by Maureen | Jan 9, 2010 | Discoveries, Incredible Locations, Introspection, Journal, Paris
This whole time (Italy, France…) is a lesson for me that my life experience is entirely a reflection of what’s going on between my own ears. For instance, Americans always say “The French are arrogant and unfriendly!”, but I refused to walk around Paris with that belief and viewpoint. So I extended myself and was receptive to the friendliness that was offered and had an entirely different experience than what others might have come away with. I’m sure that if I had believed the French were arrogant, I could have found all sorts of experiences to prove that belief!
This is an example for all of life, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. My trip here a year and a half ago was an earlier, very concentrated lesson in this. I remember thinking then, “Gee, this is a reflection about living life, not just traveling in Italy.” So it has made me more flexible, more open to the unexpected, more willing to change my own thinking and see things from another angle.
I think that another purpose for my being here is to figure out what I’m really passionate about. This is a time to pause and hone my thoughts about what I really love to do, how I love to spend my time… and with whom. I’m here to figure out what I’m passionate enough about that it’ll carry me for the next 20 or 30 years.
(Right now, whittled down to simplicity, I know it has to do with writing, making images and forging connection and community.)
by Maureen | Dec 28, 2009 | Christmas & New Year's Eve, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Incredible Locations, Journal, Paris, People, Photos
By day’s end, my feet were screaming. The “slow museum shuffle” is exhausting, more so than walking briskly for 5 miles. I had to get back to my room, unload the few things I carried and take a break.
The subway system, with two transfers, consumed 45 minutes, then I arrived at the Maubert-Mutualité stop. I started up the hill to the Hotel Moderne Saint Germain and paused outside the Magic Shop. I’ve been passing by every day this week, and this time, wondered if there might be something magical to take home with me. I went in.
I laughed and asked the man if he speaks English. “Yes”. (Quite well, really!) I told him that I wondered if there might be something special for me to take home.
“Yes. Of course. Let me show you this trick.” He showed me “magic” with 8 playing cards and I was bowled over. 13 Euros. I had to have it. A simple set that would make a great party amusement (once I learn it).
Then he took two inch-and-a-half, soft, foam balls. He gave one to me and had me squeeze it tight in my fist. The other one he held tight in his own palm. “One, two, three”. He opened his hand, and showed me the other as well. No ball in either. I was reluctant to open my hand and said I’d have to fall on the floor if there were two balls in my palm. …There were, of course! (But I didn’t fall down.) I couldn’t believe it. Of course I had been very attentive to everything while he did the trick, but apparently not to the right things. How did that second red ball end up in my hand?!
One last trick: a Chinese coin and an American 50 cent piece. I picked one, the 50 cents. He handed me the Chinese coin and it went into my hand which clenched tightly around it, fingers down. The 50 cent piece was set onto the back of the same hand that was holding the Chinese coin. He took a playing card, covered the 50 cent piece with it and tapped the card. When he removed the card, the CHINESE coin was sitting on top of my hand and the 50 cent piece was tight in my fist. How the coins traded place, I have no idea.
So I ended my time in Paris with a short magical evening. Even if I never learn the trick I bought, the 13 Euros bought me laughs, entertainment, amazement and conversation.
The shop, Mayette Magie Moderne, is (allegedgly) the oldest magic shop in the world at 201 years. My magician for the evening was Quoc Tien Tran, who was born and raised in Paris and has been “doing magic” since age 6 or 7. (His mom told him it’s a “gift from God”.)
As I was getting ready to leave the shop, a mother and her very young son came in. Quoc Tien stepped right up to do a disappearing ball trick for the little boy (who will probably grow up to be a magician because of that ball.)
THREE BASIC RULES OF MAGIC (As they were explained to me):
1 Never explain the trick.
2 Don’t perform the trick twice in the same instance or for the same person.
3 Perform it only when YOU’RE ready to perform it, and you know it very well.
What an enchanting and amusing way to end my time in Paris!
Mayette Magie Moderne
8 Rue des Carmes
75005 Paris
TEL: 01 43 54 13 63
WEB: www.mayette.com
Metro: Maubert-Mutualité
by Maureen | Dec 18, 2009 | Christmas & New Year's Eve, Featured Articles, Journal, Paris, Photos
We awoke to a dusting of snow in Milano yesterday. Today the sky taunts us with more. The air has a chill I haven’t felt here before, and the thermometer in my apartment has dropped 4 degrees. With just two radiators in the place, I wonder about feeling warm enough and am glad I brought my Polartec pants over!
On Monday the 21st, I leave for a week in Paris over Christmas, so I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather there. Today it’s snowing!
Here’s the comparative weather from a couple of days ago:
Everyone is wrapping up their work for the holidays. “Buone Feste”, “Buon Natale”, “Buon Anno Nuovo” are heard frequently. “Happy Holidays”, “Merry Christmas”, “Happy New Year.” Friends deliver the two-cheek kiss and say goodbye for a couple of weeks.
by Maureen | Nov 28, 2009 | Introspection, Journal
The other night, lying wide awake at 4:00 a.m., I realized I heard nothing except my own breathing. The relentlessness and menu of sounds around here, makes silence rare and startling. It’s been almost 25 years since I’ve lived in an apartment, and I’ve never lived in such a city environment. This has been an adjustment.
When I first arrived in June, jetlagged and wanting to nap, it was impossible to sleep because of the almost-rhythmic machine moan that I couldn’t identify. It made me climb the walls, exasperated. What in the world?! I thought maybe someone above me had a commercial sewing machine. That sound was a constant intrusion and seemed to run all day, all night. I finally asked the building porter, and he told me it’s the water pump. …Sometime in the course of these last 5 months, I noticed that it’s about 7:00 in the morning when the water pump comes on, (and, yes, it does run ALL day but not at night).
My first floor apartment is directly above the same concrete, dungeon room that houses the water pump. This is where all the building residents sort and dump their garbage and recycling. The glass and metal door has its own, particular sound. Bottles falling on bottles, however, make a sound that is nothing unique but it sure carries into my apartment.
And the couple above me! I hear their lunch preparations and their daytime, Italian soaps on TV. I hear the rush of water through the pipes when they shower, turn on the faucet or do laundry. I hear their heated voices and the creak of what must be a spiral staircase that matches my own. The worst is the sound of her shoes. If she doesn’t have railroad spikes for heels I’d be surprised. Her footfall has an insistent, forceful impact, and when she leaves her apartment and comes pounding down the stairs, she echoes throughout the building. (They do not, however, seem to have any sort of a love life.)
There’s the chatter of people standing just outside my bedroom window having a ceaseless smoke. There are motor scooters and the electric courtyard gates opening to allow cars entrance. There’s the buzz of someone unlocking the main door. Just four buildings away is a berm-elevated train track; surprisingly, the train’s infrequent passage is a mere whir. Now and then, European sirens approach and then fade.
This is the audio backdrop within my Milanese apartment. I’m accustomed to my long-time home in Seattle in very quiet surroundings, where silence is the standard. I’m used to being awakened by birds, not water pumps and spike heels. What’s surprising to me is how I’ve adapted …and that I have! I stopped “hearing” the moaning pump and I can even nap right through it now.
by Maureen | Aug 29, 2009 | Canals, Journal, Quips
I rode along the canal this evening. It’s shifted. The seasons are changing. The temperature may be a couple degrees cooler. It may all look a little different. But the biggest difference is in the scent of the ride. The silage is very rank and strong. There’s fruit somewhere that’s past ripe and oversweet. The rice paddies have been drained and smell freshly cut. The poplars at canalside have reached their season’s end and smell of riversides in Eastern Washington. I even caught a whiff of Nicaragua, and identified the wood smoke in that whiff.
This is a time of my senses. Of being keenly tuned in. Of paying attention. I’m in another world, and yet it brings me to other worlds known.
I could hardly be more attentive. More observant. More inquisitive. There is nothing like this moment. I am alive to the fullness of it. I am very aware of all this time holds for me.
by Maureen | Aug 11, 2009 | Canals, Journal, Quips
Ahhh. Just back from an hour and a half ride down the canal. I push it as hard as a can, fast and steady. It makes me feel so full of life! I’m grateful to have my two wheels to hop on and get my blood pumping. Ahhh.
And having the canal just a block away is a real treasure. In a short time, I’m out of the city, riding along the corn fields and rice paddies. The rice has gone to seed now. And I thought that surely the farmer planted the outer row of corn for the cyclists. An ear or two each wouldn’t put a dent in his crop. Hesitant to get my mouth set on a fresh ear of corn, I stopped to check it out. Sure enough. Feed corn for cattle. Darn.
The scents along the canal are sure “full and rich”. Sometimes a dead fish or rank cattle farms. Sometimes basil and tomato from the local pea-patch gardens. I catch whiffs of cottonwood and the slow-moving fresh water. Depending on the time of day, my stomach wakes up at the smell of lunch or dinner being prepared. My bike ride is quite sensual.
