Musee de la Vie Romantique

One place I can't shake from my post-Paris brain is the "Musee de la Vie Romantique", or "The Museum of the Romantic Life", a tiny museum in an old mansion down the street from Pigalle. The museum is the converted home of the accomplished French portrait artist Ary Scheffer, who frequently played host to George Sand and her sickly boyfriend Chopin. Ergot, the heavy and seemingly unbalanced focus on the feisty Ms. George Sand herself (a brilliant watercolor landscape artist in her own right).

Walk into the front parlor and you're greeted by jewelry cases full of historic bibs and bobs. It's like shaking out your glamorous Great Grandmother's junk drawer from the end of the nineteenth century, to find costume jewelry, snippets of hair (how Gothic, no?) and old faces decaying and gazing from lockets. The fading faces always get me. There are these long-gone souls staring out at you from a tarnished locket, whose lives I'm not familiar with, but still it's as if they could leap out and ask for directions. If they were alive, I might buy them a cup of tea at the adjoining Salon de The.

On the last day of my cousin Lori's visit, we meandered down the hill from Monmartre and found our way to the museum an hour before it closed. In the garden, green iron outdoor tables are surrounded by various rose bushes, and tea is served up strong in lovely old China teapots and delicate cups and saucers. Because it's Paris it rained on and off, but overgrown trees protected our buttery crumbles and Earl Grey before the sun opened up again.

I love how the museum is barely visible from the street, and how you have to approach it by walking through a little cobblestone driveway. I also love how the permanent exhibit is free, so I felt able to go and stare at the mold made from Chopin's hand a few times over during different visits (to the left of his hand you can see a curled piece of George Sand's hair in a see-through locket). His hands were small and delicate and quite beautiful, and with his Nocturnes playing on a loop in the background, I could almost imagine holding onto it for a few minutes.

The Swapping Part of the House Swap

I don't care that there are near-strangers in my home for six weeks, because we're in theirs. I know what it means, because we're also rummaging through drawers looking for things, stumbling upon the surprising and sudden ant infestation in our new jar of honey, downloading a washing machine manual in English so I can figure out how to keep it from banging too loudly. Oops, there's not a stove after all.

In our New York apartment there is "a" mouse, and most certainly a few baby cucarachas. It's summer, after all. There is also a desk piled (neatly) with personal papers that I couldn't bother to put up, up and away, just like they didn't put away theirs. We swapped our good for their good. Our good is a bathtub after long days of walking around New York; their good is a kitchen window overlooking the entire city of lights, from the Eiffel Tower to the archway at Champs Elysses to the crazy and outdated colored pipes that wrap themselves so brazenly around the Pompidou. Our good is a large-for-New-York children's room complete with cozy comforter and toys; theirs is a child's bedroom complete with cozy comforter and toys. It's just that her toys speak French. "A bientot! A bientot!"

This trip we're not traveling up and down the country, which essentially doubles our length of time in Paris since last year we spent three weeks moving our way from Normandy to Marseilles to Anzio to Rome and back again. This year, we're recovering from the end of the semester (Jamie's and mine) slowly with lots of walks and cooking and climbing the stairs in Monmartre. It stays light here until 11 p.m., so the days are long. We work. Jim continues to steer jobs from far away ("you can find that color of paint at the Janovic"), and I already have a new pile of copy writing to hit. Somehow the work makes the idea of living here more real. The structure of it seems to be good for everyone, and I love the quiet mornings when I can wake up before anyone else and work for a few hours. Jamie loves visiting different playgrounds not once but twice a day, his scooter or soccer ball close at hand. We found mini frogs in a playground yesterday! Stick around somewhere long enough, and you'll spot some too.

Sleep

My sleep schedule has been severely whacked by my coffee intake.

It started with a messy apartment. I kept looking up from my computer in between copy writing bursts, thinking about the gazillion things I have to do. Piles of paperwork to file; clips to scan so I can stow my piles of magazines away; mice to escort out of my apartment; sorry geraniums to water (or do yellow leaves mean I'm watering them too much?); and piles of laundry.

So after much procrastination and frustration about not having enough hours in the day, I decided to pack it in every morning after the school bus pulls away to hit a cafe for a few hours. It helps me concentrate, and I've found several places that I seem to be welcome to hang out in for more than one cup of coffee, not to mention an endless stream of free electricity and Wi Fi, if I'm lucky.

My psychiatrist reminds me that I do better with half-caff. He's right, of course. After moving back in that direction, I found in just two days that I was able to sleep straight for 6 hours, rather than wake up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning, unable to get back to sleep for an hour or two. Just a few cups a day and it seems I wake myself up with caffeine withdrawal; most coffee drinkers underestimate the withdrawal and don't realize that it's not morning coffee that wakes you up and makes you feel better; it's the fact that you're not in withdrawal anymore. I learned that 40 mg of caffeine has the same benefit to those symptoms as 100 mg, so it's okay to cut in half. I won't feel better from drinking more caffeine; it's the same as half.

In the wee hours of the morning, I'm worried about a lot of things that add up to feel big. Packing for another summer away, going once again to a place where I don't speak the language, having a kid who's growing up so quickly, stories that needs to be written, including a huge feature that I need a solid chunk of time to devote to. Leaving my apartment in the hands of a family who I've yet to meet. In the daytime, these worries become tiny microcosms of themselves, and everything is solvable. I can chip away at work. I'm raising the white flag and getting some help around the apartment. I know Paris now so much better than I did last year, and we're going to the same neighborhood. We're choosing to keep things far more simple this time around by doing much less traveling, and far more exploring the strange-to-us urban backdrop.

I'll be blogging about our trip for several different places, wearing several different hats. My teacher hat will blog on occasion for Parsons. My creative and entrepreneur hat will blog at WordCityStudio.com, a new blog I've begun with my New School colleague Kathleen Sweeney about creativity, using New York City as a creative backdrop (and Paris, of course). I'll probably be picking up where I left off for PublishingPerspectives, and blogging about fun bookstores and book-themed ephemera. Finally, dear handful of readers, I'll be blogging here. Somewhere I'll find time to sleep, but whether I'll stick to half caff in Paris remains to be seen.

Missing Paris

I've been moving data over a new computer after my last one died, and I keep getting distracted by one little album on my iPhoto library called "France." If I had an ink pad and a stamp marked Heaven, I'd stamp it all over every photograph from this trip, across each of the six weeks that we stepped away from our life as we knew it. From Normandy to Marseille, from the Sacre Coeur to each and every curvy street whose pavement and cobblestones wore down two pairs of my shoes to practically nothing.

We're planning our second summer in Paris, and have found a lovely family to swap with. The mom has a post at NYU this summer, so our East Village apartment will be perfectly located for her. She and her husband have a three year old daughter who should feel very at home in Jamie's room. They live in the same neighborhood that we stayed in last summer, Monmartre, but are even closer to the little village at the top of the hill. I'll be casting my net far and wide for writing assignments to carry me through while we're away, because I'll need the work, for a multitude of reasons. I really enjoyed blogging about English bookstores last summer, so maybe I can drum up something similar- a regular gig. I'm also hoping to be in touch with English speaking parents over there to help me find something for Jamie to do where he can meet other children his age and make friends, beyond the chance encounter in a playground... a mini- day camp for English speaking kids? We'll travel much less and spend more downtime exploring the city and studying French (this is the plan, anyway). I may find a French class for us to take at the New School this semester...

Galignani Bookstore, Paris

This marks the end of my English bookstore blog entries in Europe (for this year, anyway!). I'm grateful to my editor, Ed Nawotka at Publishing Perspectives, who gave me the chance to wander and write whatever I wanted to about pretty much any bookstore I felt like writing about. There were dozens more had I had the time, and my hope is that I can pick up the thread in years to come. In the meantime, I saved the oldest for last....

Old World, High Style: A Visit to Paris’ Librairie Galignani, Est. 1801, Publishers Since 1520

• Paris' venerable Librairie Galignani lays claim to being the oldest English language bookstore on the European continent.

• Despite its age — the store was founded in 1801, but the publishers of the same name date back to 1520 — it has weathered the years well and continues be an important part of Paris’ vibrant literary community.

PARIS: A publicist friend of mine who was staying at Hotel Costes in Paris had waxed on about the famous hot chocolate around the corner from her at Angelina’s on rue de Rivoli. Although the end of summer is stultifying — even in Paris and doesn’t usually mean the Best Hot Chocolate Weather — I decided to take my little chocoholic boy to try it out. We’d been on a bickering roll lately and I felt like offering him the ultimate olive branch instead of dragging him through yet another museum. I hadn’t even put together that Angelina’s would be across the street from Fete des Tuileries, an amazing little fair in the Tuileries Gardens with a Ferris Wheel and tons of rides and games, right across the street.

On the walk between the “chocolate l’Africain” which — at the princely price of seven euros — was actually to die for if not slightly nauseating in its richness, and the carnival, was a handsome bookstore called Galignani.

The sign outside claimed it to be “The First English Bookshop Established on the Continent.” On their website, they say it’s been in business since 1520 (as publishers), though the store was originally opened in 1801.

Galignani does boast an impressive history: “The Galignanis were among the first to use the recently invented printing press in order to distribute their books to a larger audience. Beginning in 1520, Simone Galignani published in Venice a Latin grammar (the oldest “Galignani” known)…. However, their greatest success was the Geografia by PTOLEMAUS published in 1597, an incredible bestseller in both the 16th and 17th centuries.”

Not surprising, the shop has moved locations several times in four centuries, and only as recently as 1856 has been parked in the posh arcade of the rue de Rivoli. It is still run by direct descendants of the original family.

I used the carnival as a carrot to keep my kid in check while I took a few spins around the bustling store, which is lined with enviable hardwood shelves dating back to the 1930s. This is an international bookstore, so there are of course massive amounts of titles in French, as well as other languages.

English-language book seekers should walk straight through to the back of the store (passing an incredible International Fine Arts section chock full of esoteric coffee table art books) where they’ll find a comprehensive selection of titles in English, with a strong emphasis on modern fiction and classics alike.

I was happy because my mom, who was doing an apartment swap in Anzio, had run out of books to read in English, and had requested one or two to be thrown in my suitcase for when we visited. She’s obsessed with dark Swedish mysteries, a la Detective Kurt Wallender, and it’s nearly impossible to find something that she hasn’t discovered on her own. The multiple display tables heaved with fun choices — not with any new Swedish murder mysteries — and I was able to snag a couple of lightweight (literally) choices that wouldn’t overburden my strict RyanAir luggage limit.

Small disclaimer: Those who seek out Galignani’s to soak up the atmosphere of an ancient bookshop might be disappointed, not in the selection of titles, but by the newness of the place. It’s pristine, which isn’t of course a bad thing, but I was surprised to learn how old it really was, including the wooden bookshelves. They’re gorgeous, but don’t scream “Old! Made in the 1930s!” I guess I’m always up for a mustier, dustier experience, but I certainly can’t blame Galignani’s for being as high-style as the block that it calls home. Take a look for yourself: their website offers a charming video tour that takes you right into the store (click here).

Librairie Galigani is located at 224, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris.

Stumbling into two Keith Harings, 3,600 miles apart

Yesterday, Jamie and I went to the Carmine Street swimming pool, now named after Tony Dapolito, a posthumous tribute to the old "Mayor of Greenwich Village", whose family owned the Vesuvio Bakery (recently closed, seemingly another victim of the economy). The unique thing about this little outdoor swimming pool is that its backdrop is a giant mural that was painted by Keith Haring in 1987, just three years before his death in 1990. The mural, long-since restored by the Keith Haring Foundation, is painted in yellow and turquoise, and full of his signature squiggle people swimming and dancing with jumping and dancing dolphins. I've always loved swimming in the shadow of this public works gem.

Early last week, we were walking through the Les Halles neighborhood in Paris and ducked into the Saint-Eustache Cathedral, a late Gothic structure where, supposedly, Louis XIV took communion and Mozart held his mother's funeral. I'd enjoyed six weeks of touring cathedrals up and down France, and in all of the paintings (Delacroix) and relics (St. Peter's bones) that we'd purportedly encountered, I was most surprised to find in a small side chapel, a triptych altar piece created by Keith Haring. Haring certainly created his share of artworks loaded with religious symbols, and most of it was cynical and dark. Often he illustrated the Apocalypse, illuminating the fear that the Catholic church instills in people to divert them from natural human desires. So what struck me about this piece was its complete lack of irony. There are people on each fold dancing and celebrating the birth of Christ, below Mary holding her newborn baby. It's almost like Haring wanted to make a distinction between the hypocritical beaurocracy of the church and its avatar.

I've enjoyed seeing Haring's work over the years randomly sprinkled through the pavement of the East Village. There is a little stairwell leading to a nail parlor around the corner on Second Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets that sports his circular patterns. Actually, the nail place has closed, and I hope whoever takes over the space doesn't rip out the concrete steps.

My West Village Medicine

An antidote to feeling grumpy about coming home to New York from Paris was simple enough: a nice stroll through an August-ghost land, otherwise known as the West Village. I knew that one thing I'd miss hugely about Paris was how five streets randomly intersect, without rhyme or reason. My friend Jennifer told me that the city had been made up largely of villages that would eventually connect, and that once in a while she'd look up and realize that she was standing in one of them...they have a certain compact and complete look, and as I walked down Rue du Martyrs my last evening there, I felt we had stumbled into one. There was a triangular park, with at least five streets intersecting there. The street itself, which I'm sure has a gruesome history that I'll look up one day soon, is now strewn with gourmet shops and cafes, but it's easy to imagine that hundreds of years ago it was a crossroads where people who lived on surrounding farmland would wander to pick up their supplies for the week and put back a few before heading on their way.

The West Village is such a neighborhood, a windy arrangement of uncertain urban planning that offers up opportunities of getting lost, unlike its close New York brethren, the grid system, which with its numbered streets and avenues can lead you far more easily to your destination. I've walked the roundabout streets hundreds of times over the years and have my favorite spots. I still have to search a bit for my favorite bookstore (Three Lives), but can more easily find my way to my favorite public art (Keith Herring mural at the Carmine Street swimming pool), playground (Bleecker Street), garden (St. Luke's Church), and burger and beer joint (Corner Bistro). Sadly, St. Vincent's Hospital has just gone bankrupt and closed; I had Jamie there, and will always feel sentimental that he was born in the West Village on the 9th floor of its only hospital. I love the literary history of the neighborhood (Under the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell is one of my all time favorite books), and I'd always prefer to conjure up Dylan Thomas hanging out at the old Whitehorse Tavern than Carrie Bradshaw buying cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery, but that's just me.

The Thought of Leaving

The picture above this post is the evening view from our Paris apartment-swap.

The thought of leaving Paris on Saturday makes my stomach drop. When I think about it, I feel queasy and sad. Here are just a few of the small things about being in Paris this summer that I've grown to notice and love: the way our wooden staircase smells, and the way it curves up to our apartment. Our small apartment and it's wooden floors, old moldings, separate kitchen, French windows that are always open, lacy wrought-iron gates across them. Of course, the pastries, especially the almond chocolate croissant. The way the cobblestones form these u-shapes in the streets (and in Rome, for that matter). Cobblestones, not potholes. Cemeteries stuffed with the beautiful graves of writers and dancers and artists and thinkers. Chimneys; who knew you needed 50 terra cotta chimneys on every rooftop? The markets. The sun (which we inexplicably had nearly every day for the last 5 and a half weeks). Not just Versailles, but Marie-Antoinette's little house and gardens, including the farm animals and happy French vegetable farmers. Waking up early while Jim and Jamie sleep in everyday. Taking a nap. Pink and red geraniums in the windows. Drip coffee, not machine made, and not sweating over the time it takes to make it. Not understanding what people are saying, but smiling and nodding my head idiotically. Reconnecting with the sweetest and oldest of friends. The sweetness, and patience, of Parisians once you open an exchange with their native tongue. Choosing which way to spend the day: park, walk, walk through the park, museum, cook, bookstores, writing about bookstores, getting lost? Not watching TV, or watching bad, dubbed TV. Reading a dense, non-fiction history. Le Metro. Climbing up and down the hills of Monmartre for hours. Evening walks taking us up to the Sacre Coeur, again and again. Listening to Jennifer pronounce Sacre Coeur. Watching Jamie play soccer with the future World Cup champions of Roma and Paris. Watching his new teeth grow in this summer. Watching him see Europe for the first time. Forgetting what day it is. To be continued...

Tea and Tattered Pages

My latest bookstore adventure in Paris appears today on Publishing Perspectives. I always tell my students that I don't spend much time writing about things I don't like-- whether books, films, restaurants, or anything else-- it feels like attracting bad karma, and there are so many things to write about that I love. That said, it's been a gig of mine to write about bookstores in Europe, and in the spirit of being a working writer, I decided to call this one how I really saw it. Coming up next is a store I loved, in Rome....

Tea and Tattered Pages

On a bright and sunny Wednesday in Paris, we set out to see the catacombs-- I should have guessed we wouldn’t be the only tourists heading over to Montparnasse for a glimpse of the deep macabre; problem was, we weren’t exactly expecting the line to literally reach around the block and number into the several hundreds. We had grinned and bore the hideous line at the Eiffel Tower and swore we would try our damndest not to repeat that. Getting in this catacombs line would have been a direct slap in the face to our solemn promise, so instead we improvised. It could become my afternoon away from the boys; an afternoon stomping around the 14^th arrondissement, Montparnasse. After a quick make-good trip to the closest playground to appease my disappointed 7-year-old son Jamie, I was on my way.

The first place I found myself was the Cimetière du Montparnasse, where I paid tribute to Simone de Beauvoir and her man JPS (did you know they were buried together?). Then I found Eugène Carrière, an artist, because I noticed he was there and we’re staying for six weeks on a block named after him. I said a quick hello to Ionesco, and then a longer one to Samuel Beckett (and his wife Suzanne, who died the same year he did) before making my way to section six to see Charles Baudelaire. I was most excited about this part of my pilgrimage, since I used to, for kicks, check out different translations of Les Fleurs du Mal and sit them up against the other to see the differences… okay, I did it once at 19). Unsurprising, I found two teenaged boys sitting next to his family gravestone, who in their sweet and choppy English told me about how he hated his stepdad because his opinion had differered from his own about the military, but he had to be buried with him anyway. They asked me if I’d seen Serge Gainsbourg (I had) and on my way out, I found Marguerite Duras to say a quick "Thank You" for The Lover.

On to my next stop: another English bookstore called Tea and Tattered Pages (got made loads of fun for wanting to visit this one). Online, this teashoppe seemd to be a comfortable and bookish place to linger amongst fine company and hospitable cups of Earl Grey.

I walked a short ten minutes from the cemetery and found the store Rue Mayet. On the outside, it’s cute and inviting—the exterior moldings are painted red, and labeled with a signage that recalls brightly painted shops in London. I walked in, and at once was stared at by the curmudgeonly shopkeeper behind the desk. “Wow, an English bookstore!” I said too enthusiastically, apparently. “There are lots of English bookstores in Paris,” she growled. “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Um, okay. I was feeling properly dressed down, and had quickly lost my taste for wading through her stacks of as-promised tattered pages, whose publication dates rarely moved beyond 1987. There was a laminated page of Pulitzer Prize winning books hanging up, but I didn't see many as I scoped through the stacks which were heavy on mass market paperbacks.

To the immediate left of Ms. Meany's desk hangs a sign that reads “Unattended children will be sold as slaves.” The second sign I saw, which hangs over the staircase leading to the crappy collection of paperbacks in the basement (Primal Scream 1 and Primal Scream 2 take their place in the forefront of the psychology section), was a sign that said “Please leave your bag at the front. And do not steal. Our prices are already cheap.”

About those prices… Ms. M explained to me that they were listed on the inside of the cover. I was casually looking for The Ebony Tower by John Fowles, because in a romantic moment my husband had told me that it was a beautiful small novel set in Normandy where we’d just come back from visiting. Plus, I loved The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The only copy I found was a tattered hardback for 7 euro; not bad, I figured. High for a used hardback in terrible shape, but for a relevant read in English I’d spring for it and downscale the next meal or something. After I’d moved my way through the store to pay to make my singular purchase, Ms. M opened up the jacket and told me that there had been a mistake. “The book should be marked 10 euro; I didn’t mark this. It should be 10 because it’s a hardback. I'm sorry.”

“I’ll pass.” I said, and made my way out into the sunshine, where I promptly dropped 10 euros on a lovely tea that I hadn’t been offered or, for that matter, anywhere in sight in the languishing den of hospitality, Tea and Tattered Pages.

Shakespeare and Company

Many thanks to the publishing online trade magazine Publishing Perspectives for running blog entries about my trip (insofar as visits to bookstores go!). Here's my first entry...

I've gotten to the point during a long summer apartment swap in Paris where the Lonely Planet France and Paris books aren't going to cut muster for much longer. It all begins to sound the same... one bland historical reference after another (how exciting can a single sentence be?)... it was time to hit a bookstore for some reading material (in Anglais).

Enter the renowned Shakespeare and Company, the storied writerly haunt on the edge of Paris's Left Bank. Last night, on a warm Monday evening, I headed over for my pilgrimage with husband and 7-year-old son in tow, and was greeted by a crowd beginning to get seated outside for some event or another. Turns out I'd picked the one hour of the week when some famous and amazing Prize Winning writer is invited to do a reading. Last night we stumbled into a beautiful short story byNathan Englander , author of the collection "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges", for an NYU reading series that the store hosts. It was packed with students and tourists alike, clear into the cobblestone street that overlooks the Seine and Notre Dame. Englander's 20 minute reading was too short for me, and probably a tad too long for my kid. Fortunately, I lucked out as he found a black labrador to fawn over during the "consummation with the prostitute" section. He did look up at me at one point to ask me what the story was about, and I said "Well, this guy gets sick of his wife", and he says to me, "And he kisses another lady and the wife gets jealous?" Yep, in a nutshell. Now go back to petting that labrador, will you?

The store itself is much the same as I found it roughly 8 years ago (and I suspect much the same as it's opening day in 1951). Beautiful editions of modern paperbacks take front seat, while upstairs the warren of rooms remain dusty and inviting. This time around, I was newly grateful for the cushioned bench in the children's corner; Jim could read Anatole the Parisian mouse to Jamie while I poked around, trying to remember what my earlier poetess years felt like moving through the stacks for a bit. Sadly, the black cat I'd fallen in love with during my last visit was missing, and I fear the worst as it was in its gentle older years back then...

The one thing we remarked on when leaving was that it seems like the last time we made a visit, we were greeted by enormous stacks of reasonably priced used paperbacks-- perfect for travelers with one carry on bag and a budget to stick to. This time around, the bulk of the selection seemed to be handsome Vintage-esque Modern Library types, on sale for the cover price and beyond. Still, the collection of used books are strewn about, shelved both downstairs and upstairs if you feel like digging around. I found a small paperback for 3 euro of Rebuilding Conventry, Sue Townsend's first book, post Adrian Mole series.

The Underwood typewriter perched on a little alcoved desk upstairs is still a sweet touch, yet this time around felt sort of contrived. A sign tacked above it said something along the lines of "sit here and meet your muse", and I felt slightly embarrassed considering the possibility that I would actually do this while Nathan Englander was downstairs preparing to read from his Pushcart winner.

The store has just begun to put out its own literary journal, The Paris Magazine, and I picked that up for later reading. It's an attractive and hefty journal, well priced for the store at 6 euros. They've also launched a prize (roughly $12,000) to be given out every other year for a novella written by an unpublished author. The store, after all, has a record of supporting up and coming writers through the decades, and maybe in a few years I can come back, sans le bebe, to revisit that Underwood and hang out for awhile.

Arrived in Paris

We arrived in Paris on June 20, and I've been too busy getting acclimated, seeing friends, and walking for 10 hours a day to even think about blogging. This morning I woke up, and for the first time, felt this let down, like I really need to write and chill out and do nothing for a couple of days. The last thing I want is for this blog to seem like an annoying slide show of my trip, where I traipse you around one sight from the next, and assume that you'll be interested. That said, if I were diligently keeping a scrapbook, I'd be gluing in ticket stubs from the Eiffel Tower, the Pompidou, the Bayeux Tapestries up in Normandy, and every Gothic cathedral in between.

The strongest impression on me about the neighborhood where we're staying, Monmartre, is the height of the hills. My first morning here, I woke up jet lagged and headed out to climb to the top. This is always my favorite time of day; I love watching a city wake up slowly. Shopkeepers were cleaning the sidewalks and water was gushing down the gutters of the windy cobblestone streets. After climbing a few hundred stairs, all tolled, I found myself inside of the Sacre Coeur basilica, one of about five people sitting in the pews. Outside, the view across Paris was so pretty that I got weepy, but I always cry when I'm jet lagged. When I was in Rome a decade ago, I cried in front of the Pieta, and at a restaurant eating chocolate truffles, and Jim hasn't let me forget it (probably because I also fell asleep sitting up in front of the truffles).

The apartment we've swapped for is wonderful. It's smaller than our own (described by our swappers as a 50 meter one bedroom), which means less to clean at the end. It's big on charm: there are wooden floors and French windows with wrought iron gates and geraniums, and a perfectly serviceable kitchen that has already seen it's share of pastry, cheese and wine visitors. The aesthetic of the people who live here is very similar to my own. Sara has a gift for taking old objects and creating shadow box dioramas with them, which has given me ideas of how to corral my own incomprehensible collection of nostalgic bits and pieces. One of the unexpected gifts this place has given to me is it's simplicity; the fact that they're childless means there's none of the extra kid crap swarming about creating chaos everywhere I step, constantly. In truth, Jamie's happy with a pile of paper and markers since he's moved into the "constantly drawing Super Heroes" phase of his boyhood.

I have two mental adjustments to make about being here: one is that we're here for six weeks, so I don't need to run around seeing everything there is to see in a week, which would be exhausting and futile. The second is that I'm traveling with a 7 year old boy, which is similar to traveling with a giant puppy. He needs to be fed and watered and have many chances to run and play every day. This has created a daily barometer for me, and instilled a schedule of sorts where there is none. The other major adjustment? That it stays light until roughly 11 pm, but that's another story...

Five days and counting

This Saturday, we will hand keys to our apartment over to two French strangers, Sara and Elliot. We'll take their keys, and head off to JFK International, where we'll hop on an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, then to Paris, then make our way to Monmartre, which we'll call home for six weeks. I haven't ever been out of New York for six weeks in the seventeen years I've lived here, and while I love Paris, I think it's a bit odd that I've gone and picked another major city to prop myself up against for my big New York City breakaway.

That said, there are side trips planned. We've booked our TGV high speed tickets to Marseilles, and rented a car (an automatic) to head to Normandy where we'll explore the D-Day beaches and check out the Halley's comet embroidered on the Bayeux tapestries. We've bought our Ryanair tickets to Rome, where we'll stay with my parents for two nights in Anzio before gathering them up to head to Rome's Trastevere neighborhood for another couple of nights. After that, I'm not sure what we'll do. Catch trains up the coast, stop off in Genoa, and snake our way through some Alps and head back to Paris again? Or buy some airplane tickets back to Paris from some northern Italian point, and chill out for the last 10 days or so?

Six weeks sounds like forever, but I know it will fly. I'm proud that this started as a little seed of a wild idea and has grown to fruition-- now I need to disperse this energy into other things I'd like to see happen in our lives.

This trip feels like a celebration of sorts for me; Jamie's just turned seven, and is moving from a fairly restrictive 12-person special ed classroom setting to full-inclusion with his own Assistant Teacher next year. I'm feeling inspired by his progress, enough so to embark on this kind of trip. He's always traveled well. He loves looking out the window of trains and cars, and in a way, perhaps having an only child has made this scope of a trip easier for us, and him, to handle. Wherever we land, we're a little threesome, and this brings a sense of home anywhere. I'll bring a few fidget toys, plenty of art supplies, and sugar free gum to prepare for his hard times so he has something to ground him if he gets overstimulated. I'll keep museum trips to a minimum. I've been reading up on Parisian playgrounds, and this time around I'll let that take center stage. A pony ride here; a French puppet show there; a trip or two up the Eiffel Tower for good measure, with plenty of Nutella crepes along the way. What more does any kid need?

I look forward to our downtime there, and hope to blog a bit along the way. Bon soir!