Random Encounters

Saturday. How stunning, to have, suddenly, one of those “small town” moments in Paris. Getting off to a late start by trying to force my body to acknowledge it was too early to be awake, early afternoon found me heading across the Petit Pont toward the Left Bank, thinking I’d at least check out whether anything might be going on at Shakespeare and Company, before hitting the market for provisions. In the middle of the bridge, literally halfway across, someone said “Carolyn.” It was Trelys, from the Spoken Word group.

We wound up walking together, talking all the while, for over two hours: all along the lower bank on that side toward the 13^th arrondissement, which I’d never seen, where it’s landscaped and there’s a bike path, and little mini-amphitheaters right next to the water where she says there are performances, and at one, on Sundays, tango dancers. Through the Jardin des Plantes, or a portion of them (the day was cool in the shade and almost balmy in the sun; hordes of people were out taking advantage of possibly the last comfortable weather). All the way to the Gare de Lyon and through it. Among the funnier highlights, that made it into her “happy report” at the next Spoken Word, were the man on the bicycle wearing a complete little plastic shed over himself, like those on baby carriages; the man who came up to us waltzing as we sat for a minute, as if asking us to dance; the shoe tree in the Jardin; the baby lizard I lifted out of the path and set to the side in a bed.