The crows perch on the railing of the building at right angles to this block of flats. Next to the Moon which grows fatter every evening. The clouds are now red and the vapour trails take on a pinkish tinge like a grid across the sky, scored pathways, all these memories of journeys, full of hope and promises, all the uncertainties of evenings, when the light sinks and there is this mixture of wonderment and abandonment, as if all that you have gained and accumulated all that you have worked hard to succeed in, has to be surrendered, once again. But perhaps this giving up, this release of all that the day has given or bestowed, just by its regularity, can give us form or shape – or recognition, at the least.
The red sky and the bulgy Moon they are always there and though they are not always visible isn’t it a bit like – testing our faith and then – look – there it is again, the gleaming Moon opposite the sky that is getting deeper and deeper red all the time, these are constants, the Sun and Moon, like a cradle holding this earth, one on each side, holding us, is this not the miracle itself?
The clouds turning to smoky purple. I’m high up, on the 7th floor. As high as crows, higher than the trees.
*
I take the metro line 7, the same one I took to visit P* when he lived in Paris. In those days, so many years ago now, I travelled in direction La Courneuve, and now it’s in the opposite direction, Villejuif, Louis Aragon, at the end of the line. The station itself is a concrete block of a building, three storeys high, to accommodate un parking, and it makes an attempt at movement away from the rectangular, by slightly tapering at the top. But only slightly. The building is covered by a wooden latticework, like a fishnet and at first I thought it was still under construction as the fishnet gapes at the front near the top like a hole in a stocking, to reveal the name, Louis Aragon, and the fact that there is space for parking. But when I looked more closely, I see that this gap is intentional. The dental clinic opposite the entrance is also Louis Aragon and the name of the library is Elsa Triolet, who was the wife of Louis Aragon, and also a writer, although one suspects that her name is less well known than his. I read a novel of hers many years ago and I don't remember what it was about but I do remember enjoying it.
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| Pigeon at the canal St Martin |
Talking of writers … I saw an interview on TV with Amélie Nothomb, it just appeared as these things do on computers, after watching something else. She talked about her writing process, she writes from 4am to 8am every day, yes every day, and I don’t remember what she said about the rest of her day, something about drinking strong tea, and she has a painful shoulder from writing so much. She also said, as well as talking about this scarcely believable discipline, that the writing has to be heartfelt, there would be no point in it otherwise and maybe that is the startling quality of her writing as well as her self, this laying bare of herself, it feels impossible to be indifferent, she gives you an ocean swell, a current, that carries you along.
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| Saxophone player by the Seine near the pont d'Austerlitz |
She was talking about her latest book L’impossible retour, the impossibility of going back to a place you have loved or felt at home in, because places change, they move on just as we do, even if we don’t want to change anything, it seems as though change happens to us, and it happens to places too, and that’s why it is impossible, because in reality, so I believe, we are trying to go back to the past. The past may still be there, but the present will be too, like an uninvited companion when you thought you were going to have a private, intimate tête-à-tête with your beloved other.
This is a theme I have thought about a lot, the desire to go back to a geographical place, and to a time when your experience was deeply connected with that place. To try to recreate this connection, these profound feelings of intense happiness, of joy and belonging, you go back, but the place has changed, as everything must (buildings have gone, paths have been effaced, people have moved away or have altered) it no longer fits your reflection or your memory, the feelings you felt then are no longer accessible. Your paths have diverged.
So I am clearly going to have to read her book.
Flowers in the Jardin des Plantes
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