I am once again in a room full of people who speak something I do not comprehend exactly. I try to Do Attention to the rises and falls in their voices, the peaks. So it is not all gibbrish. To catch hold of Something. I hear a word I think I know. Fet, they are talking about a party.
Mathilde pipes like a flying river of song, and chirps a laugh at the end of it. Patrique chops eggplant in the bathroom, wearing a top hat and swearing. Whatever he says gets knuckle punched by Tommas, who fires that punch from the other room. It flies through the walls, wrestling with every sound in its way. Martin chuckles or speaks, but his speach is new to me, it is not yet on my visible radar.
When they are laughing, it is irresistable to me and I laugh with them. I feel entirely one then, because I comprehend laughing. It is the same in my language. In the form I am also versed, though it is nice to hear people taking turns, seamlessly weaving a coat of time, of rhythm and words that repeat and rhyme. Everyone has a River of Fire Tung, wagging out of their mouth.
Their words assault me gently. French is a train, it is running over me. French is an army of jet fighters, they are bombing my force field and occasionally, a word gets through. Oujard hui, today, I know, at least, WHen. What and Who and How are lost in the rockets flare, the bombs bursting, the busting of my old mind, the paving of a new road.
I am never discouraged. I am OFten reminded that I OUght to be discouraged: I will never learn French. It is too big, too much, there are too many other things to put my mind to. I am trying hard and too slow to grasp it. Yet I am never discouraged. I shall slowly travel this letter littered road. I progress every day. I am often Encouraged. I CAN COMMUNICATE! I shall learn French.
Today I played guitar in a park with an Argentinian, a Senagal, a few Parisians and maybe some Spanish. We spoke how we could with what words we shared, and it was bright and fine for me. We made friends, sharing a song and a hand shake and teaching each other something. The Senagal man, asking the Argentinian to translate from French or Spanish into English, for me: we are young. we have a long time to learn.
To Learn, Brothers! That is the power of Natural Flight! We can LEARN! We can FLY! We can LEARN!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
dreams
Colorful French People, Christina Dibbs in Saera's Squirrel Costume
'I know you are a ghost,' I tell her. 'I am at your service to communicate'
The Poet's Toilet: This is a toilet owned by the city. It is very famous. Here is how it works. If you are a poet and you think of a really good poem, don't write it down. Instead, don't pee anywhere until you have ran to the Poet's Toilet. Pee there. The toilet will record your poem as a Pissing Poem, and it will be chronicled with the other pissed poems. There is a very famous one in Paris, lots of Poets have pissed their poems there.
Mathilde is in the dream, in almost every scene, but sewn in, almost as an after thought, as if she isn't meant to be there, but she is. Guiding me through the dreams as well as through the city. She hangs honey and peanut butter on a swing on a tree, because it is 'good luck'.
Abi Mustafa, I am talking to Dennis Ray Powell Junior, you show up in a van with Tiernie Mcguire and Morgan Eldritch. I gave you cherries, then sat down to read my journal. It was a particularly interesting entry, because it was describing the events of the moment as they were happening. The journal said 'we went to get beer', and so I jumped up and ran after you, because you were already on your way to get the beer with a bunch of our friends. I stopped to talk to someone on the way, and your voices (and laughter and song) faded away as you went further and further into the forest.
The Lady in Grey, with a vagina for a face, summons me to her tower, demanding that I find a magic song that will heal her neice. Okay, I will do it. Mathilde and I carve star symbols onto our arms, the symbols are triangles that glow like white neon in the dark, and that is how we make the magic song. A triangle is a 3rd eye nother way to see something. I wake up and write a song.
The Lady in Grey, younger with a vagina face, still, leads me through 'the kingdoms'. First is the Kingdom of Hearts, which is green and gold and blue, a beautiful field with a farmer's cart and a reaper's wheat. Next is the Kingdom of Dust which is baige with statues that crumble to dust. She can fly, and listen, change her size if she needs. 'a secret door is just the meaning of a word that you have never understood before'.
Mike Mcguiness' Dad is thin and alcoholic and sad. (the dream guy doesnt look a thing like Mike's real Dad). I see a car accident and get out to help. I leave a video camera on my bike and keep worrying about it.
I can fly, and run down the halls with a comforter on my back until I transform into a Flying Dog Beast. I want to fly Faster and Faster, but I go slow. Theres some physics I have got to work out.
I am a spy. I check into a secret facility. Hunter is the door man. He gives me two passes that are magnetic and grant access all over the complex. I only recognize him after I wake up. He gives me two ring-bell belly dance necklaces, one small and one big. They are obviously from Audrey. Thank you dear, I got them. I give the smaller one to Evelyn, who is mixed with Luna Ect.
'I know you are a ghost,' I tell her. 'I am at your service to communicate'
The Poet's Toilet: This is a toilet owned by the city. It is very famous. Here is how it works. If you are a poet and you think of a really good poem, don't write it down. Instead, don't pee anywhere until you have ran to the Poet's Toilet. Pee there. The toilet will record your poem as a Pissing Poem, and it will be chronicled with the other pissed poems. There is a very famous one in Paris, lots of Poets have pissed their poems there.
Mathilde is in the dream, in almost every scene, but sewn in, almost as an after thought, as if she isn't meant to be there, but she is. Guiding me through the dreams as well as through the city. She hangs honey and peanut butter on a swing on a tree, because it is 'good luck'.
Abi Mustafa, I am talking to Dennis Ray Powell Junior, you show up in a van with Tiernie Mcguire and Morgan Eldritch. I gave you cherries, then sat down to read my journal. It was a particularly interesting entry, because it was describing the events of the moment as they were happening. The journal said 'we went to get beer', and so I jumped up and ran after you, because you were already on your way to get the beer with a bunch of our friends. I stopped to talk to someone on the way, and your voices (and laughter and song) faded away as you went further and further into the forest.
The Lady in Grey, with a vagina for a face, summons me to her tower, demanding that I find a magic song that will heal her neice. Okay, I will do it. Mathilde and I carve star symbols onto our arms, the symbols are triangles that glow like white neon in the dark, and that is how we make the magic song. A triangle is a 3rd eye nother way to see something. I wake up and write a song.
The Lady in Grey, younger with a vagina face, still, leads me through 'the kingdoms'. First is the Kingdom of Hearts, which is green and gold and blue, a beautiful field with a farmer's cart and a reaper's wheat. Next is the Kingdom of Dust which is baige with statues that crumble to dust. She can fly, and listen, change her size if she needs. 'a secret door is just the meaning of a word that you have never understood before'.
Mike Mcguiness' Dad is thin and alcoholic and sad. (the dream guy doesnt look a thing like Mike's real Dad). I see a car accident and get out to help. I leave a video camera on my bike and keep worrying about it.
I can fly, and run down the halls with a comforter on my back until I transform into a Flying Dog Beast. I want to fly Faster and Faster, but I go slow. Theres some physics I have got to work out.
I am a spy. I check into a secret facility. Hunter is the door man. He gives me two passes that are magnetic and grant access all over the complex. I only recognize him after I wake up. He gives me two ring-bell belly dance necklaces, one small and one big. They are obviously from Audrey. Thank you dear, I got them. I give the smaller one to Evelyn, who is mixed with Luna Ect.
numbers
One month on the Road;
preliminaries, 400$ train and plane tickets, 65$ food
mum and dad, Jim Wahlen, Kati Glieser, David Moore, Gramma Joan, Aaron Chandler, India House & Family
week one transition from Bloomington to Cincinnatti to New York*
70$ food and subway fare
Evelyn, Serenity and Family, Marc and Claire, Eric Kincaid and the Melendez Family, Carwil and Meerkats, Saam, Odelia, Jake & Roomies, the Foxx Family, Christina Dibbs
week two, conversion from America to Paris*
90€ food, train and metro fare
Mathilde, Tomma(s), Kemi, Fanny Sabine Phillip Elody and the Birthday Party, Kemis singing work buddies and the Crepe Party, wild dream people
week three, France city to France Country*
70€ food and hostels, 100€ train
Julia & the Birthday Party, Guisane, Joe Kim Nancy & Jean Pierre, Sue & Dan, Tom Travel, Anne Caro(l)
semaine quatre, settling quietly into France*
99€ train and food
Quenton, Patrique, Guisane's Maman et Pere, IndRa Horses
Total 4 weeks about 410$ spent
and a priceless amount of FriendEndergy, which is what happens when people help people,
The council calls this 'The Courage of Kindness', it is a special thing that all people have access to. It is sort of the Engine that BardSong runs on...
preliminaries, 400$ train and plane tickets, 65$ food
mum and dad, Jim Wahlen, Kati Glieser, David Moore, Gramma Joan, Aaron Chandler, India House & Family
week one transition from Bloomington to Cincinnatti to New York*
70$ food and subway fare
Evelyn, Serenity and Family, Marc and Claire, Eric Kincaid and the Melendez Family, Carwil and Meerkats, Saam, Odelia, Jake & Roomies, the Foxx Family, Christina Dibbs
week two, conversion from America to Paris*
90€ food, train and metro fare
Mathilde, Tomma(s), Kemi, Fanny Sabine Phillip Elody and the Birthday Party, Kemis singing work buddies and the Crepe Party, wild dream people
week three, France city to France Country*
70€ food and hostels, 100€ train
Julia & the Birthday Party, Guisane, Joe Kim Nancy & Jean Pierre, Sue & Dan, Tom Travel, Anne Caro(l)
semaine quatre, settling quietly into France*
99€ train and food
Quenton, Patrique, Guisane's Maman et Pere, IndRa Horses
Total 4 weeks about 410$ spent
and a priceless amount of FriendEndergy, which is what happens when people help people,
The council calls this 'The Courage of Kindness', it is a special thing that all people have access to. It is sort of the Engine that BardSong runs on...
Sunday, February 19, 2012
de pain
Du Pon? Deh Paan? What Vowel IS that? I just want some bread!
Spent the week or week end (3 fine days and nights) with my friend Guisane and her family in another little town South of Paris. The last time the roof was re-done was 186°s or something, the house is old, and quaint, and sturdy with thick walls and those doors that open on the bottom and on the top. There are rings mounted in the stone walls, to hook the horses to. There is a hey barn and an old mossy apple tree and pine cones that must be gathered and put into a big basket by the fire for burning. There is bread in the morning and at lunch and at dinner; there is tea in the morning and wine at lunch and dinner. There is coffee after lunch and Guisanes father is a sweet man with a bright laugh who tells stories with his hands and her mother is a sweet woman who talks to me first in french and then when she is sure I don't understand, she translates.
Guisane and I went to the forest, le foret, and took the horses out to get fresh grass, and listened to french and american music on the speakers in her little room. There is a pull out bed that is a couch in the day time, the sun comes through the window when it shines and everything is like after the rain. Outside, the fields go on until you cannot see or maybe there are hills. The clouds are busy, but slowly busy, so that one day might be for covering the sky and the next day might be for uncovering it, and the day after that maybe, is for playing marbles, so we dont do anything too fast.
Except get on a train and go back to Paris.
Now you must picture me at Versailles. I am in sort of torn sweats with shoes that I dont dare take off because the sweat plus time equals smell, and my fussy fuzzy hair and beard connection. My pockets are full of a passport, train ticket, bread recipt, french childrens book I am struggling through, anglais dictionary, striped gloves with horse hair on them, glasses case with a careful cigarette saved from Tom Travel. I have an audio guide, which is like a cell phone that explains information on various sculptures and paintings, but it is in French and I like it that way.
I have never seen a palace like this before. May be the rumored taj mahal, or the fabled eldorado...
But there are the gates wrought with gold, horsed men statchuwing them from both sides. Beyond the gates is room for an army of 17000 men. More. They are all there; in their pompador uniforms. Napolean is leading them, rallying them, preparing them to go conquest the world and everything. Preparing them for the Tour de France, Le Tour de Monde. The air smells like thousands of hopes, and swet metal, and sword holsters, leather glove hands on spear handles. Horses with spurs in them.
And then my companions, a generous bunch of Americans and a German one, skip across this former field of war, which is now a major tourist spot for people of all tungs and colors. Inside there are hallways full of statues of long dead somebodies, with folded hands or fat swords. They are on peaceful on their death beds, or triumphant in their pride. Big hands, big scepters, big hair. Oh you men of valor, you.
My friends and I wandered through the halls and then the gardens, marvelling, listening to our cell phones talk about the lighting on a certain picture. Then we played with ice on the frozen lake, and I decided I like things that are living more then things that are dead.
Tada, Halleluiah Paris, happy Sunday everybody!
Spent the week or week end (3 fine days and nights) with my friend Guisane and her family in another little town South of Paris. The last time the roof was re-done was 186°s or something, the house is old, and quaint, and sturdy with thick walls and those doors that open on the bottom and on the top. There are rings mounted in the stone walls, to hook the horses to. There is a hey barn and an old mossy apple tree and pine cones that must be gathered and put into a big basket by the fire for burning. There is bread in the morning and at lunch and at dinner; there is tea in the morning and wine at lunch and dinner. There is coffee after lunch and Guisanes father is a sweet man with a bright laugh who tells stories with his hands and her mother is a sweet woman who talks to me first in french and then when she is sure I don't understand, she translates.
Guisane and I went to the forest, le foret, and took the horses out to get fresh grass, and listened to french and american music on the speakers in her little room. There is a pull out bed that is a couch in the day time, the sun comes through the window when it shines and everything is like after the rain. Outside, the fields go on until you cannot see or maybe there are hills. The clouds are busy, but slowly busy, so that one day might be for covering the sky and the next day might be for uncovering it, and the day after that maybe, is for playing marbles, so we dont do anything too fast.
Except get on a train and go back to Paris.
Now you must picture me at Versailles. I am in sort of torn sweats with shoes that I dont dare take off because the sweat plus time equals smell, and my fussy fuzzy hair and beard connection. My pockets are full of a passport, train ticket, bread recipt, french childrens book I am struggling through, anglais dictionary, striped gloves with horse hair on them, glasses case with a careful cigarette saved from Tom Travel. I have an audio guide, which is like a cell phone that explains information on various sculptures and paintings, but it is in French and I like it that way.
I have never seen a palace like this before. May be the rumored taj mahal, or the fabled eldorado...
But there are the gates wrought with gold, horsed men statchuwing them from both sides. Beyond the gates is room for an army of 17000 men. More. They are all there; in their pompador uniforms. Napolean is leading them, rallying them, preparing them to go conquest the world and everything. Preparing them for the Tour de France, Le Tour de Monde. The air smells like thousands of hopes, and swet metal, and sword holsters, leather glove hands on spear handles. Horses with spurs in them.
And then my companions, a generous bunch of Americans and a German one, skip across this former field of war, which is now a major tourist spot for people of all tungs and colors. Inside there are hallways full of statues of long dead somebodies, with folded hands or fat swords. They are on peaceful on their death beds, or triumphant in their pride. Big hands, big scepters, big hair. Oh you men of valor, you.
My friends and I wandered through the halls and then the gardens, marvelling, listening to our cell phones talk about the lighting on a certain picture. Then we played with ice on the frozen lake, and I decided I like things that are living more then things that are dead.
Tada, Halleluiah Paris, happy Sunday everybody!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
tom travel
Some times you might think that everything goes wrong. Like the car breaks down on the way to Spain, the rental cars windows get smashed in, or you run all out of money in the middle of a foreign city. Some things I have had, I don,t remember how I lost them.
I ate a meal for the price of a juice in a little bar advertizing Free Walks and Flamenco. I ate and the European town swirled around me. I stepped outside for air, and walked down one of those tiny Barcelonian alleys with my ukulele out. Careful, the people had warned, that the police dont see you playing that, or they will take your instrument. But I was not busking, only walking. There is a girl singing along, a song I don't recognize. There is a guy with headphones on, smiling, asking where I am from. I am Travis, and I tell him where from. 'Travis Travel' he says, smiling good naturedly. Are you hungry?
I told him I wasn't, that I had just eaten a meal for the price of a juice at a little bar with Free Walks and Flamenco, but a few minutes later, Tom (you hav never had tapas?) and I were drinking and laughing and eating tapas at a fine little diner at 10 on a Thursday night.
Tom is tall, his english sounds to me like UK English but it wears a thick Belgian accent on it, which makes it jovial and blunted, like a young boy jumping over things. Tom has scruff on his face, not shaved in a day or two, and a smile even when hes a bit ticked off. He is simply spoken and honest and I liked him right off.
He knew I was on my last few euros, but I told him my whole story of coming to Barcelona with some friends and how I had a ride back and money in France, if I survived the city long enough to see it. He said I could sleep at his hotel with him for this night and the next but then his girlfriend was coming from Belgium and I would have to find another place. I had a room at the hostel that night; but I would take him up on his offer on Friday.
I shall not soon forget that night and that tapas. The food is not so important to me (wild mushrooms on garlic bread, cheese in a thing, soft calamari, risotto) or the drinks that I want to remember (beer beer beer irish-coffee cava cava) it was the freeness that I felt with that new friend of mine. To be honest and feel like this guy really cared for me like a person compassionate and undertanding cares for another person, but to be treated as a genuine equal regardless of nationality or status or anything. Not that I haven't felt that before, but Tom is one of these guys that just helps a person feel that way, and he put me right at ease.
We talked about 'the Good Semaritan' story, he played me a song he had created on the computer, I gave him a Fugatives cd which the house played a track from. We laughed and felt grand and I thought to myself: "my oh my, a person can be in 'dire straights' (bad news), but if he has a friend, he knows he's alright."
And we were all right and just fine and we carreened out of the tapas bar, not feeling all drunk, only elated to be friendful and free. Around the corner we went; out came the ukelele and we started to sing, making up songs with three Danish guys that came out of a bar. Not a minute went by before the police were on us (what for singing and playing a ukulele) and they off with my (sisters) ukulele and off with my passport and into a car these things went, the car drove off then, and I am sure if not for the seasoned Europeans around me I would have been quite out of luck.
My new friends, Tom, and one of the Danish fellows called Michael, were trying to talk and reason with the Spanish police; who wrote us a ticket with no price on it, no name on it, and a scribbled hand written address of where to go in the morning if we wanted to bail out the ukulele. Sign here, he said to me, and the Dane and Tom both go 'ah no you dont! first give him back his passport'. It was a very interesting experience to be there for. Hello, foreign police.
Every day there is protests in Barcelona. One day the SpanAir crew was 100 strong (more maybe) outside of a big government building. One night I passed the same government building to a line of people being silent for peace. Over a quarter of the population of Spain is unemployed, I hear. I don't know how our issues are related, America, but maybe we can help each other.
Next day I met Tom, he was the only guy on the street with shorts and sandles. His story is, he worked from 17 to now he's in his early 30s, spending but saving enough money to see him around the world now, if he wants. He leans back in his chair by the beach, smiles through his sunglasses. "I could sit here all day", and he could, but our mission is to get the ukulele back, so we walk all over town.
How Tom and I walk all over town is this: after three blocks we have to pee, and to use the bathrooms we have to buy something. Tom will say "I've already told you, I drink too much. That's true." and order us a beer. We drink the beer, wlk three blocks, and have to pee. One time we had to walk 4 blocks then take the metro. We had to pee really bad after that, so we stopped for a beer and a tapas.
We made it to the police station place at 4, they closed at 2. You'll have to come back tomorrow.
Tom, sayz I, I just don't feel welcome here. This place wont allow me to play my music, I don't have any money, and if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have any friends. I keep thinking I should have stayed in Paris and gone slowly, maybe gone to visit my friend Guisane whos got horses in the country, I really like horses, and I like Paris and Guisane and Matilda, and the cold isn't even that bad.
And Tom said to me that it wasn't about the money or anything, that I just had to know what I wanted to do and then do it. I asked him then to loan me the money for a train to Paris, and I was going to get a different guitar and tell Kim and Joe just to meet me there. And Tom did it, you know. He loaned me all the money I needed, I to get it back to him somehow, and we had our last round at the train station.
I think I'm having second thoughts now; I told him (can you picture me, all indesisive as usual). He said 'its because of the money, now you think you've got options. But you can't think like that. The money is not what's important (the bike is not whats important, the ukuleles not whats important). No, its knowing what you really want to do, and then doing it.
Well I want to go slow(er).
I want to visit Europe, and meet the people, and that might take forever.
I got to Mathilde's this morning, and she wasn't home, but Ankara looked at me, let me in. She doesn't speak much english and my French is pitiful, but here I am, in her home, eating with people who are so much like my friends and yet so different, and wonderful to know. I spent the whole afternoon (all of it from noon to dark), with Patrique, who has sons my age and a beard, who told me in his 100 English words some of the finest things I have ever heard. He said, and I'll leave you with it.
"it is not important to run; because in the end there is death."
I ate a meal for the price of a juice in a little bar advertizing Free Walks and Flamenco. I ate and the European town swirled around me. I stepped outside for air, and walked down one of those tiny Barcelonian alleys with my ukulele out. Careful, the people had warned, that the police dont see you playing that, or they will take your instrument. But I was not busking, only walking. There is a girl singing along, a song I don't recognize. There is a guy with headphones on, smiling, asking where I am from. I am Travis, and I tell him where from. 'Travis Travel' he says, smiling good naturedly. Are you hungry?
I told him I wasn't, that I had just eaten a meal for the price of a juice at a little bar with Free Walks and Flamenco, but a few minutes later, Tom (you hav never had tapas?) and I were drinking and laughing and eating tapas at a fine little diner at 10 on a Thursday night.
Tom is tall, his english sounds to me like UK English but it wears a thick Belgian accent on it, which makes it jovial and blunted, like a young boy jumping over things. Tom has scruff on his face, not shaved in a day or two, and a smile even when hes a bit ticked off. He is simply spoken and honest and I liked him right off.
He knew I was on my last few euros, but I told him my whole story of coming to Barcelona with some friends and how I had a ride back and money in France, if I survived the city long enough to see it. He said I could sleep at his hotel with him for this night and the next but then his girlfriend was coming from Belgium and I would have to find another place. I had a room at the hostel that night; but I would take him up on his offer on Friday.
I shall not soon forget that night and that tapas. The food is not so important to me (wild mushrooms on garlic bread, cheese in a thing, soft calamari, risotto) or the drinks that I want to remember (beer beer beer irish-coffee cava cava) it was the freeness that I felt with that new friend of mine. To be honest and feel like this guy really cared for me like a person compassionate and undertanding cares for another person, but to be treated as a genuine equal regardless of nationality or status or anything. Not that I haven't felt that before, but Tom is one of these guys that just helps a person feel that way, and he put me right at ease.
We talked about 'the Good Semaritan' story, he played me a song he had created on the computer, I gave him a Fugatives cd which the house played a track from. We laughed and felt grand and I thought to myself: "my oh my, a person can be in 'dire straights' (bad news), but if he has a friend, he knows he's alright."
And we were all right and just fine and we carreened out of the tapas bar, not feeling all drunk, only elated to be friendful and free. Around the corner we went; out came the ukelele and we started to sing, making up songs with three Danish guys that came out of a bar. Not a minute went by before the police were on us (what for singing and playing a ukulele) and they off with my (sisters) ukulele and off with my passport and into a car these things went, the car drove off then, and I am sure if not for the seasoned Europeans around me I would have been quite out of luck.
My new friends, Tom, and one of the Danish fellows called Michael, were trying to talk and reason with the Spanish police; who wrote us a ticket with no price on it, no name on it, and a scribbled hand written address of where to go in the morning if we wanted to bail out the ukulele. Sign here, he said to me, and the Dane and Tom both go 'ah no you dont! first give him back his passport'. It was a very interesting experience to be there for. Hello, foreign police.
Every day there is protests in Barcelona. One day the SpanAir crew was 100 strong (more maybe) outside of a big government building. One night I passed the same government building to a line of people being silent for peace. Over a quarter of the population of Spain is unemployed, I hear. I don't know how our issues are related, America, but maybe we can help each other.
Next day I met Tom, he was the only guy on the street with shorts and sandles. His story is, he worked from 17 to now he's in his early 30s, spending but saving enough money to see him around the world now, if he wants. He leans back in his chair by the beach, smiles through his sunglasses. "I could sit here all day", and he could, but our mission is to get the ukulele back, so we walk all over town.
How Tom and I walk all over town is this: after three blocks we have to pee, and to use the bathrooms we have to buy something. Tom will say "I've already told you, I drink too much. That's true." and order us a beer. We drink the beer, wlk three blocks, and have to pee. One time we had to walk 4 blocks then take the metro. We had to pee really bad after that, so we stopped for a beer and a tapas.
We made it to the police station place at 4, they closed at 2. You'll have to come back tomorrow.
Tom, sayz I, I just don't feel welcome here. This place wont allow me to play my music, I don't have any money, and if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have any friends. I keep thinking I should have stayed in Paris and gone slowly, maybe gone to visit my friend Guisane whos got horses in the country, I really like horses, and I like Paris and Guisane and Matilda, and the cold isn't even that bad.
And Tom said to me that it wasn't about the money or anything, that I just had to know what I wanted to do and then do it. I asked him then to loan me the money for a train to Paris, and I was going to get a different guitar and tell Kim and Joe just to meet me there. And Tom did it, you know. He loaned me all the money I needed, I to get it back to him somehow, and we had our last round at the train station.
I think I'm having second thoughts now; I told him (can you picture me, all indesisive as usual). He said 'its because of the money, now you think you've got options. But you can't think like that. The money is not what's important (the bike is not whats important, the ukuleles not whats important). No, its knowing what you really want to do, and then doing it.
Well I want to go slow(er).
I want to visit Europe, and meet the people, and that might take forever.
I got to Mathilde's this morning, and she wasn't home, but Ankara looked at me, let me in. She doesn't speak much english and my French is pitiful, but here I am, in her home, eating with people who are so much like my friends and yet so different, and wonderful to know. I spent the whole afternoon (all of it from noon to dark), with Patrique, who has sons my age and a beard, who told me in his 100 English words some of the finest things I have ever heard. He said, and I'll leave you with it.
"it is not important to run; because in the end there is death."
Monday, February 6, 2012
found france
I was wandering around Rue de Republic, passed the Avenue de le Revolucion to Gambetta street, looking for Gulia's house for the party. Found the address but there was only an alley and a garage door with a paper page taped on that said something French with "Lunatic" written there. In France, where I am who I am, vwee pronunce dhees: Lunateek. Vwee pronunce everysing a bit deeferent, see.
If I wasn't minding my pees and q's; as they say; I would tell you all about it (I am typing so slow, to get used to the foreign placing of letters on the keyboard). This was a "French Expression Theme Party" and the people were all dressed fine in french expressions that need to be explained. J'suis barrè; I am crazy. A piè e poi liès. my hands and feet are tied together. I was quickly saturated in allegorical maxims I did not speak and could hardly understand.
But the people are so kind and accomadating. I have many French proffessors, now, and everyone can help me:
An Old Goal: Find a universal purpose: Then you have a reason to talk to everyone.
A Universal Purpose: I wish to learn your language, World.
The party lasts until six in the morning. There are toasts to the birthday girl; food spread and shared on the table; sofas for sitting and talking and napping; blankets for going under; a computer which plays songs for dancing: an ever occupied dance floor.
Joe tells me later; when we are walking on the rue; à le foret, how in France, at parties, they have few expectations, and that makes all the difference.
There is a certain lightness about everything I have found here; maybe it is the cheese; but it seems to run deep. There is a long enjoyment (how to say this?) a deep breathing. In New York I felt like if I stopped to take a breath, it might run away from me. Here, it is easier to see: Breathe as much as you will, we won't run. Perhaps too, this is just the feeling of getting older and seeing how much I can take my time;
At 6 30 we walk home to Mathilde and Anka's house, laughing in the streets and subways; singing in French qnd English qnd Spanish (the a's I am used to are q's, qs you cqn see). When we camboreened off the final subway into Mathilde's district the snow was falling, tiny flakes.
The next morning my friend Gizan took me to the train station to rumble down to Vendome to meet up with Kim and Joe. She is little and speaks the best of Anglais and French. Goodbye Paris, you are as lovely as everyone says.
In my little book I am writing "Aha, I have found France", while the moon rises bigger and bigger every night.
Each morning I wake up with cheese in my nose, frommage dans moi nez.
Last night I slept in the dungeon of a castle which is Kim's house. It is from there where I am writing you; on the ground floor (ha ha no, there is no ground floor) with the fireplace and the grand piano that is the same make and model of Chopin's piano that the crafty Detour's found at a garage sale. The black cat is sleeping next to me; Jean Pierre is in his study, writing the script to next summer's play. Kim and Joe and even Nancy are off siesta-ing after that irish stew we took for lunch. I spent the morning sleeping and the mid morning sledding down the nezzy streets of this little town.
There is a tall church steeple in the middle of town. and there are no lights at all around here at night after 10 except the moon.
Between the houses are gardens and above the town runs the train tracks I came on.
This is a little town like I used to see in pictures of little towns in France.
Kim's house has a stone tower that is 800 years old:
The tobagon that we sledded on is all wood and ricketty as grammaz unused garage chairs.
There are six inches of Nez on the ground.
The town is full of caves. It is a cave town. We went to Suzie's for dinner last night and she said "please fetch a bottle of wine; its in the cave." And it was.
If I wasn't minding my pees and q's; as they say; I would tell you all about it (I am typing so slow, to get used to the foreign placing of letters on the keyboard). This was a "French Expression Theme Party" and the people were all dressed fine in french expressions that need to be explained. J'suis barrè; I am crazy. A piè e poi liès. my hands and feet are tied together. I was quickly saturated in allegorical maxims I did not speak and could hardly understand.
But the people are so kind and accomadating. I have many French proffessors, now, and everyone can help me:
An Old Goal: Find a universal purpose: Then you have a reason to talk to everyone.
A Universal Purpose: I wish to learn your language, World.
The party lasts until six in the morning. There are toasts to the birthday girl; food spread and shared on the table; sofas for sitting and talking and napping; blankets for going under; a computer which plays songs for dancing: an ever occupied dance floor.
Joe tells me later; when we are walking on the rue; à le foret, how in France, at parties, they have few expectations, and that makes all the difference.
There is a certain lightness about everything I have found here; maybe it is the cheese; but it seems to run deep. There is a long enjoyment (how to say this?) a deep breathing. In New York I felt like if I stopped to take a breath, it might run away from me. Here, it is easier to see: Breathe as much as you will, we won't run. Perhaps too, this is just the feeling of getting older and seeing how much I can take my time;
At 6 30 we walk home to Mathilde and Anka's house, laughing in the streets and subways; singing in French qnd English qnd Spanish (the a's I am used to are q's, qs you cqn see). When we camboreened off the final subway into Mathilde's district the snow was falling, tiny flakes.
The next morning my friend Gizan took me to the train station to rumble down to Vendome to meet up with Kim and Joe. She is little and speaks the best of Anglais and French. Goodbye Paris, you are as lovely as everyone says.
In my little book I am writing "Aha, I have found France", while the moon rises bigger and bigger every night.
Each morning I wake up with cheese in my nose, frommage dans moi nez.
Last night I slept in the dungeon of a castle which is Kim's house. It is from there where I am writing you; on the ground floor (ha ha no, there is no ground floor) with the fireplace and the grand piano that is the same make and model of Chopin's piano that the crafty Detour's found at a garage sale. The black cat is sleeping next to me; Jean Pierre is in his study, writing the script to next summer's play. Kim and Joe and even Nancy are off siesta-ing after that irish stew we took for lunch. I spent the morning sleeping and the mid morning sledding down the nezzy streets of this little town.
There is a tall church steeple in the middle of town. and there are no lights at all around here at night after 10 except the moon.
Between the houses are gardens and above the town runs the train tracks I came on.
This is a little town like I used to see in pictures of little towns in France.
Kim's house has a stone tower that is 800 years old:
The tobagon that we sledded on is all wood and ricketty as grammaz unused garage chairs.
There are six inches of Nez on the ground.
The town is full of caves. It is a cave town. We went to Suzie's for dinner last night and she said "please fetch a bottle of wine; its in the cave." And it was.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
notre dame; montmartre
At three in the morning I awoke again. A vibrant dream about the Lady in Grey. Mathilde and I were spelunking, with glowing symbols writ on our hands, to find a magic song to heal the princess. I climbed out of bed after writing it down. Broke fast and dressed and left the house at 6. On the way out, I was looking for the hall light but instead I rang the doorbell. Please go back to sleep, Kemi, I am sorry to wake you.
The cold was turned all the way up outside. There were three of us at the gates of Notre Dame when it opened, mass began at 8. It was a beautiful catholic mass, in French. Simple and sweet, and my mind rolling over revelations. The story of the creator who dressed himself like his creations, and his creation killed him. And he loved them still, and conquered their killing, and came to them once more, patient and open. "Look at me."
Stones. Buildings like this will not burn. I imagine our Quasimoto, fighting off the legions and denizons of France. Fighting the underworld for a gypsy girl. All of them talking in French.
I ate Nutella at the Lourve. Danced beneath the Tour Eiffel. Wandered along the Seine, stuffing my scarf around my face to keep the wind off. My sox sweating.
Along the Siene was all the noise of traffic and the city.
Steps away, down an alley tight-packed with hundred year old houses it is quiet as a ville in the hille. Garbage men ride bicicles.
Mathilde and I ate lunch slowly. Crepes with cider. The cider doesn't taste like store-bought-american-brand. It tastes like aaron-pollit-home-brew (except light and barragy, like if Aaron was 200 years old and had quite perfected his elixer). The place was so crowded we had to wait a while, but nobody complained and nobody seemed stressed. All were in high spirits of lunch. Bon appetit.
End the day on the mountain of martyrs, Montmartre, overlooking all of PaRy. There is the Notre Dame, there is the Lourve, there is that boxy tower Mathilde was telling you about, sticking out like a block on a table top. Makes me think...in America, our Cities of Towers. That's all they are, yo. Cities of Towers. Sky Scraper is a fancy word for Big Fucking Tower. Hmn.
The cold was turned all the way up outside. There were three of us at the gates of Notre Dame when it opened, mass began at 8. It was a beautiful catholic mass, in French. Simple and sweet, and my mind rolling over revelations. The story of the creator who dressed himself like his creations, and his creation killed him. And he loved them still, and conquered their killing, and came to them once more, patient and open. "Look at me."
Stones. Buildings like this will not burn. I imagine our Quasimoto, fighting off the legions and denizons of France. Fighting the underworld for a gypsy girl. All of them talking in French.
I ate Nutella at the Lourve. Danced beneath the Tour Eiffel. Wandered along the Seine, stuffing my scarf around my face to keep the wind off. My sox sweating.
Along the Siene was all the noise of traffic and the city.
Steps away, down an alley tight-packed with hundred year old houses it is quiet as a ville in the hille. Garbage men ride bicicles.
Mathilde and I ate lunch slowly. Crepes with cider. The cider doesn't taste like store-bought-american-brand. It tastes like aaron-pollit-home-brew (except light and barragy, like if Aaron was 200 years old and had quite perfected his elixer). The place was so crowded we had to wait a while, but nobody complained and nobody seemed stressed. All were in high spirits of lunch. Bon appetit.
End the day on the mountain of martyrs, Montmartre, overlooking all of PaRy. There is the Notre Dame, there is the Lourve, there is that boxy tower Mathilde was telling you about, sticking out like a block on a table top. Makes me think...in America, our Cities of Towers. That's all they are, yo. Cities of Towers. Sky Scraper is a fancy word for Big Fucking Tower. Hmn.
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