The Workshop Has Ended

Five days, nine to five. I've been studying writing. It's been intense and in many ways, impossible to write about. I've learned a lot, but I'm looking forward to the open, unstructured space that tomorrow represents. I came home today and shopped in my little marché (farmers market) that comes every Friday to Place D'Anvers just a couple blocks from where I live.

I found this picture of Place D'Anvers from the turn of the century, with Sacre Coeur in the background—painted by Monsieur Victor-Gabriel Gilbert.  Now the view looks more like it does in the picture below.

I purchased more string beans than I wanted at the market and bought a very tasty Toulouse Sausage. I also bought an inexpensive coffee mug, something I've been contemplating since my arrival almost five weeks ago. And I had a bit of a conversation in French. A young woman—probably in her mid-twenties—was selling jewelry. She asked me if I was English. I said no, American, and I told her I was from California. She liked hearing that so I added that I lived near San Francisco. She asked about hippies—I think she said, wasn't San Francisco was where the hippies lived.

I said yes, and told her that I'd been one of them. She liked that too. I told her I was here in Paris for three months to work on a book. She asked what kind of book and what it was about. I was able to tell her it was a historical novel about 19th century Paris. She found that very odd. I think she couldn't imagine why I would be bothering to do such a thing. Eventually, I ran out of my capacity to speak French, but it was the longest sustained conversation (in French) I've had with anyone about anything. She was asking the right questions, the simple things that I learned to talk about when I was studying French this summer.  It was clumsy, but I was happy to have said as much as I did. It was fun.

I still get very excited when I'm able to communicate in French. This morning I purchased my coffee at the bar in a little café. It's cheaper that way, you don't pay for a table. You stand at the bar, like in Italy and just drink your coffee and go. I did that and later purchased a new French Press coffee pot, having broken mine last night. All these things I managed in French and that makes me very happy. They each reflect the ways in which I have started to adapt to my world and get more comfortable moving through it. I'm more relaxed.

My friend Toni is coming next Friday. She'll be here for ten days and during that time, school will be on fall break, both for the French and for me.  Because of Janine—who lives in Provence and has offered to help us find a place to stay and has said she'll even show us around one day—we're planning, now, to go to the South of France.

It's about a two and a half hour train ride to Avignon, a little longer to Aix-en-Provence. I'm excited by the prospect of traveling south. I don't know much about the area, except that everyone loves it and I know there's a café in Aix-en-Provence called The Deux Garçons, which was built in 1792 and frequented by Cézanne, Émile Zola, and even Ernest Hemingway. Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1832. Aix-en-Provence is very old, going back, basically to before the time of Christ. It's a city of art, fountains, markets and country beauty. Also, I hear, it's the best place to eat French cuisine. So. Sounds good to me.

In fact, I just read that Provence has been inhabited since prehistoric times. There's a cave somewhere in the region called Valloet that dates to something like 600,000 BC, and also some underwater cave decorated with drawings of bisons, seals, penguins and horses. The Greeks, the Gauls and the Romans have all inhabited the area, and, of course, early Christians. Around 1300, the pope moved to Avignon. Janine has suggested we stay in Avignon, but it's a city, so I don't know. All this will become clear in the next several days.

Meanwhile, there's tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow, but I'm very happy to have the opportunity to make up my mind. I may go to Montmartre for the day. I'm feeling like interacting with my environment, though the weather is changing. It's starting to get colder. It's crisp in the mornings, cold at night. I feel like writing and may even take my laptop with me and work in some café. That's something I've yet to do. I always have my journal with me, though, and write in it—but it's quite different to work on my computer. On the other hand, I'm also inclined to go to an English bookstore, probably back to Shakespeare and Company and I won't want to drag my computer around if I'm going to do that. Who knows, I may even buy War and Peace, and do as Andrew has spent the week encouraging me to do—begin studying it. There are several other books on my mind too.