Before I went I had often imagined Paris, and read about it, of course, especially Hemingway. I the past few years I had taken to painting it as well, always in watercolor. I would find a photograph online and use it as the basis for art. I was primed, then, for the reality of Paris I suppose, but nothing quite prepared me for the emergence into City of Light quite literally from underground. My son Peter and I had taken the Metro from Gare du Nord south to Vavin, the station on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, and the closest one to our hotel around the corner on the Rue Delambre. It was a rainy evening in May--is there any better way to first experience Paris?--and I came up the stairway into Montparnasse and found that the dream had taken sensual form around me, as if I had walked into one of my own watercolors: There before me was boulevard with the lights of cars and the windows of the cafes Le Dome and La Rotonde reflected on the mirror of the wet street. Three months later the moment is still with me and I suspect it will always will be--a moveable feast, in Hemingway's celebrated phrase.
Though it's not taken at night, this photograph of Le Dome on Montparnasse in 1925 by Eugene Atget captures a certain "look" of Paris from that time that has always captured me.
I'll probably do some more blogging about the Paris trip, but the weekend is here and I begin teaching again on Tuesday. Just a couple of days to complete start-up chores before the semester begins and I want to write some about that. Guess I'll have to stop thinking about Paris--for a day or so anyway.
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