It’s a crisp May morning two days after May Day. I slept well and we undertook a small expedition into the rue Caulaincourt for groceries and a sidewalk cafe. The Café qui parle wasn’t open yet, so I sat on a bus stop bench while Pancake took our shopping list to Franprix, and I watched the high tech operation of hoisting furniture up through the front window of a fourth-floor apartment. The air had that mixture of night freshness and matinal exhaust fumes so typical of metropolitan streets everywhere, though of course the mix is always unique. I don’t dream often, but just before waking up, I dreamed of giant bats flying out of a box in the room where I sleep at home. They were the size of rabbits and flew out of the box in big clumps. One clump thudded into my back as I fled from the bedroom into the hallway.
In the afternoon, my old friends began to arrive. First Didier for our regular workday, then Matti whose youthful intelligence and honesty are always refreshing, and then Urs who had arrived from Switzerland for a three-day working visit. We ate on the sidewalk of Tentazioni across the street, had coffee and desert in my apartment and went on working, each on his own in my living room. Matti left first, then Didier. Urs, always warm-hearted and now concerned about my health, stayed for a modest Abendbrot with Pancake and myself. It was exhilarating but perhaps a little too exhausting. I didn’t sleep well, which is perhaps a belated effect of a time change. That would make sense if what they say is true: that it takes one day for each hour of time-zone change, meaning that I need until Thursday. After a bad night, it’s now Thursday and I hope to sleep better tonight. Over breakfast Pancake and I talked about the social phenomenon of cutting off former friends either silently or by means of a kind of resignation letter terminating a friendship. We’re convinced that it’s a symptom of whatever ails our sick society. What is nonetheless impervious to this social plague is in this case the comradeship and the bonds created by collaboration and shared interests. I really came to Paris to experience that, and yesterday I basked in it.
I’m now a full week into my Paris sojourn. I’m very pleased that my wife sends me little messages about the way she styles her outfit each day to echo the colors of some painting by Kandinsky or Monet. She also sends me the poems she writes and distributes to her poetry-loving local friends. I appreciate her readiness to share her life with me again. There is no acknowledgement or question about my condition. That’s just as well.
Signed,
Andrew (Weeks)
Normal Thoughts 