The Zen of Washing Windows in Paris

I've tried time and again to trash the myth of 'romantic Paris'. No one ever seems to believe that day-to-day life in Paris can be just as boring as anywhere else in the world so I'm determined to spend the next few days doing the most boring things possible - just to prove Paris is simply not romantic - and anyhow - the windows could really use a good cleaning.

The problem is - that, as soon as I decided to undertake this project - I realized that washing French windows is not a project to be undertaken with disdain. There are some who might even consider it to be heroic.

The typical 'pierre de taille' high-ceilinged apartment has equally high windows that require a sturdy, four-step ladder to reach the highest panes. Pity the debutante window washer who thinks that a bottle of blue tinted so-called 'window washing fluid' is going to be of any use with double-glazed windows encrusted with at least ten years of Paris pollution and pigeon shit.

(I told you Paris isn't romantic!)

After half an hour of smearing the blue stuff around in endless circles (this has to be the perfect example of samsara), I finally decided to use a more common sense approach> I filled up a bucket of hot water with a small dose of dish-washing liquid (or my French guests would have suggested white vinegar), and then wiped down the huge panes in broad strokes.

You've heard of weekend warriors who pay big time for their zeal, but wannabe window washers take the cake when it comes to payback time. Example: Says husband: "Why are you walking bent over that way?"
Answer: "Don't ask."
The husband can't tease too much. He has only a few days earlier fallen off of one of those handy, dandy cane chairs that are so useful for museum goers. Fortunately he tumbled onto the grass in the Bois de Boulogne, not far from the Shakespeare Garden. Are we getting more romantic yet?

The best way to finish off the windows to totally clear, transparency demands the use of rolled up newspapers. Is this the only way that one can find true clarity in life? By rolling up a coherent, meaningful essay into a messy jumble of carbon, creating friction with glass and liquid cleaning fluid?

Everyone that I've ever spoken to swears that newspaper print is by far and away the best way to get clean mirrors and windows.

The sun is shining and there is not a single cloud in the skies above Paris on this June day. I'm standing on the window ledge/balcony, one floor above the street and foot traffic. My body appears to be strangely out of place in this suspended state which suddenly feels pretty close to those outer body experiences people talk about when you've been meditating for a really long time. Well, okay, I'm not really outside my body, but my body's outside the window, and that's already far out.

A tour bus goes by and I wonder if the tourists are watching the woman washing windows and suddenly, my body has become part of the Parisian landscape and it no longer belongs to me but to Paris.

Is this what life is all about?

What We Do on the First Day in Paris

After having found the a local bar/brasserie that accepts jet-lagged clients with the same courtesy as locals (Le Petit Sommelier), we have one ritual that works best in good weather - that's a walk from Montparnasse to the Luxembourg Gardens. It's an easy walk for jet-lagged wobbly feet - so we can do it - preferably past Blvd Raspail under the nodding approval of Rodin's Balzac. We cross over to Rue Vavin and dodge mothers piloting baby strollers with the smoothness of Formula 1 - drivers.

On a sunny day in late May, it's not the flowers that draw us to this park of poets, but several favorite landmarks.

The fountains: - Although the Medici fountain (1630) is the oldest and the biggest crowd-pleaser, I have to admit that I'm hooked on the Fontaine de l'Observatoire or the 'Carpeaux' fountain. First off, we want to know whether the fountain is actually on - and today, we're fortunate. The Fremiat-sculpted stallions are getting properly splashed.

Sculptor Carpeaux takes credit for the winsome nudes representing the 'Four Parts of the World'. At the time the work was considered scandalous - not of course because of the nudity, but clearly looking at the expressions of these lovely 'women of four worlds', they were just having too much fun holding up the globe.

Technically speaking, the Carpeaux fountain isn't in the Luxembourg Garden. It's in the annex gardens known as the Marco Polo Gardens which lead to Rue de L'Observatoire and Boulevard Montparnasse.

Another monument which always deserves a pause is located near the gardens at the Montparnasse and Observatoire intersection. This is the statue of Marshall Michel Ney (sculpted by Rude). It's incredible to think that a statue stands in Paris for a marshall who was shot for treason. Even if one doesn't know half the story, Rude's portrayal of a marshall whose last command to his executors: "Be sure and shoot straight in the heart!" - shows that this was a guy with guts.

For visitors from the Carolinas - there are some rumors - or myths that Ney wasn't actually shot - that his execution was staged and he ended up in North or South Carolina.

Walking around the gardens can be a veritable history lesson if one takes the time to look carefully at each statue. Likewise plenty of drama had to unfold within the Luxembourg palace constructed for Marie de Medici, Henry IV's queen and mother to Louis XIII. At one point the queen's favorite painter Rubens was thought to be a spy.

Of course, each day in these gardens, new plots are certainly hatched for great fiction and, maybe even, poetry, or simply a daydream.

First Day Back in Paris

Recently a stateside friend asked, what's the first thing you do when you get back to Paris?
Recover from jet-lag - or try.

But I know what he was really asking me is - 'what's the first thing you do to celebrate your return to Paris? '
Because, and I'm sure this is true for many return visitors to France, there must be rituals.

And there are rituals, but I tend to downplay them. Rituals can be mistaken for habits and habits get boring - fast.

Breaking Fast.

If you're flying in from the US to Paris, you'll normally arrive in the morning. That sorry excuse for a roll and a plastic container of yogurt you received in flight don't measure up to breakfast, and, after waiting for the Air France Le Car shuttle bus from CDG to Montparnasse during morning rush hour traffic, you'll be lucky to get into Paris before eleven am.

We used to have breakfast at a cafe/brasserie called 'L'Ocean' across from the train station. Now that 'L'Ocean' has closed its doors, we've shifted over to another local bar/tabac which has recently metamorphosed from a tabac into a non-stop brasserie called 'Le Petit Sommelier'. The lunches might be two or three euros cheaper at restaurant chains (like Indiana) or the pizza joints - but where else would you get freshly mashed potatoes and a huge plate of roast chicken for thirteen Euros?

With jet lag, I'm never really quite sure whether I'm hungry, thirsty or just exhausted. So, it's important to find just the right place where we can sit and stare at the passing scene with glazed eyes and not seem out of place. We've always had this hopelessly idealistic idea that we'd find the perfect little brasserie, preferably in the same building as our apartment where we might return after an extended absence - and the waiter - or bartender might remember us. (This might have worked in the fifties or sixties, but not in the new millenium!) After ten years, we haven't 'exactly' found that certain neighborhood bar/brasserie to call 'home'.

So, if there's a return ritual, it would be 'looking for a brasserie to call home'. That's not to say we don't know a few of the waiters in the neighborhood as well as owners of the one of the local Chinese restaurants on Gaite. The Liberte at Edgar Quinet is a little to far flung to be called our 'local bar' and the Chinese restaurant doesn't serve breakfast, so I'm optimistic about Le Petit Sommelier although right now, my jet-lagged brain is playing tricks with the name - is it really "Le Petit Sommelier, or is it "Le Petit Sommeil"?

Le Petit Sommelier
Avenue du Maine
Metro: Gaite
Across from Gare Montparnasse
Plat du jour: 13.50 Euros
Glass of House Wine 4.50 Euros

Westward Bound

It's on the road again and this time, without a laptop. So, until we meet again!

Beware of the Eyes of April

For those of you who may not know it, May is the ideal month to look after your eyes. Which is why I'm glad to hear that R-Girl is getting eye issues finalized in mid-May. My eye guy here in Paris is very cool. He hasn't pushed laser surgery by any stretch, (except that he says it's 'miraculous') but Paris being a style-conscious capital, it has been a happy option for many. Then, on the other hand, there are so many great style glasses to choose from, wearing glasses isn't as much of a stigma as it used to be.
http://www.lesplusbelleslunettesdumonde.com/?gclid=CPTJ28n29KACFYUx3god0CUztw

If you do wear glasses, France is a great place to shop for a new pair of frames. However, buying prescription lenses are outrageously expensive. Strangely enough, the cost of a pair of lense varies from departement to departement. For example, I've been told that glass lenses cost more money in Eure Departement than in Calvados.

Here is something that I just learned about Xalatan, the eye drops I'm taking currently: Aside from lowering eye pressure, they also make your eyelashes grow.

French Makeover: A Spring Haircut

Before:



You said you wanted to see the new haircut, but first I need to say a word about haircuts in France. Women don't rely on long hair in this country to be attractive. If anything, a good haircut, makes a much better impression than the 'Tressy Doll' effect. Do you remember the 'Tressy Dolls'? You'd tug at their ponytails and unending volumes of hair would spit out of the top of Tressy's head. Pretty ghastly, right?

Every now and then, there's nothing quite as exhilarating as saying "Chop it all off!" Probably much the way the 'Queen of Hearts' in Alice in Wonderland commanded 'Off With their Heads!"

So in the spring holiday spirit, I shed the old 'do' and for the first time (in a long time) refrained from saying 'Leave enough to pull my hair back into a ponytail.'
Ponytails are great for cheerleaders.

Bastille Opera Gala Conversations: Mahler

I promised my table neighbor at the Gala 'souper' that I would listen to Mahler. Although he suggested I might begin by listening to his symphonies, the CD, I happened upon in our stack of CDs was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Mahler's song cyles Gesellen, Kindertotenleider, Ruckertleider.

It comes as no surprise that Bellini's 'Somnambule' brought to mind Mahler - particularly because the word 'elegiac' had been mentioned. But, once I've plunged into Mahler's world, Bellini evaporates like a soap bubble.

How appropriate that today happens to be the first real day of spring, starting with golden sunshine and a hint of humid remains: winter decay lifting in the early morning mist. And so, begins the Kindertotenlieder:

(after poems by Friedrich Ruckert)
"And now the sun will rise as bright
as if no ill luck had befallen in the night.
The ill luck befell me alone
And the sun shines all around
You must not enclose the night within you:
you must drown it in eternal light
A little lamp went out in my tent.
Hail to the gladdening light of the world!
Now I understand why such dark flames
were strewn on me when you looked at me
O eyes! O eyes!
As if in one look
you would compress your whole force
I did not know then (for mists surrounded me,
woven by fate to dazzle me).
that the beam was already turning towards home,
there, whence all beams spring
You wanted to tell me with your rays:
We long to stay near you
but fate will not let us.
Look at us now, for soon we shall be far away.
These that are eyes today,
in nights to come will be stars."

In his essay, Michael Kennedy compares Mahler's song cycle to the Winterreisen, except, in this case, the disconsolate wanderer begins his journey in the spring. In real life, Mahler composed the song cyle in 1883-1885. Certainly, rejected love and the recent loss of two brothers (followed soon afterward by the death of his 4-year-old daughter) are some of the tragedies that influenced the haunting melodies of Mahler's song cycle.

Kennedy notes that the song cycles are often sung by mezzo sopranos but, he adds:
"there can be little doubt that the texts imply a male voice. Is is a measure of the artistry of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau that, as one listens, one cannot imagine any voice but a baritone's in that music."

Thanks, cher Ami Voisin du Gala, for mentioning Mahler!