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

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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)

Desa Seni, Canggu, Bali Indonesia

My brother and I spent a week in Indonesia.

Deas Seni, Canngu, Bali to be exact.

We arrived just a day after the most recent fatal bombings in Jakarta, but could not have conceived of a more relaxed and safe haven as was Desa Seni for us. I felt a bit guilty being there and embracing the warm welcoming atmosphere, where they literally sound a large 'gong' when you enter the residence, when other foreigners had just been killed in the capital.

I spoke to one of the staff about the attacks here at Desa Seni about the bombings and he said 'It is terrible, but this happens here. 'What can I do but pray and live my life well and be happy to the people i meet?'

Which is about right too.

So we relaxed and embraced it...

All around us are living, breathing, photosynthesising things and clickity things; geckoes, crickets and various insects. The tick, tick ticking of men building and maintaining the gardens around us. For us two avid music lovers with our iPods and macbooks jammed full with music, we didn't turn them on til the very end.

As if the cacophony of village life was enough, that and the peace of our own silence.

We were, however, for two days and nights serenaded by ceremonial singing cascading across the rice paddy fields. A man's deep resonant voice singing devotional hymns, sometimes accompanied by drums and bells, floated around us from morning til late at night. It was the day before and the day of the Total Solar eclipse which I, of course, wanted to believe it had something to do with but our enquiries got us no further to finding out exactly what it was for.

Our day would begin either with a yoga class or breakfast. Breakfast being a bowl of mixed tropical fruit, a fresh pressed juice, a Balinese coffee or organic tea and then a hot dish, our collective favourite; the Telur Florentine. Two fresh farm eggs poached sitting on spinach from the garden that has been sautéed in garlic on top of whole wheat bread accompanied by two lightly grilled tomatoes, also plucked from the garden, sprinkled with more garlic and pesto made from the, you guessed it, basil grown in the garden.

This would always be brought to us, in our rumah wungsu by a Balinese man in his uniform of loose cotton trousers and t-shirt with a frangipani behind the ear and a warm smile wishing us a 'good morning' and to 'please enjoy our breakfast', and we believed them every time.

Our hut, rumah wungsu, is perched at the edge of the 'village resort' complex. We have a little grassed area out front with trees, a small flower garden sprouting bird of paradise and a statue of Ganesha who acts as protector of the property (she is aided by several burly security guards, who also wear frangipanis behind their ears). We look out over rice paddy fields that are tended daily and a new garden being built that already houses a few mango trees and small vegetable plots.

It felt, at the beginning of the week that it would go on forever. The days were sultry and long, sunshine and great food, stretching and napping. And then, suddenly it's over!

It is so strange the way that happens...

Every time we sat down to eat another amazing meal I would say 'How great is this food?! How good is this for us, I know I say it every time..but really, how great is this!'

And the little notes on our pillows each night. Different quotes every time;

"Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and it's power of endurance

The cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen."

Thomas Carlyle

Which is not dissimilar to our waiter's quote that I'm personally going to run with;

'What can I do but pray and live my life well and be happy to the people i meet?'

check it out: www.desaseni.com