2: Airplane

Blue – Gare du Nord
No

“Just hit zero dude, normally it takes you to the operator” my brother in his sleep.
No

Paris Metro:
Blue, Chatelet les Halles
Red, Charles de Gaulle Etoile (west, Auber)
no Gare de Lyon

No

-Gare du Nord
Fuscha, one stop,
-Barbes Rochechouart,
Blue, west, Anvers is right way
-Villiers
Brown, north, Malesherbes right
-Anatole France

Her address here, written in my notebook after the directions to the hotel.
No, I’m not giving it to you.

Airplanes – you never get beef, right? But I’d been eating so much chicken recently that I did. After first bite I thought it may be alright, after second I was wondering how long the cow in front of me had been dead…not surprisingly I lost my appetite for the small brisket chunk in the black plastic container, sharing sealed home with a lump of potatoes, suspect carrots. There is something about eating on planes though, I guess if the fear: “Would I have this as my last meal?” of flying were persistent I would have stopped altogether – I’m more worried while driving, though, “Do I want to die listening to this song?” is a thought often had. And, there is something about eating on planes.
It’s hard to stop.
I did fleetingly wonder at being in first class. On my previous trips to Europe I was travelling up there...
by now I’d be slightly buzzed, eating shrimp, laid out while watching a movie picked out on my personal pop-out television. You know, I would probably be eating that delightful little lobster salad they serve you. Little pieces of crustacean. Lettuce.
Instead tacky blue pattern and “Fasten Seat Belt While Seated.”
I don’t like having to shit on planes, so no I will not be having coffee right now, thank you.
The anticipation of going to Paris for the first time.
How will it really be?
This anticipation erases the stewardesses’ voices asking about duty-free, eliminates the strange feeling in my gut, and turns my dry nasal cavities into water balloons.
Different old ladies keep walking up and down the aisles, I am time travelling.
I look forward to being on an international – Trans Atlantic – flight with a lover…you are right I will try my damndest to convince her of a duo excursion to the bathrooms.
I’m fearless like that. And deceptively limber. Sans yoga.
Maybe I should start yoga?
I read in a little book:
Codex of Hammurabi. Louvre.
Sundays Marche aux Fleurs turns into a bird market.

The descent after a long flight is like chewing raspberry yogurt.
Once again I am looking over swathes of land demarcated neatly from this great height. Viewing with American curiosity this seemingly ancient of ancient continent, while wondering, “How many of my ancestors if any stood there – there – or there?”
Small crosshatches of crystal rest on my window, turning the growing earth below into a landscape of fantasy. Recalling a graphic novel from my childhood about a patchwork Earth and its Quixotic protagonist, only with less color. Greens browns whites instead of pinks oranges yellows – the picture for me still painted mostly blue, and accounting for the sudden wonder at what being an astronaut must really feel like.
What must it really feel like?
I observe a madman’s golf course.
Then small dense forest shaped like a Christmas tree with fist beside it – middle finger up.

I love villages. Love that they exist and love to walk through them. The fact that I could not live in a village now does not diminish my feelings – only creates a hope that somewhere in the future my temperament has changed enough to explore the lifestyle they provide.
When I see large forests from an airplane’s view I want to walk through them.
Explore roots vegetation get cut on bark sweat hate it, and feel the relief and good sense afterward.
I see grand houses isolated in the middle of tight forests and imagine the clouds around me birthed from their fireplaces.
After landing I realized I hadn’t blinked – upon doing so my eyes stung. I had briefly imagined the shaking piece of wing flying off into the side of the plane. This was not a disaster in my mind, just really interesting looking.
I enjoy seeing the flight plan follow the curve of the world.
I do not know French.
I brought my grown-up clothes with me. She said it sounded like a good idea. Did she? Maybe it’s the impression I got. I will dress like a grownup in Paris.
Whatever that means.
Means to me.
Wheels touch bounce bounce.
Oh goodness…we’re excited enough to refer to ourselves as “we,” aren’t we?