Day 2: Letter to a friend
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Day 2: Letter to a friend

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Day 2: In the morning, the bright, rich light comes in, saturated with color and taste and fragrance like an old jazz tune sung by a beautiful, perfumed woman, along with the laughter and shouts of children at a nearby school.

Settling in, and already writing, after an escapade at the Monoprix and then a picnic lunch at my desk to research museums. I was just winding up, about to do an online yoga class, when a bustle arose in the hallway. I looked out my peephole; a man and woman argued with the neighbor. They handed her a brown-paper-wrapped package and left with an energy of, well, I can only call it grim determination.

The elderly lady lingered, staring down the hall after them, so I seized the opportunity to open my door. She gave me a cool glare and I murmured, “I thought I heard someone I knew…” I’m not sure she bought it because I was not-subtly focused on the still life painting on her foyer wall. I’m sure it’s a Cezanne, and not a reproduction. The solidity, the sense of order and structure; the colors of the apricots. I tried to memorize it so I could google it.

“You will come for tea tomorrow, Americaine,” she said. I was concentrating so fiercely that she had to repeat herself, then she slammed the door. What time does she want me to visit? Can I ask her about the painting? Inquiring minds want to know.

I didn’t find that particular work on-line, but there was a slew of similar paintings to be seen.

I trooped to the Louvre to see the Giotto exhibit–pure self-indulgence. Then one page at my computer. Alas, Jean-Sven stopped by with a bottle of wine, which he insisted was so delicious that I must sample it “tout de suite.” Turned out he has an excellent palate and then I had to offer him some cheese, peaches, and bread I bought at the market. We enjoyed the Chateau Neuf du Pape so much that he offered to bring down another bottle of something “tres belle” but I refused and then amiably but firmly saw him out to the hallway. I got that creepy feeling up and down my spine and I could have sworn the neighbor was watching us out her peephole! Well, you know how vivid my imagination is, having commented on it yourself, with that acerbic tone…

I remain, as ever, your devoted, and missing you quite fondly.

Til tomorrow….

Day 1: Letter to a friend
·

Day 1: Letter to a friend

Posted on:

Day 1: Letter to a friend

So, I am staying on a little street with multiple creperies, and managed to inhale a crepe with oeuf and fromage for lunch.

You’d be proud: I’m already integrating with the natives. I was lugging my suitcase up the stairs when a largish blond man offered to help. I demurred but he insisted so disarmingly that I felt obliged to please him by allowing him to hoist my bag over his broad shoulders. He introduced himself as Jean-Sven, and when I queried him about his name, he said his mother was French and his father was a Swede.

“Didn’t you scratch off the winning genetic lotto ticket,” I said. I’m not sure he got the idiom entirely, but it registered enough that he smiled all over himself. He’s my upstairs neighbor.

After Jean-Sven parked my suitcase inside my treasured sacred-writing-retreat apartment, I ushered him back out into the hall. Not to seem ungrateful to such a friendly chap, but I was eager to unpack and be, as Gertrude Stein championed, “alone with my language.”
I waved goodbye as he went into the lift and then found myself face-to-face with an open door, and the elegantly-clad elderly lady across the hall peering out fiercely, as if to memorize my face.
“Bonjour,” I said, politely.
“Americaine,” she grimaced, and slammed her door, but not before I caught a glimpse of some rather nice paintings on the wall behind her. Was that a real Cezanne? I need a closer look, but the whole look, the palette and even the frame, screamed Cezanne.

As to other notes, I notice that most of the denizens of this city of lights worship the Lung Cancer Fairy, who protects them from illness as they puff insistently on chains of cigarettes. I went for dinner at an Italian trattoria, where they almost kissed me when I answered them in Italian. Then they brought pasta with my mousse aux chocolate and tried to pretend that the rigatoni accompanied the dessert. We all laughed uproariously.

Til tomorrow, with my warmest thoughts!