letter from Paris #3 (with love)

My friend Helen Emailed me asking about the “spring scents” of Paris. “Is it blooming? Are the flowers sending out their fragrances?” Yes and yes. With Rachel I took a short walk of discovery to find the Marche des Ternes, This is where we found spring and scents and happy children playing. This is where we found the Paris that people write songs about. Boulevard Pereire, which is two minutes from our front door is a wide boulevard that is mostly park. On either side there are single lane roads, but the centre is for people. The flowers are kn bloom. There are tulips and daffodils. There are cherry trees and the ephemeral but oh-so-beautiful magnolias. I inhaled. Helen – the scent is there. Even more, hundreds of children shrieking with delight in the way only children can. Some are with nannies, some with mothers. Everyone is loving where they are.



Still wide-eyed and earlier in the day admitting that being “cool” was just a pose, Rachel declared: “I’ve seen it all.” We were on a tour bus that really did go everywhere, but as I wrote earlier, they are all “places.” But in Paris everyplace is someplace. The tour was one of those hectic things where you spent more time trying to maneuver through gridlocked traffic and the maze of cares jockeying for position on The Etoiles, than you do actual sightseeing. We disposed of all the obvious where the slathering mobs of camera-toting tourists suck up as much as they can before running back to the bus which cossets them and gets them back to the hotel. Yes, we saw it all: the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadero, the Opera, Notre Dame, the Madeleine, the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, the Seine and the bridges, I reminded her that you could never stop “seeing” Paris. These were a few of the externals,. And because we were on the bus every glimpse was fleeting. We made one stop, at The Madeleine, so we could find the café where last year we had omelettes with a fine crust. I will not spend a lot of time on food and restaurants. It’s too easy.

I told her again that there was always something new to see, and that after more than a dozen trips we were still discovering. After we stopped at what I think is “the local” for a beer and conversation, Shirley and her cane hobbled back to the apartment. Rachel and d I went on a short discovery walk. (Shirley has been told she will need a new hip and she is bravely trudging around with a cane.) The discovery walk was to follow the signs to Marche de Ternes. Turns out it is about three blocks from our front door.

It is a small version of our St. Lawrence Market but it is so French. There are stacks of fruit. The strawberries do not look at all like what Driscoll puts in plastic containers. They even have a different color. There are meats and of course an array of cheeses. In the streets around the market there are more epiceries, boulangeries, patisseries and such, many of them open to the street with displays of fresh produce.


The question: if it so enchanting because it is Paris? If I saw the same thing on the street in say – Hamilton, or Barrie – would I be so enchanted? Probably not. Maybe it’s because of what I want it to be: the people who sell it are passionate and put passion before business; pleasure before profit.

Paris does it to me. I idealize.