In transit

Well. Glad I got out today (relatively speaking; sorry to leave, except with the promise of seeing my little menagerie again--and all you wonderful people, too). Thirty percent of flights (50% out of Orly) will probably be cancelled on Thursday: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/10/27/50-des-vols-annules-jeudi-a-orly-30-dans-les-autres-aeroports_1432022_3224.html#ens_id=1305816

Though it's a mixed blessing, when today turns out to be the day Air Canada "misplaces" all the Americans' checked baggage for over an hour, before we could even pass on to customs and security, causing me to miss my connection to Houston. I get a five-hour layover in Toronto!! Sigh. Tired. Very tired, and the day is still young.

Au revoir.

That time

For reserving the shuttles to get me back to Charles de Gaulle, and retrieve me from the airport in Houston. For going through papers, organizing, discarding what I can; for starting to empty drawers and gather scattered belongings, so that they can be assigned tomorrow to luggage. For keeping an eye, still, on who's on strike, which refineries and fuel depots are blocked, for checking that flights are on schedule (still exist; I almost had heart failure when the first search on Lufthansa's site claimed mine didn't).

But also, on this chilly day that was so sunny, but began to sprinkle on me on the way back, taking time to walk over to Île St.-Louis and have lunch; then, as long as I was right there, to waddle into the "supermarket" for a little more fruit and another bottle of water.*

The jinx, c'est moi?

Early yesterday evening, I headed over to Coolin to hear Irish music. Literally within 30 seconds after I set foot on the #4 platform (and right in my ear, this time) the announcement came that there'd been an accident between Châtelet and Cité, and consequently the train wouldn't be coming. And it did specify "accident" this time, which is--interesting, given that that came up in conversation Saturday: a man who has a friend who works for the RATP said he's told him that "accident" is sometimes code for "suicide."

Anyway, walked to Coolin again, to discover that it was a)very warm, b)sparsely occupied, and c)was featuring some soccer match on two big screens rather than music. While I like soccer very much, I'm not really one to sit (alone) in a pub watching two teams I don't know. So I left. More wandering, through St. Germain and the Latin Quarter, ensued (and judging by the immense line at a movie theater, it's not projectionists who are on strike), till (after stopping at an open boulangerie/patisserie for a quiche and a dessert to go), I was coming back onto Île de la Cité just as the last of the sun was glowing on the towers of Notre Dame, as its bells went crazy.

*. . . And to go, this evening, to hear Thomas Kennedy read from In the Company of Angels at Shakespeare and Company. It's rather like being all together in a closet, people packed into every little cranny, and even out front (which was a bit too cold, with the wind that was blowing; I imagine that would be pleasant in summer). After being first tucked into a roomlet behind where he would stand, I lucked into being moved forward into the same room, on a bench where it was practically in our laps that he stood. Very nice. I haven't actually read the book yet, but the excerpts he read were very moving; and an anecdote or two he related during questions, downright disturbing (being heckled at a reading of the original short story in Copenhagen, by supporters of Pinochet).

I come home to find, checking the 24-hour news channel, intermittent coverage of a huge concert in support of the French journalists hostage in Afghanistan since last December, in progress. Incidentally (and this is not a new observation), women news commentators/reporters apparently are required to show cleavage--or, failing that, one of the most ridiculous blouses I have ever seen. But it was see-through.

Half a glass

The strikes, well, strike again. After going to the conversational group for probably the last time this visit (Tuesday evening I expect to be too preoccupied, and by Wednesday afternoon I'll be somewhere over the Atlantic), and lunch and a bit of crashing, I rode out to Bercy to the Cinémathèque Française, intending to see the 1935 Renoir film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange. Ha. Not happening. The strikes. (Is there a projectionists' union? Are they out in sympathy?)

I did, however, take the consolation prize of going through the current exhibition, "Brune/Blonde," which, interesting as it actually had looked online, exceeds expectations. When you have examples from Mucha to David Lynch; from film of 1970s feminist marches in New York and Paris and of Angela Davis in Africa in the 80s saying Maureen Reagan didn't speak for her, to Marilyn singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," you have a really fascinating winner. All about (women's) hair, basically--but about all the symbolism and coercion and eroticism and repression and racism and fantasy that has involved. It took a long time to go through, a) because it was packed, and b) because there was so much to see, and much of it was film clips to watch standing or taking turns sitting. Medusa, Hitler Youth, Rita Hayworth--you name it. http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/expositions-cinema/brune-blonde/

And just as I begin to feel a bit comfortable, a wee bit familiar with my immediate surroundings, on my arrival back at Châtelet station, which is a huge freaking maze, even though I take an exit to a now-familiar street in Les Halles (la Ferronerie), I get tangled up so that I wind up all the way down at Pont Neuf again. Because I just don't get an opportunity to do enough walking. At least the cold rain falling off and on today is not, at that point, and of course I do have to stop halfway across to sip the amazing view of the lighted Eiffel Tower in the distance, the river, with boats humming past, the sky.

Because confusing and exhausting and maddening as the city is--the country can be--when I realize I'm leaving in just a few days I feel a flare of panic. Of unreality.

So I'm drowning my dejection in a salmon and mozzarella sandwich from one of the touristy bars/cafes along Rue d'Arcole I was lucky enough to find still open (I've had only coffee, still, at Le Quasimodo on the corner, but I've eaten twice now at the Esmeralda creperie . . . does that mean something?).

Rambling

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/10/22/retraites-le-senat-s-apprete-a-voter-la-grogne-persiste_1430103_3224.html#ens_id=1305816

So that's it. And the reaction on the part of the protest movement remains to be seen. Even before the vote, students had already called for another day of protest next Tuesday. The reports keep being that rail service is improving (though this varies by region; 6 out of 10 trains running seems still a bit iffy), and that the Métro will run normally over the weekend.

I walked to buy some groceries this morning (it's getting to be that "calculating what you will use up before you leave" time). I walked to the little creperie where I ate the first day; now its windows are closed against the chill, though eventually the staff began leaving one door open, on the side where the sun was shining. I watched the three young American children with their "hot dogs," enormous long things grilled open-face on bread. Onion soup weather now, personally. On the Pont St. Louis afterward, I watched a young man dipping long strings attached to two sticks into a bubble mixture and letting the wind make enormous bubbles. Other people who tried their hand at it had trouble getting the knack. I walked to the Luxembourg Gardens, and walked around there--walked. Sat. Walked. Sat. Watched people watching people.

Late yesterday afternoon when I came in from--walking, around the Marais (tracking down the Archives Nationales--don't think I hadn't tried to concoct some alternative to the aborted Normandy trip, but all the records for French overseas territories, i.e., Canada, Louisiana, are housed in a completely separate branch in Aix-en-Provence, which I had about as much chance of reaching as I did Normandy. And I'm completely unprepared to walk into the main archives, not having combed in advance through the massive listings of its holdings--online--to see whether there might be some scrap of information related to anyone whose blood I share; having no research plan whatever), I for the first time succumbed to the little library here in the apartment, of various books people have left behind over time. I began reading Middlesex, and proceeded to stay up until 2:00 this morning doing just that. Out of everything that I could say about it (how beautifully written--woven--it is), what haunts me the most, I think, is the sacking and burning of Smyrna, about which I was completely ignorant. About the complicity of all the so-called "neutral" countries (the U.S., the U.K.) in the slaughter of perhaps 200,000 Greek and Armenian civilians (now I've been reading up on it online, you know), and then the cover-up, so that good relations could be maintained with Turkey.

And in the end

Merde. Just—merde.

Today, do or die time, I took myself over to Gare Montparnasse to get answers. The short version being, I had to put this long-anticipated excursion out of its misery. It became my turn in line by the two young—I think Japanese—men before me being directed down the way to the one window sporting a tiny British flag (i.e., English-speaking). Oops. Well, I wasn’t going back to the end of the line, and I had sort of expected I would pretty much have to do all this in French. I will say with a tiny bit of pride that I had to ask the woman to repeat herself only a couple of times : ). And it took forever, with consultations with other workers there, the computer, filling out forms (which, thank goodness, she helped me with). The first thing to ascertain was whether my train still existed. Which it did not. Today or tomorrow I could have left at 6:00 A.M. or 5:00 P.M. All of which was completely moot, because I couldn’t get back (or from Alençon to L’Aigle, for that matter). At all.

But wait. When we finally were finished (and after I'd taken a few minutes to walk around in the park that’s on top of the Gare Montparnasse), and I’d made my way through the labyrinth beneath the station back to my Métro platform, the train pulled in. The LAST train on that line, as a matter of fact. Talk about scores of bewildered and dismayed people, both on the train and the platform, as an announcement kept being repeated (between the other noise on the platform and conflicting announcements and the fact that it was, as usual, a gargly P.A. system, I made out that the line was now “terminé,” but not exactly why (until I got home—finally—and checked online, to find that it actually was due to some technical problem, not the strikes). Plan B for me became staying in the Métro, taking line 12 to Concorde, mind you, then #1 to Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, and walking home from there (with barely time to grab a snack before walking to Coolin again—Marché St.-Germain. #4 not running). Quicker and with less wear and tear on moi than walking. The bus might have been just as quick; whatever. (Careful what ideas even flit through your mind; I had earlier thought, oh, sometime I wanted to take #12 into Concorde, because that’s the part of the station where the Declaration of the Rights of Man is spelled out on the tiled walls—and so I did.)

And à propos of nothing in particular, I find it interesting somehow that the stained-glass window in the Chapel of St. Denis in Notre Dame includes almost the identical pelican motif as the Louisiana state flag. Plus that nearly every candle was burning before the chapel of the Virgin of Guadelupe, today anyway.

And the Beat Goes On

Tuesday morning. On the television, first thing, I’m seeing that roughly six trains in ten are running into and out of Paris; outside Paris they’re estimating one in four. What to do, what to do? The vote, despite what the New York Times is still reporting, according to Le Monde will actually not take place until Thursday evening. And who knows what then? I’m not even worrying, really, about the flight next week yet, because I think everything will probably be resolved by then, one way or another, all grumbling aside. But day after tomorrow . . .

4;40 P.M. Haven't been able to find out anything definitive past the reduced numbers of trains I'd learned this morning. I did watch a short video, via Le Monde's live feed, of a collège (junior high, more or less) in Le Mans (where the train to Alençon stops en route) that was completely burned today. I have to cancel the outbound ticket no later than the day before, so will check in detail for the other connections one last time late tonight. Frustration.

http://lorraine-champagne-ardenne.france3.fr/info/lorraine/mardi-19-octobre--la-greve-sncf-est-reconduite-65339349.html

Apprenti à bonheur

“Le bonheur n’est pas une chose aisé. Il est très difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs.” (Happiness is not an easy thing. It is very difficult to find it within ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere.)--Nicholas Chamfort, though I’ve seen it attributed to Buddha. Possibly having nothing to do with right now at all; I’ve had the quote on the wall over my desk at home for years, though.

Another cool, breezy day with clouds coming and going, mostly sunny—and in sheltered sunny spots, like the pool at the end of the Tuileries, a little warmer to seduce people into removing coats (though it should be a hint, that the Damman ice cream stand is gone), and then the minute they pass out of that shelter, the wind quickly reminds them that that was fleeting, artificial shelter.

Walked to the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville (and crossing the river never lets one forget the wind), caught the #1 to Concorde, and walked around to the Orangerie. When it becomes possible to tear one’s eyes away from the glass, the views, the light, the actual museum viewing can begin. The first thing I wandered into was the current special exhibition, of some photographer I’d never heard of. How remiss. I’ll always know the name Heinrich Kühn now. I forgot any other reason I’d gone to the museum in the first place.

The photographs are almost all from between 1895 and 1914. They could be Impressionist paintings. There are many that look for all the world like watercolors. And yet, with all that incredible technique, it’s more often the actual subjects, the angles, the composition that are arresting. Breathtaking. There’s a simple, bucolic scene with a pool in the foreground, called “près de Dachau,” from when that was still just a place. Though it’s hard, I think my favorite was “Ruisseau dans le Blé,” (Rill in the Wheat, just a little rivulet running through a wheat field; my Rill would never answer to it; he really doesn’t speak much French). Which I can’t find online under that name, though “Summer Day” is similar. And one beautiful one called “Crépuscule” (twilight), for its own beauty even more than its reminder of the World War I trench in A Very Long Engagement. And these are just the landscapes. The portraits made me stand and stare; you wish your family photos had ever looked so wonderful.

And then there’s all the rest of that stuff—you know, the Cézannes, Renoirs, Matisses. That fantastic “Jeune Apprenti” by Modigliani. Blah, blah, blah : ) Those ROOMS where you’re surrounded by Monet waterlilies—water (and light) studies.

Yesterday I took the Métro out to the flea market at Vanves. It was cold, windy, and overcast. Everyone there had a runny nose. More than ever, I’m kicking myself for not snatching up a couple of old-time café au lait bowls the week before at the off-brand flea market (though one of the main reasons I’d hesitated—getting them back home intact—still stands). As I recall, those were €3 and €5; I didn’t see one under €15 yesterday. Other than that there wasn’t that much that was overpoweringly interesting nor a bargain, particularly when I could see my breath and it was looking like rain.

Coming back, since I was already on the train that goes there (at the far opposite end of its run), I decided to go on to St. Denis. It’s a pretty long underground ride, about half an hour. Perhaps it’s poetic justice of some kind, that the place where kings and queens, three dynasties’ worth, were buried for 1,200 years is now surrounded by a community where I’m guessing French is not a first language for the majority of the population. Where there's a protest encampment of homeless families in tents in one area. There’s a big modern square between the Hôtel de Ville there (on the front of which is a big banner opposing the raising of the retirement age) and the basilica; the Métro exit puts one in the middle of a modern, though already scruffy, outdoor shopping mall, and then between that and the square—this being Sunday—there was a sprawling street market, though not of the antiquing type.

The first major Gothic building, something of a prototype, St. Denis (originally a pilgrimage destination because that martyr had been buried there about 250 A.D.) was heavily restored in the 19^th century. It had to be, having been so heavily vandalized and semi-demolished during the Revolution (I mentioned the kings and queens were buried there, right? It was the very symbol of lack of separation of church and state). From the outside it’s rather forbidding and dark, but then, inside, it actually is beautiful, in that severe Gothic way. And there is still an absolute, salvaged and restored necropolis—in the basilica itself, as well as down in the crypt. Where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI are buried, among others, their bodies having been moved there from the Madeleine cemetery in Paris—though there’s a bizarre (imho) 1830 marble monument of them upstairs, too, kneeling before the altar of a chapel.

If you’re at all a French history buff, with no monarchist leanings whatsoever it’s still quite amazing to walk along and find Charles Martel, Clovis, Dagobert, Charlemagne’s parents, Henry II (and Catherine de Médici), Henry IV, Francis I—in no particular order, and on and on, and other members of the royalty and nobility besides—all under one roof. Some of the monuments are grandiose, some simple, some eerie. There’s a sprinkling of tombs that are only tentatively identified—one only as “unknown princess”—echoing that carved female figure on Henry and Catherine’s huge tomb marker, holding a mirror: that traditional symbol of vanity . . .