Ooh La La

Je suis fatigue.

I am tired.

I was up at 6 a.m.

I couldn’t sleep.

Oh.

I tried.

But gave up the goose around 6:20 a.m.

I popped up and decided to head out to a spot over by the Arc de Triomphe to see some fellows this morning at 8 a.m.

I arrived with plenty of time and was able to grab a quick cafe creme at Comptoir de L’Arc, a little cafe I got turned on to by a friend when I lived here four and a half years ago.

And!

I got a message from that friend today, she’s going to be in town for a quick visit and we are going to meet up at a spot tomorrow with a few other fellows, hang out, do the deal, and go to some French fellowship after.

I am super excited.

I may be super exhausted, but I’m going to sleep when I’m dead.

Or.

Perhaps after I write my blog.

I really did make a big run on the day.

Up so early I felt like I got a scandalous amount of things done today.

One of which has been on my list of things to do in Paris that I never quite got to the last few times I was here.

I went to Marche Aux Enfants Rouge this morning after doing the deal.

I bought cherries and Belle Pomme de Boskop!

My favorite apples in Paris, I believe that they come from Belgium, but they are the apples I used to buy at the market at Square D’Anvers when I lived next to it.

I took my booty to the park nearby, Parc du Temple, sat on a bench and watched the children play in the playground and the ducks paddle about in the pond.

It was spectacular.

Quiet.

Serene.

I had a moment, a Paris moment, and I almost laughed out loud, this, this sitting still on a park bench in a quiet park, off the beaten tourist track, in a sweet neighborhood in the 3rd Arrondisement, may have been one of the highlights of my trip.

It was so serene.

Sometimes a girl has to fly around the world to sit still.

I’m sure I’ll have other opportunities to sit still, although perhaps not tomorrow, as a friend and I are heading to Clingancourt early, but I will give it a shot.

Speaking of friends.

There is nothing, and I mean, nothing quite like bumping into a friend at random in the Marais.

It was amazingly serendipitous.

We walked all over the Marais, chatted, caught up, window shopped.

And.

Ha!

I got my Paris sweatshirt!

Except.

Heh.

It’s not exactly a sweatshirt.

It’s so much better.

And.

It’s so damn me.

It’s a pink satin bomber jacket that I got to have custom patches put on it.

There’s one on the right arm that says Rue Cambon, 1st Arr.

Rue Cambon is where all the fashion house are.

And.

The patch on the back.

Rue de Mauvais Garçon, 3rd Arr.

Literal translation:

Street of the Bad Boys.

Yeah.

I will run with that.

I haven’t had an impulse buy like that in some time and with that I am pretty tapped to with my spending.

I have gotten all my booty and then some.

In fact.

I am a shopped out, museum’ed out, and just about walked out.

My ankle is holding up and I am super glad I go the walking shoes, and I have been careful to not push too hard.

I can easily go too hard too fast.

Which is why I am very happy that I took time today to sit down and watch ducks for a while.

And despite being tired, which frankly makes it harder for me to speak French when my brain isn’t running on a full nights sleep, I got wonderful compliments about my French several times today, and many times over the course of my time here.

I was told by one person that my French was so pretty and where was I from.

He was shocked when I told him that I was from the states.

“But you have no American accent!”

Thank God.

Not that I’m not happy I’m where I’m from, but it does help tremendously to not have the American accent, there is much that is disparaged here about America and sometimes, well, it’s just nice to slide under the radar.

Not that I slide very far under the radar.

I am still quite noticeable in Paris.

I have tattoos you know.

But.

It’s also nice to be recognized.

I had dinner again at a little place by the Musee D’Orsay on Rue de Bac called Cocorico.

The waiter waved me to the table I had last night, the owner came over and chatted with me and we talked about where I was from, again, surprised that I was from America, with my lack of accent, about me being on vacation, that today I was tired, but happy to be eating in her lovely restaurant.

She asked me what I had been doing and I told her, walking and museums and then I told her about the show at the Orangerie and the amazing installation there and she got excited and said she was going to go.

It was a super treat to be chatted with in such a manner, I’m not a local, but I wasn’t treated like a tourist.

She bought my cafe creme for me and when I went to leave she asked my name, “Carmen,” I said, “comme l’Opera.”

Carmen, like the opera.

“Enchante,” she replied, ” je m’appelle Odette.”

I told her it was such a pleasure to meet her and that I was so happy to enjoy her delicious food and I wished her a good night and a good weekend.

I floated out the door.

It’s the little things.

I felt very special.

Thank you Paris for dressing me up in pink satin jackets and making me feel noticed and loved.

It means the world.

It really does.

I See You

I whispered to him as he sped across the road and disappeared down the walk way adjacent to Chain of Lakes.

I saw my first coyote this evening on my way home from doing the deal at Cafe Flore.

I was just turning onto Chain of Lakes on my bicycle, a smooth, no stop turn, the whistle of the cold wind in my ears.

It’s cold out baby.

I could use a warm snuggle right about now.

I was thinking of warm snuggles in fact, it helps to keep the cold at bay to think about the warm.

I was thinking about all sorts of things.

I was thinking about Paris.

I was thinking about the press of the stars in the sky and how low they swung this evening, perhaps as I was coming home through the park at a slightly later time then I normally do on a Thursday.

I was thinking about kisses.

I was thinking about poetry.

I was trying to not think about school.

I woke up this morning a little anxious and I recognized it quite quickly as school anxiety.

So.

I did my deal, I knelt, I prayed, I read some things, I said some things, I had some breakfast and then I wrote.

I wrote it all out and by the time I was done, starting with the smallest thing, the only thing, the one thing that is important and true, my sobriety, from which all else stems, I recognized and wrote down all the good things I have going on.

If nothing else that above fact, makes my life manageable and contained and there really is nothing wrong.

Add to that the gift of being in school, it is a gift to be there.

The job.

The little in-law I live in.

My dear and darling friends.

My bicycle.

My scooter.

My scooter for which I am 3/4s of the way towards having all the paperwork done so that I can apply for a child care parking permit and park in the neighborhood where I work.  I have only to wait on my insurance paperwork, that should be here any day now, to finish up the application.  That and a check sent in to SFMTA and I’m set.

Of course.

The small print–it will take up to 21 days to process.

But that is fine.

I can continue to ride my bicycle to work and it’s just a little delay.

Yes.

Grateful for the scooter, for a home to park it in front of, for having taken the motorcycle safety course, for the entire thing being paid in full.

Grateful.

I rationally wrote all these things down.

Acknowledged my fear of there not being enough time and said, so what if there’s not enough time?

The time is that there is time.

Time and more time.

I could measure it in teaspoons.

Hang it from the cusp of a moon.

I could wander down halls lit with lanterns of time.

There is time.

And more time.

To fill the hours.

The days.

The moments.

Infinity in a parsec.

I have all the time in the world.

I am of time.

I am in time.

The slower I go.

The more time I have.

Time.

Always this time.

The watching hands on my wrist.

The call of the hours at noon on Tuesday.

The wind in the high trees.

The sloughing sounds of leaves telling the time of autumn.

The fall of time.

Marching down the long avenues.

Getting stuck in the church pews.

Swinging in an incense pot.

Red light candles and the decrepit

Crumbling of stone in St. Augustin.

I have more time than I could ever use.

There is no lack of time there.

There is only more and more.

An infinity.

A chorus of seconds and milliseconds.

Of minutes stretched between the high pillars

Hiding under the doom of night.

There is only this.

And.

In this this.

I exist.

At one.

Apart.

Final.

Complete.

In this time.

I am time.

Wounded.

Solaced.

Loved.

Graced with the singing.

The music of the spheres.

The metronome of God.

Clock at the Musee D’Orsay

Ahem.

I have no idea where that all came from.

Ha.

But I rather like it.

A little inspiration from the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by my favorite poet, TS Eliot.

I like how Eliot writes about time.

There is a succulence there and a tenderness that is also hard and can at first seem as though the poet is battered on these shores of  millenium and the magnitude of time.

And.

There is a bubble of love.

That in which the eternal is always here.

In this moment.

Where.

Yes.

Mathilde.

Everything.

EVERYTHING.

Is perfect.

There are no problems in this moment–there is tea in the cup, sweet candles burning, Coleman Hawkins on my stereo, there are flowers in a vase, a tidy home, a warmth and glow to it, there is love.

“Are you poisonous tonight?”  I asked the five-year old who was cuddling with me on my lap, decked out in aqua blue and sea-foam green striped pajamas.  He will tell me that he is poisonous when I make the attempt to eat him.

“Maybe,” he said, “you’re not really going to eat me though, are you?”

“Nope,” I replied and touched the tip of my nose to his and wiggled it softly.

He scrunched his face in delight.

“Then how come you always say that?” He asked, all seriousness.

“Because you are delicious and I want to eat you!” I replied and squeezed him.

“No, that’s not it,” he folded his arms and looked at me with big deep brown eyes.

“Hmm, well, ok, it’s because you feed my heart,” I said.

“How?”

“You know how all living things need air to breathe and water to drink and sunlight to grow?”  I asked him.

“Yes.”

“All living things need love too, I need it to grow and thrive, and when ever I am with you, you feed my heart with love and it gets bigger,” I took a deep breath, I hadn’t known those words were coming out of my mouth, and tears swam in my eyes.

“Carmen, I love you.”

“I love you too,” I said and hugged him tight.

“I am going to marry you!”

“Well, you’re a little young for me, but you will always have my heart, I promise.”

And in the dark of the moon, the coyote turned his sharp nose and trotted across the street in front of me.

Trickster.

Clown.

Totem.

Creative energy.

Magic.

Sex.

Rutting.

Moon and star.

Time magic.

I felt kissed with love and my heart grew bigger and I thanked God for my life and all the things I get to see and feel and do and be.

Even anxious.

Even scared.

Even uncertain and uncomfortable.

Because that too, is where the growth is.

And the love.

I must have them both to grown.

Sprinkle a little coyote mysticism on it.

Bake it in the oven.

And I will shall have it with tea and toast.

Or apples.

Yes.

Apples.

Belle pomme de Boskop.

S’il vous plait.