31 hours in Paris

What a spoilt-rot­ten title for a post that is, to be sure!

But it’s true.

We’ve been plan­ning this trip for months — a chance to meet with our Famous Archi­tect in Paris, and increas­ing­ly for me to express some of the wish­es I have for our even­tu­al dream house.  It was time, after John has put in end­less months and now years work­ing on this project, for me to think seri­ous­ly about what mat­ters to me, and to artic­u­late it for the cre­ative people.

I’m get­ting ahead of myself, though, because before that meet­ing hap­pened, I had 24 hours in Paris to do with what­ev­er I liked!

We popped up out of the Gare du Nord into one of those per­fect, warm, blue-sky days in Paris, the kind of day that reminds you to look around, crane your neck at the inim­itable angle of the tourist, to appre­ci­ate the extra­or­di­nary beau­ty all around you.

First­ly, lunch.  We had looked for­ward ever since we booked our tick­ets to the ulti­mate Paris pic­nic.  Actu­al­ly it could­n’t be more mun­dane: wan­der down the boule­vards until you find a super­marche, no mat­ter how ordi­nary.  G20 will do, with their excel­lent catch-phrase, “Depenser moins, sans aller loin [spend less with­out going far].”  We came away in an instant with a bloc of pure foie gras, goose liv­er, a ter­rine of pate with for­est mush­rooms, a round of goat cheese in ash, and a baguette.  Saun­ter­ing along with our booty, I realised if I did­n’t acquire some but­ter I would regret it all my life, so as soon as we found anoth­er shop I dashed in and came out with a waste­ful­ly large slab of Pres­i­dent but­ter, so delight­ful­ly salty and perfect.

We repaired to the cob­ble­stoned yard out­side the Guggen­heim and care­ful­ly spread out paper maps of Paris to sit on.  And we had our picnic.

Foie gras.  Noth­ing should be so deli­cious.  But truth be told, as always in Paris, it was impos­si­ble to sep­a­rate the intense­ly rich goose liv­er’s fla­vor from the sim­ple fla­vor of the city — full of peo­ple enjoy­ing them­selves, a vio­lin­ist play­ing the Schindler’s List music behind us, French tod­dlers rac­ing by chas­ing pigeons.  We ate until we could­n’t eat any more, and then went on our way.  “We haven’t planned any­thing,” John observed.  “Nope,” I agreed.  We sim­ply walked, head­ing to the riv­er and the Ile St. Louis, walk­ing along the water until the path­way came to its pointy end, fol­low­ing a “chien typ­ique­ment fran­cais” on its mys­te­ri­ous errands…

then head­ing up to a bridge to cross in the warm sunshine.

And there was the Musee d’Or­say!  Since my dark past as an art his­to­ri­an, I tend to shy away from muse­ums, gal­leries and oth­er places of cul­ture where I might be expect­ed to dis­play some expert knowl­edge, since it’s my sin­cere fear that I’ve for­got­ten every­thing I ever knew.

But in a fit of nos­tal­gia for my old Paris self, work­ing indus­tri­ous­ly at this archive or that pri­vate col­lec­tion, we went into the Orsay.  And read­ers, the past 25 years sim­ply fell away! Rodin!

I’ve seen the “Gates of Hell” in many iter­a­tions over the years — the Musee Rodin itself, the Philadel­phia Muse­um of Art, the Can­tor Col­lec­tion in New York (trag­i­cal­ly destroyed in the World Trade Cen­ter).  But I’ve nev­er seen it in plas­ter before.  Did you know that this sculp­ture is the art world’s only exam­ple of a work that exists in many copies, but with no orig­i­nal?  This stems from the fact that Rodin worked on the piece from 1880 until his death in 1917, but nev­er assem­bled it.  When he died, in the con­fu­sion of the war and a desire to enhance his posthu­mous rep­u­ta­tion, the pieces of the inde­pen­dent works of which it’s made were gath­ered up from the floor of his stu­dio and … cob­bled togeth­er, accord­ing to the views of var­i­ous cura­tors who had made it their busi­ness to appear there.  Con­se­quent­ly — copies with­out an original.

How love­ly, in any case.

How I was trans­port­ed back to the many, many lunch­es I spent with my beau­ti­ful friend Joan, cura­tor of the Can­tor Fitzger­ald Col­lec­tion at the World Trade Cen­ter.  My heart tru­ly filled with mem­o­ries of the intense con­ver­sa­tions we had about the sculp­tures, about the man Rodin, about our ambi­tions in the art world.

Once I brought my new­born baby to see her there.  I thought of that so many times, on Sep­tem­ber 11.

The “Mon­u­ment to Balzac”!

How I love it, and cher­ish the knowl­edge that the Parisian pub­lic reviled it, and ven­dors pro­duced lit­tle stat­ues of pen­guins draped in cloth, to sell at the exhi­bi­tion when it was revealed.

Around a cor­ner we found a trea­sure, the avowed mas­ter­piece by Camille Claudel, my dis­ser­ta­tion topic.

She would be aston­ished to know that her work sits along­side Rod­in’s, in the Musee d’Or­say.  Impor­tant­ly, direct­ly oppo­site is Rod­in’s bust of her, prob­a­bly sculp­ture by her, since he nev­er touched mar­ble himself.

What a love­ly after­noon, in that for­mer rail station.

It was onto the paint­ings, with end­less crowds of tourists.  I tried to be glad they were enjoy­ing my favorites, but I was hap­py when they stepped aside.  Oh, Manet.  I love your shadows.

John paused by the icon­ic, enor­mous clock win­dow.  I could feel his excite­ment over the upcom­ing meet­ing with his archi­tect, the inspi­ra­tion that comes from look­ing at art cre­at­ed by peo­ple at the top of their game, the hap­py revis­it­ing of old memories.

“Now, look like you have an Insta­gram page for your archi­tec­ture firm.”

Final­ly, feet already tired, we walked all over the Tuilieries.

Such hap­py mem­o­ries of a Paris trip long ago with lit­tle Avery… she trav­el­ling now on her own all through Europe, near­ly 19 years old.  Smash­ing times.

Avery was with us in spir­it in the Tui­leries, how­ev­er, as in the way of mod­ern life, she texted us to say, “You HAVE to have sor­bets from Amor­i­no!”  We found it, a busy hub of activ­i­ty under an awning.  Mel­on, lime and basil, and “agrumes de Sici­ly,” blood orange.

Home to our hotel, a love­ly gem near the Republique, 123 Sebastapol.  I stu­pid­ly took no pic­tures, but suf­fice to say it is a won­der­ful place to stay, the kind of staff who let me speak my best French, but speak to John in Eng­lish, who help me find words and give me extra pil­lows and buck­ets of ice.  Lovely.

We wan­dered the neigh­bor­hood at din­ner time and sat down at sev­er­al out­door cafes, only to rise again and reject them — wrong ambi­ence, touristy clien­tele.  Just as John was about to stran­gle me, we found the delight­ful Bistro de la Gai­ete, just off the busy road and so qui­et, and in any case on our night in August — sea­son of annu­al clos­ings all over the city — qui­eter even than usual.

We sat out­side in the pleas­ant­ly sul­try evening, eat­ing con­fit de canard and steak tartare, feel­ing that sense of excite­ment and cool­ness that is the hall­mark of a Parisian getaway.

In the morn­ing, we found our­selves at the sump­tu­ous hotel break­fast of every cured meat and sausage on earth, creamy scram­bled eggs, fresh yogurt and that spe­cial French method of serv­ing cof­fee — a pot of hot black brew, a pot of equal­ly hot, full-fat milk, poured in in equal mea­sure.  Divine.  Rain pelt­ed down onto the glass ceil­ing.  “I hope it stops before we have to go out,” John mused, remem­ber­ing the incred­i­bly tacky “Lon­don 2012” umbrel­las we had brought with us, pur­chased cheap­ly after the Olympics and our stand­by ever since, since we tend to lose umbrel­las.  But we had to take them.

Out into the sprinkly day, filled with that grey, close, humid smell that comes up from Paris side­walks in the rain.  We arrived at the archi­tec­t’s office.

Ele­va­tor out.  We climbed five sto­ries to the office itself.

There we were ush­ered into a sim­ple con­fer­ence room where, with piles of draw­ings, a mod­el of the house, and a plen­ti­ful sup­ply of lit­tle tri­an­gu­lar rulers, we went over every square cen­time­ter of the plans.  The bal­cony doors?  Will con­certi­na all the way back on the din­ing and liv­ing floors, so that our liv­ing space will seem to reach straight to the Tow­er of Lon­don.  There will be a new free­stand­ing wall to accom­mo­date an instal­la­tion of sculp­ture I’ve been miss­ing for 10 years, stuck in stor­age since we moved here.

The kitchen will have a hid­den, capa­cious pantry for all my ingre­di­ents.  Since I own only a pal­try few clothes, my walk-in-clos­et will morph into our bath­room being much big­ger.  No tub, but a huge show­er.  Avery has a cozy room, to be sure, for the times she’s able to be with us in two years’ time or so.

I’m not able to tell you too many things about all our plans yet, because offi­cial chan­nels are still con­sid­er­ing what we want to do.  Rest assured as soon as I’m able, I’ll show you plans and pho­tos of every description!

We repaired, togeth­er with our archi­tect and his assis­tant, to a sim­ply SUPERB — but com­plete­ly down-mar­ket and sim­ple, in the Japan­ese way — restau­rant for a feast of “tonkat­su,” a supe­ri­or sort of crunchy, juicy fried things.

Pork fil­let, chick­en breast, giant shrimps, pota­to “cro­quettes.”

All accom­pa­nied by the finest shred­ded cab­bage on earth, and a sauce of “every­thing savory” which I learned lat­er is called “bull-dog” sauce.  Veg­etable-based, mixed with soy and mirin and sesame.  And Japan­ese pick­les!  Cucum­ber and shal­lot.  Our archi­tect ordered every­thing for us, along with an udon noo­dle soup with some lit­tle bits float­ing in it.  “Are these lit­tle bits of pas­ta?” I ask.  “No, no, they are, how to say it, puffed rice.”  Rice krispie soup!  Fantastic.

We ate in what I think is a Japan­ese way — very quick­ly!  With lots of steamed rice, an assid­u­ous amount of atten­tion to mak­ing sure every­one had equal por­tions.  “What per­cent­age of your clients can eat with chop­sticks?” John asked, smil­ing.  “One hun­dred per­cent,” our archi­tect answered, dead serious.

We part­ed, sim­ply filled to the brim with Japan­ese del­i­ca­cies, with a plan to see each oth­er soon in Lon­don, and a copy of his new­ly-pub­lished cat­a­logue raisonne in John’s brief­case.  How excit­ing it all is, to be sure.

We indulged in some desul­to­ry wan­der­ings about and a vis­it to an exhi­bi­tion of pho­tographs of the Kennedys.

Final­ly, in need of a pick-me-up, we col­lapsed back at the bistro of the night before, for a much-wel­comed cof­fee.  And for John to take my “Paris Pho­to.”  I call this my PhD look, slight­ly marred by my poo­dle hair from the rain.  Ah well, it’s a truth­ful image of me.

And before you could blink, we were peace­ful­ly on the Eurostar, and anoth­er blink and home in Lon­don, our heads full of every­thing we had seen, heard and eat­en.  How is that pos­si­ble?  When­ev­er I get a lit­tle too absorbed by the sheer daili­ness of life — the laun­dry, the lit­ter­box­es, the gro­cery shop­ping — I stop and remem­ber that in two and a half hours, Paris is ours.

The gor­geous St Pan­cras sta­tion loomed over us as we arrived.

Paris.  There is noth­ing like it, even for 31 hours.  Or maybe especially.