Things are a little easier today. I’ve lost last night’s angst which plagued me. I think I was bothered about having to spend so much on my car, especially when so much of it is damage that’s just caused by roads in the area. It gets a little easier the closer I get to France. Sometimes it’s hard to face up to the fact it’s a long time away, when I want to be over there and earning money.
Steve is on his way over tomorrow. He’s decided to bike over on his motorbike, which I don’t like the idea of, especially when so many drivers are complete idiots. I’m also unsure how he’ll get over there when he needs to fill up every twenty minutes! I know he wants to be violating the lanes around our house, but I’d rather he got there another way! I don’t think that I’ll settle until I know when he’s there and he’s safe.
Still, after our recent black swan event of the Icelandic volcano which shut down European airways for a week, it makes you realise that sometimes we don’t know we’re born!
I’ve been thinking about Paris a lot recently. I was there last in 2004 with my brother. It seems like forever ago now. I was doing some photography, fulfilling some ambitions. I finally – a little adolescent, I know! – got to see Jim Morrison’s grave (and appreciate that of Colette and Oscar Wilde, which I wouldn’t have done at 18, when “The Doors” came out as a film and I first got into Mr Morrison and co.) I’d love to go back to Paris again, and having it on my doorstep, practically, will be wonderful. Don’t know if I’ll ever go, but I can dream. I did a whole load of photography there, really sinking into French life. It was clichéd, I know – eating pain aux raisins in Montmartre with a café crème, watching the painters set up for the day, the sun rise over the city – but it’s the Paris I love. Walking down the Rue de faubourg-St-Honoré, dreaming of a Coco Chanel existence, this is the Paris I love.
I’d gone with Al, my brother, who loves France about as much as I do, and he made me walk a long way, back from the Arc de Triomphe to Montmartre, all because of his phobia of the métro. I still have the blisters! I deliberately left a lot of things undone in the anticipation of doing them. I would love to go to the flower and bird market on the Ile de la Cité, to see Paris at times when I haven’t already. It’s a long way, physically and metaphorically, from Les Ecures, but I hope that I’ll be able to make my way up there from time to time.
I think I trekked all over Paris that week. Al got a fantastic shot from the first stage of the Eiffel tower. I got my Chanel sunglasses – a little beginning of my fashionista status, which died a death in 2007! I was hooked on the cross-processed images
http://www.quarlo.com/083005.html
Unfortunately, this guy hasn’t posted anything for ages – last seem to be about 5 years ago, but I did, and do, love his images. I wanted to capture Paris in the same way he did with New York. His candid shots are amazing. His photos are like haiku: they capture season and time, a little quirky zen-ness about them.
He has an eye that sees things in an interesting way. Definitely taught me a lot about how to look at Paris and Kyoto!
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