my responsibility to monitor the people who are in the space, despite wanting to be right, despite wanting to put the smack down on the two girls behind me talking, talking, talking.

Shut up.

I restrained myself.

I took no photographs, except with my eyes, stopping once to get out of the flow of traffic, to press my palm against a pillar growing up into the cathedral, just feeling the warm stone, soft, buffeted by centuries of prayers and entreaties to God.

I walked out, glanced at the line to climb the towers and said, no thanks.

I went back walking.

I easily did a few miles today, putting in about two hours of steady meander.

I ended by weaving my way through the flower market, which was quite diminished after the holidays and a little sparse with flowers.

But flowers there were, including the house of orchids, which was divine.

I am not a huge fan of orchids, I like flowers that smell–woodsy violets, sweet lilies of the valley, pungent lilacs, soft apple blossoms, the heady heavy smell of peonies, the deep lacquered breath of tuber roses, piquant jasmine, peppery geraniums–orchids do not.

However, they are hot-house flowers, and  they like warmth and heat and moisture.

I walked into the steamy jungle of a green house in the heart of the flower district and just let the warmth wrap itself about me.

I shall remember this spot when the megrims chase me down in February and the days don’t seem like they are going to get long ever again, that there may be a sunny spring day somewhere on the horizon.

I will remember the flower market and let myself discreetly nestle beside a pot of orchidae.

After my walk about I was ready for lunch, damn ready, I had just an apple around 1:30 pm and it was pushing 4 pm.

I hopped back on the Metro, headed to the market in my neck of the woods, then home again home again, to make a big lunch.

Fortifying myself with food and caffeine I headed back out the door, after down loading the photographs and sending out a few e-mails (I am reaching out to those people who I know may have a connection to the publishing world), I put in a good word with the bunny bank-my god box-and went to Odette and Aime.

Preparing to write

I spent an hour at the cafe.

I might have stayed longer, but my flow got interrupted when I was asked to move from my table to another.

I had sat myself in the dining area, which the cafe does not have any problem with when it is not serving dinner, but tonight they got busy out of the blue and I got asked to move.

I did, however, get in an hour of writing and I got another ten pages of my new work pushed out.

I got lost in the club scene of San Francisco and the nights and the smoke of drugs and the husk of dawn happening on 6th and Harrison and I was gone.

Ghosted along into another time.

It really does fascinate me that I can drop into it that fast.  The cafe dissolves, I am gone, I am in the words, I am in the music, I could smell the garbage can, a 50 gallon plastic Rubbermaid contraption, full of plastic cups, the splash of vodka and Redbull, the sweetly sick smell of raspberry chewing gum gone bad.

Then, I look up and the couple next to me are tucking into a meal–the man had the tartare, which I can vouch for is tasty, tasty, and the woman had the canard (duck) which my room-mate can vouch for.

The basket of bread, the heel left in the napkin, the smear of butter on a crust, the drift of pepper from the arugula salad that was served with the tartare.

And I am back.

Then moved, note to self–sit at the table that only has one chair next time.

I do not always sit there as it is a little disconcerting–there is a mirror right in front of you, but considering that the writing takes me so swiftly, I don’t see it until I come up for air.

I paid my check, wrapped up my notebooks, took my book, tucked it in my bag and headed out the door back to the homestead.

Where upon I went about making a little dinner, since lunch was so late, of oatmeal and banana and tea with vanilla soy milk.  Yeah, I roll like that sometime.  I will eat your raw meat tartar and up you a soy milk spiked tea later for shits and giggles.

I finished with dessert–an album of John Coltrane, Blue Train, and another good session with the Will Self novel, Umbrella.

Once I had a break I got on to the rest of the business for the day.

Post the photographs, write the dialogue for the photographs, update an album on Facecrack, and then go write another blog–this one here.

My job done for the day, I am going to go rest my writing arm.

It is sore.

In that sexy kind of way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: Notre Dame, Odette & Aime, Paris, postaday, the Seine