Pensées de Paris -- Thoughts from Paris

A recent trip to Paris left my Moleskine filled with thought bubbles, scribbles and observational commentary. In a journalistic attempt to "capture the moment", I found myself twirling my favorite blue Bic pen between my fingers and writing feverishly as I walked down brick paved boulevards, sat in the crowded Metro or laid belly-down on the many grassy sections of the city.

A forthcoming Paris review will draw from these recorded thoughts as well as my deep trodden memories. Every writer has an inspirational creative process. When I decide to sit and write about a trip or event, I like to let the thoughts ferment in my soul for a while. The memories burrow inside me and germinate into unexpected emotions. Sometimes, I may feel something at the particular moment it's happening, and then after the event sits for a while it grows into something completely different - something completely unanticipated.

These are my thoughts from Paris; organically jumbled and unrequited feelings. No one, not even myself, can fully appreciate or understand why I decided to write what I did - it's just what happens when pen meets paper. J'espère que vous apprécierez -- I hope you enjoy.

Arriving into Paris at the morning's sunrise is a variable sorbet serving, marked through the sky in layers of peach, raspberry and dark currant. The Atlantic Ocean glimmers over the coast; the waters calm and rippling as if beckoning all who view it from this height, "Come -- lay at my shores".

Phillipe Auguste to Tour Eiffel

M2 - Direction Nation

M6 - Direction Charles de Gaulle-Etoile

Bir-Hakeim (Grenelle) walk north!

Champs Elysees is also N E (across the Seine)

The beauty of the Eiffel Tower is overshadowed by the loss of my camera. It's not the monetary cost but the mistrust -- the sheer criminal act of it all. I should have been more careful but I carried around an air of Detroit cockiness. Criminals in Detroit are brash and forward, hastily demanding your items, forcing the steel barrel of a pistol in between your ribs.

Criminals in Paris are stylish and calm -- debonair even; fitting in confidently with everything else in Paris, the food, the architecture and blase attitudes. They swoop in, quietly and unexpectedly -- before you even realize you're lost, you are.

Richelieu Drouot

xx xx xx xx xx

Gael

Louvre

Metro 2 Direction Nation

Line 1 Defense (Grande Arche)

-Palais Royale

Musee Louvre

Weds June

I am beginning to understand life in Paris. A day out equals a big bag, two pairs of shoes -- comfortable but stylish and stilettos just in case the day takes you into the night. Drinking wine along the Seine or having a beer with friends at a cafe. There is never a plan in Paris -- only life.

I find myself more attracted to the Louvre itself than the actual paintings and sculptures inside. The Louvre's cool marble floors, plaster walls and ornately painted ceilings are art within themselves. I suppose only a place of true magnificence would be worthy of housing the most beautiful pieces of art in the world.

Venus de Milo has a whole wing -- how amazing is that?! Even the Mona Lisa shares a room...

The air around the Grand Sphinx rumbles and growls like a low cautious warning.

I love the smell in the Louvre Medieval. It's musty and old. Dark with history.

Pecheur dansant la tarentelle -- I love his happy face and body position. My favorite sculpture.

Montmartre

M2 - Direction Pt. Dauphine station stop Blanche

Sitting in the Jardin de Luxe. Children (teens) are playing and talking. I am drinking my beer of choice, Kronenbourg and eat brie with freshly bought baguette. People to my left are making out.

Gay or European? The quest continues...an American girl's unquenchable desire to know. Ha ha.

Kids as young as 13 and 14 years old look, act and dress like adults. C'est bizarre!

J. Martin at Club 67 "Do you ever go out and get a whiff of penis? Because I just did..."

"Apparently in France they have both douchebags and douchebaguettes"