3: First Few Hours

After arriving in the city of love city of lights city of art city of expats authors poets sculptures we get on the train with our bags. I brought what my sister refers to as the dead body suitcase. Hard black shell. My backpack has books in it that I won’t have time to read but brought anyway. A large suitcase is provided evidence toward dressing like a grownup, and wanting to pick my wardrobe every morning.
I wish I lived in a city with better public transportation. A city where when I walk to the coffee shop to get online less than a mile away I wouldn’t get stared at like a vagrant threat stranger. That means it feels weirdly good to be on a subway again.
Follow the directions at the beginning of notebook.
Check into hotel.
Head to view the city.

Little brown girl – eight? – walking backwards on an empty metro platform. She looks back often but moves quickly. I watch wait for the step stutter as faster she moves across the yellowed tile of the platform. It seems empty but for her reality, and my train starts again view across cross she turns to blur disappear quick in ponytails and jeans.

Arrive in Montmartre. Walk up towards the unmistakable landmark. See a carrousel. My sister loves it, she did not realize a favorite scene of a favorite movie was filmed here. Move up the curve. A man asks to see my finger, I know it is retarded trick but I stick out my hand anyway. He puts a loop of thread around my pinky starts to work, before he can trap me I slip out my finger. Smile at him large. Walk past him while he jabbers and jabbers. That smile of mine is my favorite of the day.
My brother and I explore pathways up and up the edges of this cathedral sitting to judge city. Gnats are easily ignored small doors rocks dirt views of great balconies. I search for rooftop gardens and find some, perched on top concrete. We perch on the border of becoming awed.

I sit on the steps of the Sacred Heart.
Every morning early a man carries a wheelchair up and sits until nightfall, two gypsy women post up at each door – in morning they make lunch for the kids, arrange their multiple scarves and head to sit. They say “Ci Vu Play” all day long, with Mercy.
If not one already, I will turn the woman I marry into a gypsy…she will already be, I’m sure.
I sit on the steps of the sacred heart and listen to children whine, a group of Japanese follow around a woman holding a tulip high, and I watch religion turn to art and tourism, they will never be cast out. And inside I say “Ci Vu Play Mercy” for my own little prayer cards.
An old man dressed like my kayaking grandfather does interpretive dance on the steps accompanied by a man playing the violin.
“Paroles de Rue” pasted page by page along a wall in Montmartre.
Chocolate biscuits, pistachio cookies and a fat flan on Rue Lepic.
I am told later that I love flan because my mother does, that she made it when I was a child. I remember beach and I remember every event flan. I remember pinewood derby and flying constructs floating on string. I remember winning and I remember losing.
Turning the corner and coming upon Moulin Rouge. A little girl stands on top of a metro grate and her hair flies and jeans bellow out. My little sister hops up onto the grate and does the same, she’s recently turned twenty. Her jeans don’t bellow out, but her short hair moves in dark contrast to the wild flame without fireplace that the girl fuels with wonder. Who says we don’t understand physics? Let’s talk human covenant of fire and wind.
We walk. I think about past authors in this city. I wonder if I would have produced things to hit, if I will produce things to hit. More than half journal escapades to fuel desire and want wonder exploration. Something to last in this day of everyone writing for short attention spans. And we move out of this neighborhood to continue on the quick impression of first day in a new city, Paris.

A man leaning over a woman on the metro – they both get off at Ternes, turn left, and scratch the back of their heads with right hand at the same time. The exact same time. She is pretty dark haired dark clothed, he looks confused with himself rumpled ugly. They do not know each other.

Eating pistachio ice cream comes at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, while children, heads pointed skyward, pass in awe. We debate on whether or not to go up, we decide not to instead spin in slow circles under this monument.
“What? Who made this thing?”
An etymology public consciousness lesson – short.
Walk down the lawn slowly. See teenagers, a man with a bottle of wine and a girlfriend, families, arrive to a large building. Then:
“This reminds me of Marie Antoinette”
“This reminds me of walking with my hands behind my back.”
Green cannons.
An old man pushes an empty wheelchair around a military hospital museum tomb.
Color of robotic gangrene.
Buried under a golden tome – small man gigantic man, rusted over optimism the courtyard has cartoon horses on one corner and fierce beasts of war in the other.
Scaffolding portrays teeth – new weapons in renewal. My brother sits with his hood up in the middle of this completely empty courtyard. I wonder about blood. Hospital of infants or the infirm?
A small boy with a wooden sword and crew cut runs by.