Sunday in the shadow of Jeanne d'Arc

When I need to get out of town for the day, sometimes I just log on to the SNCF (train system) website and see what runs me under 25 euros round trip. There's plenty to see in France within two hours of Paris, especially with the TGV. With cut-rate "Prem's" tickets and my Carte 12-25 youth discount, it's pretty easy to hop on almost anywhere, sometimes even at the last minute.

I wasn't looking for Rouen. Rouen found me.

Accouche!

Coucou mes lecteurs!

My recent purchase of a used book full of day trips in the outskirts of Paris has proved a rich source of escapades, none of which I have yet shared with you. Hundreds of pictures document these excursions, as well as sojourns closer to home and, most recently, a weekend trip to Bordeaux. I even thought of you, dear readers, as I sketched in my mental notes and framed my photographs.

As I contemplate the task ahead, I am reminded of an expression in French: Alors, t'accouches! Roughly the equivalent of "spit it out," it literally tells the listener to give birth.

Which in turn reminds me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with my thesis advisor. A beautiful, passionate Frenchwoman with whom my classmates and I all have devastating crushes, she is always telling us ne vous inquiétez pas, don't worry. She had just finished forbidding me to worry (again) a few weeks ago, when I'd only drafted a page, but I wanted to assure her quand même that I'd done plenty of research, that I just hadn't yet gotten the chance to transform what I'd gathered into written pages.

C'est comme si j'étais enceinte (It's as if I were pregnant), I tried to explain. In marked contrast to our first dogged communications, we can now converse fluently and spontaneously, which leads to debates about the feminization of French métiers and the etymological evolution of spelling. But now and then I still make weird mistakes, and the flicker of confusion in her brow told me she suspected this was one of those times.

Enceinte? she repeated. Vous ne voulez pas dire... enceinte (You don't mean, pregnant)? She made a hand motion to indicate the shape of a pregnant belly.

Si, I insisted. Je me suis remplie de pensées, et maintenant il ne faut qu'accoucher (I've filled myself with thoughts, and now I just need to give birth).

Ah, je comprends, she laughed. And after I sent her several pages with translations four days later, she remarked that I'd fulfilled my promise.

Today I found out that Proust used the same metaphor when discussing his novel. A metaphor that's good enough for Proust is certainly good enough for me.

So I promise to you, mes tulipes, very soon, an accouchement. The labor will be intensive, but I hope the results will be worth all of our trouble.

Meanwhile, here are a few miscellanous Paris pictures to tide you over, with flighty, springtime-appropriate commentary, possessing neither continuity nor cohesion.

Dans le jardin de ta pensée

Mes lapins, it is back to school with me. Having some structure again spurs me, in general, to get more done. So here I am, presenting some findings.

Several of you suggested the Jardin du Luxembourg. This is for all of you, but surtout for Katie, who suggested it first.

To live an experience in order to recount it later is to don a pair of mental bifocals. On one hand, you focus on your own sensations, your own present experience, your own habits, in interpreting the world around you. On the other, you understand that you see that others may see.

Remember we are flânant, not speed-walking. So be prepared to take your time.

Follow me.

Où flâner?

Chers lecteurs, kindly be sure to read the end of this post, as I have a favor to ask of you.

Winter, listlessness, and a very sticky illness have kept me from being up and about all day during my school vacation. Not to mention that when you haven’t got much money and you’re trying to shed some winter pounds, your activity options get cut down a bit.

But the weather is warming; the days are lengthening. In response, I have become, once again, a flâneur.

When I didn’t yet have a Navigo pass, which allows one unlimited Métro access, I walked nearly everywhere. Even though I bought my tickets in carnets of 10, it still cost 1,20 euros per trip—which makes you think before descending down those steps. And in walking everywhere, I found weird and wonderful stuff: taxidermy and antique shops, chocolatiers and confiseries, surprising boutiques and cafés and churches and public buildings of all kinds. I got lost a lot in those days, without the iPhone with its maps and search and compass that can now get me un-lost in a matter of seconds (and even give me a tip for a good nearby café). But even now that I can orient myself easily—especially now, since I know how to get somewhere else quickly if I need to—it’s good fun to wander into places I have no reason to be.

For the past couple of days, I have not once ridden the Métro. I have walked through and around seven or eight arrondissements, right and left bank. Today I walked up the route of ligne 8, meandered through the 1e and 2e, then threaded from the Opéra Garnier down to Les Deux Magots and walked home roughly along the route of ligne 12. I took pictures and detours and paused in front of pretty windows, looking for all the world like a tourist.

Mes loups, I am having a marvelous time of it.

Therefore, I want to try something new. This week, while I still have a bit of time to do nothing in particular, I would like a new idea: a generative constraint, if you will.

So here's my call to arms. In the comments section, pitch a route for me to flâner. It can be a quartier, an arrondissement, or even a specific street or monument as a starting point.

I will pick one of your suggestions, flâner, and post in greater-than-usual detail.

The City of Lights

Paris is not entirely clean of Christmas, even now at the cusp of the second week of February. A full month after Epiphany, the traditional galettes des rois, a flaky round pastry filled with a crumbly marzipan, still peek at onlookers from patisserie windows. Just yesterday, while strolling through the back streets of the 15e, I spotted a tiny nativity scene still installed, a blithe seasonal anachronism, in the shop window of a confiserie.

But little by little, they have mostly disappeared. I’ll tell you what I loved the most—and now miss the most. The lights.

Here's an impressionistic, woefully incomplete sample.

Assemblage

When I was a professor, I told students who were falling behind that their first priority was to keep up with the current reading and assignments; they could fill in the rest as they got time. Today, as I'm a student again, I think it's time I took my own advice. So instead of beginning in December, I'll begin with this Sunday, when Amy and I nipped out of Paris for a day trip in scenic Reims, Champagne.

Yes, that Champagne.

Reims, perhaps the most famous city in the Champagne region, has two main claims to fame: the proprietary beverage which, like Bordeaux or Côtes du Rhône, according to strict regulation, can only be called champagne if produced in that region; and the cathedral, where many French kings have been crowned. The TGV books it from Gare de l'Est to downtown Reims in a scant 45 minutes for 20-30 euros round trip at the student rate, depending on how far ahead one buys the tickets. Amy and I booked less than 48 hours in advance, more or less on a whim.

Millenia of history, minutes on the TGV. Welcome to modern Europe.

A lick and a promise

When I was younger and still living in my parents' house, my mother would refer to surface cleaning, the kind you did when you were either too busy or too lazy to break out the heavy duty cleaning products and roll up your sleeves, as "a lick and a promise."

This, mes lapins, is a lick and a promise. I have let you go too long without a peep, and want to let you know I'm still here, still Paris-ing, and have not forgotten you. A preponderance of photographs begs - begs, I tell you! - to be uploaded and shared, with copious commentary.

A hint of what lies in your reading future, among other assorted sweetmeats: my family's visit, a little of Germany, Paris during the holidays, and some reflections on the rentrée and finals season.

Now I leave you, to prepare myself something hot - milk with brandy and honey, perhaps, which is one of my favorite treats when I have a cold - and sleep. Tomorrow is my last final, and then I will have no excuse but to break out the iPhoto, roll up my sleeves, and begin to make up for lost time.

Bisous to all. A bientôt. I promise.