Line 7, Paris Metro

Each metro line in Paris is distinctive.

Carriages in various states of disrepair and odour depending on the age of the vinyl or linoleum.

Whether a new line or old the colour schemes vary, as does the pace, the seating arrangements and even the way the doors open.

My old line, bright yellow line one, is new and shiny and clean with a sombre lady's voice announcing famous names as it stops along the way. She repeats them too which came in handy for me with my pronunciation, although Tuileries is still lost on my Australian tongue.

Line seven is a rose pink line on the metro map, but inside is all shades of 70's blues.

Royal blue seats and light grey-blue acrylic painted interior, even the button you have to press to release the doors is a rounded-edge blue square. Or wait, maybe it's green - eeek I can't remember! Actually I think it's green... either way line 7 is predominantly blue, if you get my drift.

It's my last Friday night in Paris and I'm on line 7 heading from Censier Daubenton in the 5th up to la Chapelle to meet a friend for a dhosa dinner in the 10th. No one tells you what stop is coming up next but I find it such a pleasure watching the stations roll by. I adore some of the metro stops in Paris, they even make their metro stops pretty those aesthetically acute Parisians.

I've sat myself down on the three seater banquette au fond du carriage and opposite me are two stunning French-African women. I guess they are on their way to a party all dressed up with bags of goodies at their feet. They chat and giggle unselfconsciously about boys, a topic that is rarely exhausted between girlfriends.

I put my headphones in to let music accompany me on the ride although I can't help but stare at these women, their beauty and animated conversation is hard to ignore. It seems as if they have dressed to complement line seven all together, melding blue hues. I keep stealing glances at them as the stops roll by; Pont Neuf, Palais Royal, Opera.

The girl on the left has fluffed up her afro so that it creates a halo of tight curls all around her. Each time we pull into a station the light from the platform illuminates her as if Glenda the good witch has touched her with her star shaped wand.

She's wearing a French cliché classic, the wide necked blue and white striped, long sleeved t-shirt and hit it with American Apparel type shiny deep blue leggins and white high top trainers. Her eye lids are dramatically awash with a cornflower blue shadow that glitters against her perfect dark skin. The effect is mesmerising.

Her friend's close cropped hair is all Grace Jones like and suits her angular features perfectly. She also has blue shadow on her eyelids, but high-lighted it with sparkling gold and added a deep red gloss to her lips. A pair of bright neon lime and dark green zebra print tights clash perfectly with her silver brogues and simple dark blue tee.

I suddenly feel like I'm in first year high school and these girls are the cool girls in final year.

It flashes me right back to that 'Clark's' bus in 1989 when I used to stare at an older girl from a different school who had short black hair and wore a De La Soul daisy t-shirt and badges on her satchel.

A sudden burst of laughter and lunging-forward-thigh-slapping moment from across the isle brings me back to the present with a start.

As the girls regain composure they look to me to catch my eye and apologise for 'disturbing' me... ahhh Paris

Ascenseur pour L'echafaud and the Italian

Well, I was sitting at a table in a bar in Paris...

I was sitting with a young woman who was asking me my opinions on life, love, relationships and travelling alone — you know the basics.

It was an intense discussion to be having at a bar in the middle of our friend's birthday drinks I agree, especially while the Caipirinhas were flowing at quite a pace.

But I do like to discuss the big topics n'importe ou.

I remember she was talking about her burgeoning new relationship and relating to men and asked me;

'Would you just go home with someone for one night while you're travelling?'

I responded honestly with "I'd rather spend a week with someone while I'm here than have a one night stand," and then I met the Italian.

His reputation as a 'ladies man' preceded our introduction, yet he had me and everyone around intoxicated with his warm humour and loud personality.

Gathering everyone together, facilitating conversation and ensuring all were interacting — it's quite a skill actually, not something many people can do easily and sincerely. Introducing everyone to each other and chatting to whoever was near it was a whirlwind to watch.

He encapsulated that 'Italian' ideal that I've encountered over the years; the grabbing life with both hands, never passing up an opportunity, taking extreme pleasure in the small gifts that life presents and taking no shit and proclaiming it all loudly to whomever is near. I love that.

He cornered me outside the bar to steal a cigarette and hit me with the line "Jennifer, your eyes are incredible, this colour — how do you call it?"

To which I replied "What is this? Are you trying to seduce me?"

And him, all wide-eyed surprise tells me "Ah, well...Yes!" and laughs loudly.

So I told him with a smile, "Look how about you drop the seduction thing and let's just go inside and enjoy ourselves, non?"

A little direct, sure; but you know that's how I am.

So we did, we went inside and had a ball.

There was dancing on the bar, in Paris mind you, that's how much fun we had.

And in the end I was seduced, not by 'come on' lines but by effervescence and laughter and perhaps a little persistence.

We spent a few glorious days together in the Parisian heat of August, all salty summer kisses and slippery embraces.

It was hot, on all counts.

I stayed in his white walled, herring-bone wooden floor, quartier latin appartement as the white, ceiling to floor curtains picked up the occasional wisp of wind and the sunlight flickered over the white bed clothes.

I wore a white sheet, mostly, while I was there and set up playlists on his massive desktop macintosh and watched the white jellyfish-like JBL speakers quiver with bass lines of tunes I loved.

Making passionate love on a hot summer's afternoon with Miles Davis' 'Ascenseur pour L'echafaud' playing in the background is an experience I would hope everyone gets to experience at least once in their lives, in Paris if you can manage it. And if your lover is also happens to be Italian, top that off with a home made pasta as a late lunch a stroll down for a nap in the Jardin du Luxembourg and you could call that a perfect day. With an apero to follow, bien sur.

Is it any wonder I didn't get much writing done in Paris? Or that I kept falling asleep in parks?

He leapt out of bed one morning to jump on a Velib to cycle to the neighbouring quartier to find a boulangerie that was open for fresh croissants. Incredible how many places shut down in Paris for August. Closed for the summer, boarded up for the month as the owners take off to the countryside or the coast. You've gotta respect that. Fuck it, we're outta here - Its summer and the sun is shining for everyone. Can you even imagine half the businesses in Sydney closing down for a month? Its be chaos.

I lay on the cast iron day bed in the lounge half submerged under copious pillows and cushions, of course in shades of white and caught myself musing 'My god this is actually my life'. He returns with fresh croissants and presses oranges for juice; breakfast is served, followed by an espresso and a cigarette, but of course.

As grateful as I was for all this, It was easy to leave — it felt right, and as though I had been blown wide open by passion, excitement and energy.

It's an incredible feeling, that opening up to a new lover.

He was dynamic and fun, a big personality with the added attraction of that classic latin sensibility of being able to seize the moment and sup from the pleasures that life presents you.

He told me just before he left to attend a weekend wedding in Lisbon that if we were living in the same city he feels that we could really be together.

The shock on my face prompted him to say, "You know I'm not trying to scare you, but I have to say I really think we could be together."

It was not what I expected to hear form him. In fact I hadn't expected any of it, which is one of the glorious freedoms of travel — the unexpected.

Not something that could have happened back home, for a million reasons, including how far Lisbon is from Brisbane…

A new connection has been made and my current reality is; who knows where I will end up?

Better to have taken the risk and made the connection than to not, non?

hit this hyper link!

Miles Davis : Discography : Lift To The Scaffold

Shared via AddThis

I know where the wild things are

I can't seem to think at all these days.

What a blessing!

Days lost in meandering through gloriously manicured city streets, iPhone tinkering tunes through my body and I always seem to find myself lead to patches of thick, lush grass where more often than not, I end up next to some magnificent sculpture, fountain or you know, important monument.

It's so peaceful here in the pulsating heart of this magnificent city.

Hours slip-tick by in these sublime parks with their columns of towering trees.

Trees with their branches and foliage squared into uniformed, tapering shapes that look like fresh green icy-poles*.

Icy-poles for giants.

Really, that's what they look like.

If it's hot down here on the ground, imagine how hot it must be up there above the tree line.

Who's to say that horned giants with bulging eyes don't just need a little relief from the heat of the summer sun and a respite from roaring their terrible roars and gnashing their terrible teeth? Maybe these guys are on a summer break from filming. Spike Jonze has been working them hard, I'm sure. For a bit of relief they could just pluck the lime green icy-poles straight from the garden with their massive pudgy fingers poking through the clouds.

Yeah, so... I fell asleep in the park, like a hobo.

I don't think they get many 'hobos' in this park, especially in the summer when the threat of icy-pole picking is at it's fiercest.

I'm so relaxed, i fall asleep in parks now, in the mid afternoon apparently.

With no regard to Maurice Sendak's monsters.

I wake up to find small groups of people munching on baguettes with cheese, playing boules or reading solitarily in the shade.

Must be like not-so-busy coloured ants to my imaginary monsters peering down from above.

It is funny being the outsider. Even now, anonymous in a rectangular parc on the edge of the Jardin de Luxembourg surrounded by icy-pole trees i am the only one who chooses to sit smack, bang in the middle of the grass.

Everyone else is scattered along the edges of the rectangle.

Is it a French formula to collectively and instinctively place themselves in sync with the manicured beauty around them?

Is it an Australian instinct to surround yourself with as much space as possible?

Or is it just an aspect of my insolent personality that in a moment I take in the scene and unconsciously do the exact opposite...

je ne sais pas.

*(icy-poles/iced lollies/ice-blocks)

Paris has Shrunk!

Walking around Paris today i kept getting hit by memories.

Hit directly in the solar plexus like a punch to the gut that winds you.

Painful pleasure.

Sauntering across le pont des arts in full summer sun today, the gilt on the Louvre winking in the sun's rays I get a flash back to a random moment of my heel getting lodged between the planks on the pont des arts walking home from the 5th in the very early hours of the morning.

I remember how cold it was that february morning and that there was not another soul on the bridge.

The memory flickers and I wonder; how many women has this happened to over the years?

It hits again as I walk by little cafe near metro St Paul;

I was meeting the man who was to become my Parisian lover for our first official 'date' and as he saw me emerge from the metro station, he jumped up from his table leaving all his belongings and ran across the road to me and embraced me on the street.

I felt as enamoured as that woman appears to be in the famous 'kiss' photograph by Robert Doisneau.

An anxiety trembles through me as i walk up to BATEAU CONCORDE ATLANTIQUE thinking;

'could love strike twice in the same place five years later?'

<>

Jumping off the metro at St Germain where I once found my guy all 'nino quincampoix' around the photo booth

and my heart started pounding just like Amelie's. Art imitates life and life in turn...

Walking aimlessly through the 6th on my way to Jardin du Luxembourg I'm hit again with the full body, deep cellular memory of a passionate kiss as I pass by the front of the Sorbonne, bien sûr

As I left the apartment this morning, feeling a little melancholy as I stuffed my headphones into my ears and just walked the streets.

Such a great thing to do in Paris.

Even walking the streets with a broken heart in Paris is somehow pleasurable.

I found myself near the Tuileries and remembered colette, a place where I had found some great music in the past.

History repeats as I find a 10 inch record in the small record bin

The 10 inch is a soft rose-pink sleeve, my colour,with large white text

" I was sad

then i bought this record

I still feel sad"

...In the mood for love

I'm leaving Shanghai tomorrow for Paris.

A stash of beautiful dresses in my luggage and I'm channeling

Maggie Cheung's character in Wong Kar Wai's 'In the Mood for Love'...

This could get dangerous