Friday, August 11, 2006

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn- pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a million lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics - why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plow." —T.H. White, The Once and Future King

This is hanging in my bathroom in Paris and was given to my friend from his Father in 1985. I love it and have been reading it every day. After a day like today in our ever-frightening world, I thought it would be appropriate to share.

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Pigeons. I'm sorry, but seriously, what is it about pigeons that encourages fully grown adults to think it’s ok, and fun even, to stand around with bread in their hands waiting for a pigeon to land on their heads? What is that about? I can pretty much guarantee you that none of my friends have ever stood around hoping a pigeon would land on them. The closest I have come was when a pigeon pooped on my head in Paris when I was 16. And I don’t recall thinking that was fun. But swarms of tourists are daily standing by Notre Dame as still as they possibly can anticipating the landing of a friendly neighborhood pigeon. I just don’t get it.

I went to another Café by Notre Dame and ordered a chocolat chaud and a croque monsieur while I looked at the towers of the church and wrote some postcards. Still not the right café but it was a peaceful stop and nice to get out of the cold. I had started my morning off with a pan au chocolat, which I must mention was exceptionally good today. Flaky, buttery and with an extra thick line of chocolate inside. Just my style. I contemplated climbing the tower today as I hear the view from Notre Dame is gorgeous, but the line, despite the cold, was too long to look that appealing.

I walked southeast down the Seine and took some pictures of bridges I had not seen yet. A very sweet couple asked me to take their picture and I smiled, nodded and said, “oui!” with much enthusiasm. Then disaster struck. The worst thing ever happened. Somehow in the transition of the girl passing off the camera to me and me actually holding the camera, it fell. Totally broke. I was in shock, I had my hands over my mouth and I just kept muttering “oh my gosh, je suis desole (I’m sorry)” It was a slow-mo kind of fall. The kind you want to stop so badly but your body seems frozen and you just can’t do anything about it. They tried to turn the camera back on and it just kept making a creepy clacking noise as the lens (unsuccessfully) tried desperately to open. They were so sweet about it and kept saying it was ok and not my fault. But I just felt terrible. It was one of those tiny 5.0meg-pixel fancy cameras. SO terrible. I carried the guilt with me as we parted ways and just kept replaying the moment in my head feeling terrible and at the same time reconsidering ever letting a stranger touch my camera to take a picture for me.

I headed to the Institut du Monde Arabe, which my friend Allison advised me not to miss. She hasn’t been but has heard wonderful things about it, so I decided to investigate. The building is such a cool structure. Every window has the same metal pattern and each box in the pattern is designed as a modern symbol of an eye. It’s incredibly unique and really looks cool from the outside and from the inside looking out. Security in the building was really tight but I was surprised that there weren’t very many people around. It was kind of nice actually. The permanent exhibit is spread out over 3 floors and there and has some really amazing pieces. I especially loved the calligraphy from the Moyan Orient and the vases, the Laiton a décor graves (Astrolabe), the carvings in white marble, tapestries, wooden tables with tortoiseshell, turquoise bowls and ceramic mosaic tiles. Everything was really beautiful and so obviously old and rare.

They also have a terrace up top, which was strangely empty but fun to take pictures from. There was a guy who had obviously come up there just to get away from his day and make a phone call. He was up there the entire time I was and I kept catching him in my pictures. He was French and I liked the fact that that’s where he goes to hang out. I poked around the gift shop for a while and spied on a group of people sitting in the café drinking tea at some sort of formal gathering. I was tempted to buy some jewelry but then decided it would be kind of silly to come to Paris and buy jewelry from the Institut Arabe.

I worked my way back to my part of town, stopping at a post office to stamp and mail my postcards. I bought another calling card from a Tabac and spent some time taking more pictures of Notre Dame, this time from behind. As suggested again, by my friend Allison, I went back to the Ile de la Cite and got some chocolate ice cream from the Berthillon stand on the corner. She was right. SO good! The woman working the booth laughed at me though. Apparently when I speak French, I use my very high-pitched voice. She looked at me, asked me where I was from and then started repeating what I had said in French mocking my pitch and tone. I laughed to, as did everyone else in line waiting. I guess I can’t give Mikey a hard time for his impressions of me after all. I walked down to the water and planted myself right on the tip of the Pont Neuf. I sat for hours with my camera in my hand taking pictures, eating my ice cream and just taking it all in. The wind was blowing so strong that I felt like I was on a speedboat. I had flashbacks to my childhood when my brother and I were on the bow of a boat zipping through the harbor in Manhattan with our arms and legs wrapped tightly around the rails, hanging on for dear life. For a second, I felt 10 again and I sat there smiling stupidly with my head back and letting the wind whip my hair all around my face.

There was a girl next to me writing in her journal and listening to her ipod. She and I kept shifting between sitting, watching the world in front of us and laying down, eyeing the clouds pass by above. To my right, at Paris Plage (the beach they’ve set up) there was a dance class in session. I would guess about 40 couples were all dancing beside the water just as the sun was starting to set behind the Eiffel Tower on the other side of the city.

I walked back to my apartment to drop off some things and then headed over by St. Sulpice to my friend John’s apartment. He lives in a gorgeous flat with a widow who is in her 60’s. Isn’t that cute??! He had just finished his first pass at editing a friend’s music video. This friend, Andy, is an incredible musician and the video beautifully reflected and represented Andy and his music. It was fun to watch and I thought John did a beautiful job shooting and putting it together. We spent about an hour listening to all sorts of music on his itunes. He introduced me to a bunch of different artists I had never heard before and played me some of his own stuff. It was so fun and inspiring. It made me want to rush home and pick up my guitar (which I don’t play) and start writing music. It’s towards the top of my to-do list before I turn 30. I best hurry on that list as the next year and a half is going to be quite busy even if I intend on accomplishing only a quarter of tasks on it.

We left his place and went down the street to an Italian restaurant where we split a bottle of red wine and I ordered a pizza with black olives and artichokes. Dinner was tasty and the company relaxing and fun.