J’taime Paris

On my very last day in Paris I had planned to walk along the Seine. A farewell meander. Maybe make a final photo. To make that perfect Paris photo was a difficult to let go of fantasy. Even after all I’d come to understand. I headed out feeling a profound sadness and also a sort of homesickness.

Walking toward the metro Villiers I was too ready to be distracted when on the Avenue de Villiers the most glorious floral display caught my eye. I’d often stopped at Fluers de Peau and I’d learnt that Madame would tolerate looking and even photo making as long as I didn’t touch anything. She’d hover on the edges verbally startling if I bent too closely toward a particularly pretty bunch. On this day gaint blue voilet hydrangeas stood breast high in glass vases. Fragrant lavender and lilac lupins were arranged artfully around them. Soon I was knee deep in a sea of pink peony and buckets of old fashioned roses. A pleasing mixture of deep pastel colours. I had some euro in my wallet. A gift from a friend to buy an artist book. Impulsively I showed madame my cash and gestured to the roses. Her demeanour lifted. We were now the best of friends. And my afternoon plans became complicated by a generous armful of the pastel damask roses. I walked back to the apartment. I arranged the flowers as artfully as possible in a white plastic bucket under the window. I put on my french playlist. I drank some champagne and changed my clothes to be more relaxed. I made some polaroids and danced around giggling at my own folly as the apartment filled with their scent. A mixture of green tea and mint and orange and myrrh and vanilla. I lay on my bed amongst the flowers. I thought about photographing myself naked. I remembered myself as a child. A young woman. Then my time as a mother. Now becoming crone. All roses in their own way. I may have slept. When the dusk was finally falling I got up and dressed. Looking at myself fully in the eye in the mirror I knew it was time.

I made the roses into seven smaller bunches wrapped in brown paper and tied them as artfully as possible with the cooking string. I remember it was right on the blue hour. My favourite time to walk. Then I went down to the aptly named rue de Dames that was nearby. My plan of gifting the flowers to the first seven women that I encountered making me giddy with excitement. It felt like a final gesture worthy of Paris. It was in these moments I deeply felt the ending of my Paris story arrive. In my body was a sense of completion.

That night I dreamed I dancing across the Paris rooftops. I was wearing a soft silk slip dress in a deep pink hue and flesh pink Dolce and Gabbana shoes I’d worn to my sons wedding. It was a Barcharta. With Chagall. He held me close murmuring the whole time. Love is the truest colour. I was aware of the tower sparkling in the distance and soft rain falling.

When I awoke I remembered that I written all this in that first story all that time ago. That it rained roses on her final Paris night.

It was time to go home.

On the way to the airport my driver was a young man of Algerian background. He told me his parents met in Paris and they had lived in the eighteenth his whole life.

“Paris is the best city to be born in.” He declares this proudly while smiling wide and looking at me in the rear vision window.

‘’Do you like Paris.” he asks.

“Oui. Yes. Je t’aime. I love Paris.”

He is pleased with my answer and begins to sing. The sound of french song swirling in my ears as we speed along the motorway to terminal two.

Je t’aime. Dear Paris. Je t’aime.

I am so painfully and acutely aware of the inadequacy of anything I could write. Or say. Given those who have come before me. The footsteps I am walking in. Always feeling a mixture of great affection and soft sorrow. Like Orpheus I can’t resist looking back.

Je t’aime the little glass pots of yogurt and the smoked salted Beurrie Bordier butter. There is nothing more delicious. Except maybe the raspberry infused one.

Je t’aime  the rue des Martyrs. All the small stores run by local artisans passionate about their offerings.

Je t’aime Ojet de Parle. A petit store along that rue that understood what a real souvenir might be and for the priceless treasures I have found there.

Je t’aime the waiter who told the slightly superior loud tourist who was suggesting he ask for a pay rise. “ J’en ai assez.” I have enough. Gesturing toward the street. “Paris c’est plein.” Paris is plenty.

Je t’aime the many big monuments. Reminding me in unexpected moments to take a bigger view. Inspiring awe in every encounter but especially the unexpected.

Je t’aime Place de Frustenburg. Surely the most charming square in all of Paris. Here my heart was captivated every single visit by the affecting window of Yvelines and the sweet garden inside the Delacroix studio.

Je t’ aime the excellent opulent chocolate mousse served in takeout paper cones from Chapon on the rue de Bac. But also the bottomless bowl at the restaurant Square Trousseau where the children draw with chalks on the path as parents enjoy Sunday lunch.

Je t’aime the concept store Merci and their petit bracelets on a thin sting of liberty cotton. All motivated by the idea of giving something back.

Je t’aime le Bluere Heure. An hour best spent walking somewhere along edge of the River Seine. A picture perfect time for missing or otherwise kissing a loved one.

Je t’aime Baxter and Ernaux and Modiano whose writing about Paris allowed me to know it in ways I could not have otherwise. For walking before me and showing the way.

Je t’aime Baudelaire and Rilke for beautiful words and ways of revealing the beauty of flowers and the secrets they hold to living life fully.

Je t’aime the idea of the philocafe, a cabinet de curiosities and Madeline’s. Each a different way to the same end.

Je t’aime the time it takes to eat a meal in the bistro. The sometimes painfully slow service and the tradition of the set long long lunch.

Je t’aime Montmartre and all those steep stairways. A journey to heaven. Which is that view from the steps of Sacre Couer as the sun rises. Or sets.

Je t’aime the many permanent market streets. Rue Montorgueil. Rue Levi. Rue Mouffetard. It was always wise to stay just nearby.

Je t’aime Marc Chagall who painted with the colours of love and Cy Twombly for those anguished roses made under the influence of greek poetry. And all those days spent pondering these in the Pompidou. Putting the paintings inside myself. Then riding the outside escalator and watching the real Paris beyond.

Je t’aime  Pierre Herme for the Isaphan. A visual and sensual combination of rose cream, lychee and fresh raspberry. The feminine and taste of great sex served fresh on a pretty plate.

Je t’aime those large bowls of moules and fites served with a Chablis to be eaten on an impulse somewhere with a view the Seine.

Je t’aime madame Claire and the Chambre Montmartre. Here is the perfectly imperfect simple room with a view over Paris where I watched the tower sparkle before I fell asleep. And then awoke to a trolley full of fresh breakfast treats and a pot of good coffee.

Je t’aime the Apero hour. To the bustling sweet cafes and how the whole of Paris pulls up a chair and takes a long exhalation before heading home for the evening.

Je t’aime Place Dauphane. Watching pentique with a Kir Royal. Where the tradition of saying sante, whilst not crossing arms and looking into each others eyes is rigorously upheld.

Je t’aime the Louvre. I gave it a decade but it needed a whole lifetime. Musee d’Osay was sometimes an easier option.

Je t’aime Astier de Villette for my beautiful white ceramic cup. A daily reminder that everyday acts can and should be made beautiful too.

Je t’aime the bridges of Paris. Pont Neuf. Pont des Artes and Pont Alexandra. Each an identity and destination in their own right. Places to squander time well.

Je t’aime the Luxembourg Jardin. And eating a Nutella filled crepe fresh from the little stand while watching children push wooden boats on the central pond as they have for ever.

Je t’aime Le Bal. A worthy gallery in the place where photography started.  All the books that I carried home from here are firm favourites.

Je t’aime the bees of Paris. They live in hives found all over the city. On grand rooftops like the Opera House. In public gardens and the balconies of ordinary citizens. Food for goddesses and mortals seeking immortality.

Je t’aime La Grande Mosquee de Paris. A green and blue mosaicked oasis with a bathhouse where you can be thoroughly steamed and scrubbed. Then take mint tea in the exotic garden courtyard. And because Paris is a multicultural melting pot.

Je t’aime all the bookshops, small ateliers, the many flower shops and for every single brocante. Shopping is still a pleasure in such places and not just for the privileged few.

Je t’aime Musee des Arts Forains where childhood is celebrated and its possible to ride a pretty painted wooden horse even as an adult. Je t’aime the many carousels throughout the city. Both old fashioned and the new style. But especially the one with the white horse atop out in Montmartre.

Je t’aime. Le mur des je t’aime. A Wall of I Love You.

The I Love You Wall is found in a small garden just behind the Place de Abbesses in the Square Jehan Rictus. A beautiful mural made of tiles of enamelled lave saying I love you in over three hundred languages. A wall built to connect rather then divide. For amongst the blue and white script are splashes of red. Pieces of a broken heart that if pieced together make a whole.    

Where else but Paris. The city of love.

The plane is delayed by nearly two hours and the humidity is increasingly uncomfortable. A young child loses his composure and throws himself screaming on the floor. By the time we board I’m uncertain of making my connection in Dubai home to Sydney. My seat is 68A. Extra legroom but placed sitting over the wing where my view is obstructed. As we take off I settle myself and try to look forward to the meal service. I crane my neck around to look out the tiny sliver of widow that has a view out.

Then I see her. The beautiful beloved city hugging the curves of the river Seine. As always the tour Eiffel is standing regal. I’m sure she is sparkling.

Je’taime. Je’taime. I whisper. Love. Love.

I watch her until she finally disappears beneath the cloud cover.

The last time I saw Paris.

Paris. For a while I went there. It was an extraordinary time.

It is a place where the joy of life is eternal. And forever renewing. Where love is always wandering along the most ordinary of rues and found in tiny places. Where beauty is truly the only reason. And the light can be divine.

In this place I learnt to give myself many of the things I desired. Allowed and re-awakened all the pleasures of the senses. Remembered to care for my body as well as the spirit.

It was there immersed in beautiful art and great literature and the vibrant street life that I was able let the dept of all my heartbreaks finally be felt. And she held onto me. Containing my grief. Alchemising my pain.

Till I felt myself opening. Like a rose.

Along the way I read. I wrote. And I painted. Mainly Chagall like women holding bouquets of flowers and birds floating though an evening sky. And I made many photographs.

It was as I did these things that I felt what it was to be a fully alive human woman.