From my window I can see Paris in the moonlight. I sit each night and write in my travel journal and feel in communion with the people in the other apartments across from me. Sometimes they are reading. Or in their kitchens. Looking in a mirror. Faces illuminated in the glow of computer screens. Standing in an open window. Leaning back in a chair talking to someone, their arms folded behind their heads. Yesterday I saw an elderly woman with white hair putting her hand on her brow as she looked down into the street. Last week a young redheaded woman was leaning against the railing of her balcony. She looked defeated. Her small dog stood next to her. She stood there for a long time smoking in the late afternoon sun. Heartache in Paris. Or headache. I can't tell which.
A thousand stories for every window. Charles Dickens, among many others, runs through my mind when night falls on Paris and I am up here in my perch.
A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
In the day there is visual poetry in the streets. I have never seen so many flowering trees in all my life. I marvel at the variety, color, and scent. Small clusters of bouquets hanging off the branches. The world and all the things in it feel so sharp and focused. Animated. Glowing from the inside. I love. I see. I love again.
I found some Leo & Pipo paste-ups I was searching for here and further afield in the 16 arr.
And other street art.
Chrissy who is fluent in French, translated the one below for me.
Give me your hand to go into the snow.
A rogue poet on the streets of Paris!
I love the paste-ups.
I bow to your mastery, unknown stencil artist. Oh the intricacy & layering involved!
Bravo clap clap clap!
Parisian umbrellas have style. If you open them in the rain you will have a perfect fondant cake floating above your head. This is not a bad thing. Not at all.
Getting in and out of the tiny tables is fraught with peril. So far I haven't toppled anything or crushed anyone. Not yet. There is still time.
So many windows.
Conversations. Heard and unheard.
Je t’aime paste ups! So much so that I might have to start doing them here.
SWOON WORTHY POST….OOOOH LA LA.
I can’t decide which I love more, the views of life in such an amazing city or your delightful and thoughtful commentary of your wanderings. I think I won’t decide at all but absorb all of it as I sit here looking at a fresh layer of heavy, wet snow and dream myself to where you are.
I must acknowlege how wonderfully you captured the exquisite beauty of that flower cluster!!! … a star magnolia? or perhaps some relation?
i’m having a wonderful time “tagging along” with you on your paris trip! 🙂 what wonderful street art. i shall have to keep my eyes open and my camera ready on my next walk around my own city.
You have such a way with the written word and images. I marvel at your insight into Paris. Oh how I am enjoying being a voyeur gazing into the windows of Paris. Thank you Miss Mary Ann Moss.
Love this post. Dickens quotes and parisian cityscapes – lovely! Thank you so much.
Such a lovely and exciting post – thank you for reporting back to us Mary Ann…
That warthog straddles a corner – was he projection-corrected? He looks good!
ahhh, Dickens! I’m enjoying the sights..thank you!
I love Parisian graffiti! Thank you for sharing this with us.
Shawn, I am standing up to claim Banksy as British: very British!
There’s a lot about him on Wikipedia.
love your blog..
you probably are – but i’ll ask anyway have you heard of Banksy? he is from france – have you seen his work or the film -exit through the gift shop ?
Promise us you’ll show us your Paris travel journal on your return home. I am addicted to your posts!
“I love. I see. I love again.”
You wrote my new favorite poem.
My soul is singing and my mind is swirling with untold stories. Thank you. Hugs, Terri
Thank you, Mary Ann Moss. Your Paris dispatches are a slice of heaven!
Paris is every bit as inspiring as I dreamed it would be! Your posts are simply magical. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
So lovely, the whole of this entry: the sentiments, your words (and Dickens’s words), the gorgeous photos.
I saw that meerkats one too! It was down very low to the ground (perilously near to a dog’s – ahem – hind quarters) – in the rue du Cherche-Midi.
I know you’re having blissful weather. Good.
Oh, I want to be there, right there with you! What beauty.
Old C.Dickens’ Tale of the Two, is it not?
Thank you for the finest of food for the hungry soul.
Greetings Moss Cottage, What beautiful words you have written. Paris at night must be magical. Are you ready to back up and move there? I wish I was a litle bird sitting on your shoulder to see whats before me:) How wonderful.
You have alot of more walks and places to do where next my friend,
XO,
Linda
just amazing…we folks here in small cities in USA are so art challenged….these creations are good for the mind & spirit…..love the parasols.
Your blog is the first thing I do each morning when I turn on my computer….I check it out to see what fun we’ve been having together in Paris. The fun keeps coming and the photos are grand. Merci, merci for sharing!
imagine the stories that those walls hide. love the paste ups, how cool are those. having a blast. can’t wait to see your travel journal when you get home. enjoy these last few days.