Peripatetic Paris

Sounds of a water fountain, women with baby strollers, pigeons, cafés, tourists in baseball caps, cigarette butts, businessmen. Shards of language—English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, German, Russian. The sound of a saxophone, pickpockets, an empty Veuve Cliquot Champagne bottle on the sidewalk next to gypsies, teenagers, the occasional aristocrat.



This is Paris. This is Paris on the Left Bank in the 6th arrondissement next to the Fontaine St. Michel. The Île de la Cité is in near us. It’s Wednesday afternoon on a sunny spring day and we’re walking parallel to the Seine.



Paris is a pedestrian’s dream—just watch out for manic motor bikers and buses. Charles Baudelaire is credited with creating a verb to express the idea of someone who walks in the city for pleasure, for passion, for nothing: flâner. What a deep pleasure it is to walk here among the café terrasses, bookstores, boulangeries, open-air markets, galleries, boutiques.



Consider the words of author and dreamer Jules Renard: “Ajoutez deux lettres à Paris: c’est le paradis.” (“Add two letters to Paris: it’s paradise.”) Although not a paradise every day—Metro crush at rush hour, long lines at stores, at banks, at everywheres—I do agree with Monsieur Renard on this particular point: Paris is a bliss for pedestrians.



Living in the US, I was always in my car. I moved to Paris eight years ago and I’ve never had a car here and wouldn’t want one—not only because it is very difficult and expensive to find parking, but also because one of the principle pleasures of Paris is to discover the city on foot. There’s something new around the corner. It may sound kitsch or false or facile, but the truth is—it’s the truth.



Remember Baudelaire’s prose poem “Enivrez-vous!” (“Get Drunk!”)? And his entreaty to be passionate about the wind, the wave, the star, to allow this heightened awareness and rawness be a part of your experience—be it on the page or in the street—to be conscious of all that moves, all that flees, all that lives? Remember him? To his words I would add: get lost—get lost in Paris—and write, write, write about it—share it here on this blog, with a friend, with your class, with your family, your cat, or with the grass and sky, but write, write—write without ceasing.



xo,
Heather Hartley