Book Project

So.

Here I am again.

Thinking about publishing a book.

But this time it is different.

This time I am ready.

Ten years ago I moved to Paris.

I moved to Paris to “become a writer.”

The truth was.

I already was a writer.

I had been a writer for decades.

I was on the cusp of turning 40 when I moved to Paris.

I am on the cusp of turning 50 now.

If you had told me that I wouldn’t really be looking at being published for a decade after moving to Paris.

Well.

Fuck.

I would burst into tears and likely thrown myself off the cutest nearest bridge.

Good thing I didn’t know.

Hell.

I had no idea ten years ago that instead of becoming a published writer, which, by the way, I am published–my dissertation was published on ProQuest on August 8th–I was to become a therapist.

I had no idea what Paris was going to hold for me.

It was terrifying, cold, heart breaking, wet–it rained a lot, and it snowed!

I got lost all the time–sometimes literally, often figuratively.

I spent a lot of time in churches–they are heated to a nice toasty warm that I would often find myself seeking reprieve from the weather in.

I wrote.

All the fucking time.

I wrote three, sometimes four, times a day.

I edited and re-hashed and re-organized a memoir.

I wrote short stories, poemss, blogs.

I wrote in my journal (s).

There ended up being many, many, many journals–all of which I still have.

I wrote in the morning.

I wrote in the afternoon–in cafes, my favorite being Odette & Aime.

Which was just around the corner on 46 Rue Maubege, I lived at 18 Rue Bellefond.

I would sit for hours in the cafe and sip at tap water and a cafe Allonge–which is basically a black coffee.

I was so poor.

Tit mouse poor.

Starving artist poor.

Hemingway in A Moveable Feast poor.

But like, Hemingway made it sexy.

I was not sexy.

I couldn’t often afford a cafe creme–thus the Allonge–I would eat lunch from the Monoprix–basically a Walgreens with a bit of a supermarket in it.

Lunch would be a single serving piece of cheese and a packet of peanuts.

Often accompanied by an apple I would buy from the Friday market around Square D’Anvers.

Once I treated myself to sausages, heaven, at the Friday market but only once–they were rabbit and to die for.

Breakfast was apple in oatmeal and milk.

Dinners were often from the roti chicken place down the street by the Metro entrance for the Cadet stop.

Not the fancy place up the road that was Monsieur Dufrense.

But the Halal place, the owner was sweet, the chicken was cheap.

I could make one of those last a good four days, sometimes five.

I worked under the table, nanny, dog walker, baby sitter, English tutor.

I took French classes that a friend in Chicago wired me money to go and do.

I walked everywhere, when I wasn’t on the Metro, which I used frequently as I had a Navigo monthly pass.

There were times, especially when I was doing baby sitting outside the periphery, that I realized, no one, not a single person, not a soul, knew where I was.

I was baby sitting in the ghetto, the low income housing, taking three trains to do an under table gig that basically paid 8 Euro an hour.

I walked past drug deals, prostitution, gambling places.

I walked briskly like I knew where I was going.

Irony.

The place was located on Rue Victor Hugo.

Sounds hella romantic.

Was hella sketchy.

I remember once taking a picture of the street lights reflecting in the rain, once, on a very early morning commute from my place in the 9th arrondisement to outside the periphery, at like 7a.m.

It was a gorgeous shot, the light, the reflection on the sidewalk, the darkness, the sheen.

I got so many comments on social media after I posted it….so pretty, so Paris, so exciting, lucky you, living the dream!

Sure.

The dream.

Which was actually a nightmare.

Scary, cold, intense, broke as fuck.

Taking an elevator up 9 floors in a tenement in the ghetto outside of Paris.

The kids were sweet, but they didn’t have books, they like to watch the Mickey Mouse Club.

The tv was their babysitter, except when I was there, I insisted on taking them outside.

The park in the middle of the low income houses.

I would watch them race around on their cheap plastic little scooters and stare at the clouds in the sky.

What the hell was I doing with my life?

Query another agent, send off another book proposal, watch my thin stash of Euros in my wallet slowly get a tiny bit bigger, after baby sitting, or tutoring, or house sitting, quietly buying my apples and peanuts and Halal chicken, and then have to pay a week’s rent where I was staying–in a one bedroom lofted apartment where I slept in the living room on a fold out futon that must have been 25 years old, it was so hard.

I didn’t usually have the month’s rent.

But I would pay week to week to week.

Living on peanuts and apples.

Like I said.

Hemingway made it much sexier.

So.

Ten years later.

Many adventures since.

So many adventures.

I am sitting in my very cozy, very pretty, one bedroom apartment in Hayes Valley in San Francisco.

I have a successful private practice therapy business.

I own a car.

A new one.

I have traveled back to Paris, and will do so again in December to celebrate my 50th birthday with a new tattoo from my favorite tattoo shop–Abraxas on Rue Beauborg in the Marais, where I will also be staying a beautiful and hip Air BnB, also in the Marais.

I will buy myself dresses this time instead of packets of peanuts.

I will buy notebooks from Claire Fontaine.

I will go to many museums.

And not on the free days.

I will have a lot of cafe cremes, and not a single Allonge.

I will eat a chicken from Monsieur Dufrense and an actual meal at Odette & Aime.

Also.

I will eat my birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant La Cantine du Troquet on Rue de Grenelle.

I will celebrate a dear friend’s wedding anniversary the day before–having become amazing friends in my Master’s in Psychology program, I have stayed at her family home in the Marais and as she will be celebrating, I will be at my Air BnB just a five minute walk from her home.

I will go to my favorite cafe, Cafe Charlot, which is open on Christmas.

I will be there for Christmas as well as my birthday.

I will take photographs and write, like I always do.

Although.

Hopefully I will not be writing agents to query them about a memoir, just writing in general, after scoring a few of my favorite notebooks, a small stack, at least five, maybe more.

I will instead be querying agents now about my book proposal.

Not exactly a memoir, but in a sense very much so, but with a different scope, seen through the lens of my dissertation, with beautiful photographs not take by me on my phone, but by the professional photographer I am meeting with next week for coffee in Petaluma–Sarah Deragon with Portraits to the People.

She did my headshots for my website and I adore her work.

I queried her if she would be interested in collaborating with me and I got a yes.

I’ve got some work to do before I see her.

Sketch out the book better, mock something up.

Cut and paste and write.

See.

I keep coming back to the writing.

Which is what I am doing, here, now.

Practicing.

I’m not exactly out of practice, I still journal every day, did it today, I’ll do it tomorrow.

But.

I haven’t been blogging in a while.

Time to polish the chops and sit at the keyboard and see where my meandering brain takes me.

I had not thought that it would be a time travel back to Paris ten years ago, I don’t often know where this page is going to take me, but take me it does.

I figured that the best way to put together my book proposal and manuscript was to open my blog and write my intentions and start from here.

I don’t know how exactly to get an agent.

But there’s Google for that.

I do know my dissertation is a mighty fine academic piece, but it’s not a book ready piece.

No one, well, my dissertation committee did, wants to read my Method and very few people are going to be interested in my Lit review, but there’s some juicy stuff in there.

Dramatic.

Traumatic.

Sexy.

Sad.

Transformative.

Pain.

Story.

There’s story and it’s good story and it’s got scandal.

And who doesn’t like scandal?

I’m going to risk it all and put it all out there with transparency and honesty and integrity.

And hopefully, someone will bite.

I want to do a kind of coffee table art house photography book with my poems, essays, blogs, memoir excerpts, and pictures of my transformation alongside the story of what I discovered with my research in my dissertation.

I also will write an epilogue with new insights.

The transformative tattoo; Walking towards joy.

Coming to you soon.

Fingers crossed.

The Day In Review

It was a good day.

A great day.

A grand day.

A day full of walking and art and photographs.

Unfortunately I somehow lost a series of them off my camera.

And I have spent too much time searching my computer for them, obnoxious.  I don’t know what happened, but they were imported, then deleted from my camera, which is usually how I roll.

Then.

I was editing them.

And while I was editing the photographs, I plugged in my Iphone and my phone went to download photos and I clicked, without thinking the close button on Iphoto since I didn’t want them to download.

So when I re-opened Iphoto after smacking self on the head, the photographs I had down loaded off my camera, the ones that I was in the middle of editing, poof.

All gone.

Like nowhere.

Like I have spent over an hour looking through everything.

Going back into my camera–nope, gone.

Remember, I deleted them when the import to my computer was done.

In the trash, through all my photo files.

Everywhere.

No photos.

Sigh.

Which is too bad.

I had a couple of good shots and two great shots that I was super excited about.

However.

I did also take photographs with my Iphone.

So.

Some things to share about the day.

This is on the bridge under the Metro line 8.  It has to be one of my favorite Metro stops, Passy, as it has the most beautiful hanging gas lamps.  I just love it.  Plus, the building to my left is the building where Last Tango in Paris was filmed.

This guy here.  Marlon Brando making some furious American love up on the 4th floor.

The bridge was an easy segue off to the Palais de Tokyo.  Where I have been regaling my friend of the amazing cafe inside and the modern art.

Which would have been fantastic to see.

But, um.

Ha.

I read the hours wrong and we went on a day the museum was closed.

We’ll be going back on Thursday.

A brief, but probably not all inclusive look at the following days:

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Louvre in the morning followed by lunch, somewhere in the neighborhood, then a walk through the Tuilleries to the Jeu de Paume to see some modern art photography.

If we have enough time, possibly swinging over to the other side of the Tuilleries and seeing the Monet water lilies.

We may not have all that much time, and if so, we’ll just be heading back to the studio where we are staying on Rue Juge in the 15th, to get ready to go right back out.

Yes.

Tomorrow we are off to the ballet in the evening.

I will want to have a good hot, long shower after much tramping about the Louvre, and put on my polka dot dress and shoes and off to the Garnier Opera House for a night of ballet.

Thursday and Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas day, will be a little more flexible, but will include museums as well, the Pompidou is actually open on Christmas and I cannot think of a better way to spend it then walking around a bunch of amazing modern art on Christmas day.

Plus being so close to the Marais and it’s sweet alleys and walkways.

We have also been invited a few places and will likely see friends in the fellowship.

So many good friends.

Saturday perhaps Pere LaChaise and some shopping and who knows.

Honestly, while I write, it could all be completely different than what happens.

As I said, I thought I was going to the Palais de Tokyo today and the Jeu de Paume and neither of those happened.

But.

The Musee d’Art Moderne did.

And they were having an awesome Warhol exhibit.

So much Warhol.

And some really lovely pieces in the permanent collection too.

Plus a divine view from the main galleries.

And an amazing courtyard with cafe tables everywhere.

My friend and I had great fun checking out the art, then we had lunch on the terrace, sitting in the sun eating salads and drinking cafe creme, listening to the babble of French around me and looking out on the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon light.

Pretty spectacular.

Then.

Lots more walking.

Up Avenue George V.

Past the American Cathedral and onto the Champs Elysees.

We went up to the Arc de Triomphe, by passing the enormous line with our museum pass, thank you to whomever it was so many years ago who turned me onto the pass, it really works.

A jam packed line to get up to the top was by passed as well, and we circled quickly through, then back to the Champs Elysees where my friend did a little shopping and we navigated as quickly as possible through the holiday Christmas Village madness.

We cut short the grand avenue and walked over the Alexander Bridge between Invalides and the Grand Palace and Le Petite Palais.

Stopping for some photo moments, which was nice, having a friend with to take some shots of me too.  I have thousands of photographs of Paris, but not all that many of them have me in them.

It was sweet to have my friend take a few captures of me today.  Although I am bummed that I lost the photos from my camera, there were still some good shots on the Iphone too.

After walking the bridge, we descended to the river bank and walked along the Seine for a while.

Resurfacing to walk around Place de la Concorde and onward into the Tuilleries.

We debated, my friend was game, I was not so much, even though I really do want to go for a ride, the ferris wheel, but the line was so long I passed on it.

I figure there is still time and if I make it a point to prioritize it, the ride will happen.

So much will still happen.

And the walk through the Tuilleries at dusk was divine.

We even managed to sneak in a late cafe creme and sit down a one of the cafes in the garden before it closed.

Walking through as the sun went down we headed toward the Louvre.

Just to check out the Pyramid at night, the museum is closed on Tuesdays.

We’ll be back tomorrow!

The night was far from over and it included a walk across Pont Neuf, a walk through Saint Germaine a visit to the American Church, a walk under the Eiffel Tower and the most amazing dinner at a restaurant in the neighborhood that blew my mind.

I am grateful to have good instincts and though I was worried my friend my faint from lack of food, I urged going there, and my God.

It was worth it.

La Cantine du Troquet.

So very, very, very good.

We had a chacuterie plate with two types of terrine de pate de foie gras, prosciutto, salami, cornichons, pickled peppers, and I had a beautiful pork chop with green salad and a cafe creme (which I probably should not have had, I’m wide awake, but damn it, it was good) and an amazing plate of chevre for dessert.

My friend had pomme frites and the salmon avec coquillages St. Jacques, and an amazing chocolate pot de creme.

A quick brisk walk back to the studio.

Et.

Voila!

Je suis ici.

Full and happy and ready to take on tomorrow’s next adventures.

I am so lucky to be able to do this.

My life is beyond words.

As too.

My gratitude.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

I really am.