Yellow the mind and...

Finding a way to move the feast

I can remember feeling very depressed and alone the day after arriving in southern Mexico. I was in the town of San Cristobal without a clue as to what I was doing there. Walking aimlessly through the narrow streets I stumbled upon a small (English) bookstore. Inside that space the feelings of loneliness I entered with began to flow out of me.

It's hard to say exactly when I started taking solace in bookstores, but this sense of comfort has existed in me for several years. Which is why it comes as no surprise that the last few months at Shakespeare have produced some of the most intense feelings of happiness I have ever known.

These surprisingly noticeable feelings of happiness stem from my general take on life, that life's intrinsic value is found in feeling. Beyond being a series of breaths, life is a flow of continuous feeling, rising and falling like giant swells in the ocean, cresting with boisterous laughter one moment, then dipping low with a sinking sadness the next. Reveling in the spectrum of feeling that is life.

Clearly the ability to feel life is not the least bit dependent upon living at Shakespeare, I'm only confessing that the range and intensity with which I have experienced life since staying at the shop has been unlike anywhere else I have traveled to. There exists a different flow of feeling from Shakespeare, be it the books themselves, the staff, the sound of Notre Dame's bells, the tumbleweeds, George's presence or more than likely, a powerful combination of all the above.

Hemingway famously said to his friend Hotchner “if you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” I read that quote long ago, and to be honest, looking back it might have played a part in getting me here. And while there may be some healthy debate as to whether or not I still qualify as a 'young man' there is no doubt these days spent living along the Seine at Shakespeare&Co will remain with me for the rest of my days.

Tumbleweeds, creepy tombs and Tarte Tatin

Naturally, a tumbleweed's direction is dependent upon which way the wind blows. Which is why George Whitman affectionately labels those who stay at Shakespeare as tumbleweeds.

It happened that Jamie, Dylan and myself were gathered in the writer's studio maybe for the last time yesterday. Each of us having made plans to push on in the coming days. Having shared countless laughs together over the last few weeks an impromptu decision to visit the catacombs set in motion one of those priceless days of happenstance.

Off we went on bikes as the snow fell across Paris. The snowflakes had this movie set feel to them, small, odd shaped dots of white in no particular hurry to reach the ground. From everything I am told snow in Paris this early in the year is unusual. Glancing back as Lester and I led the way, the sight of the three of us on bikes riding across Pairs to visit the catacombs gave me a flash of the movie Goonies, which then made me smile.

So as far as I can gather the year was 1780 and Paris was over-flowing with dead Parisians. Full to the brim with bones Cimetiere des Saints-Innocents had to be closed for public health reasons. It was finally decided that all the bones from Paris cemeteries would be stored in abandon limestone quarries. Open to the public, these piles upon piles of bones and skulls can be visited deep under the streets of Paris.

Certainly, given the historical context of the catacombs, it is interesting to see such a sight but it seems even the curators knew something needed to be added to the experience of wandering past an unfathomable amount of femurs. “Why not add famous quotes about death...” someone must have said a few years ago as I walked past a wide range of quotes written in marble plaques throughout the catacombs. Most of the quotes are from famous Frenchmen long since dead, but I couldn't help wishing to find Woody Allen's quote "Life is full of misery, loneliness and suffering - and it's all over much to soon" in some dark, damp corner of the catacombs but no such luck.

Once again above ground with the living, having dropped the bikes back off at the shop, Jamie, Dylan and I made our way by foot across the Seine to the Marais in the 4th Arrondissement. We were headed for Le Loir Dans la Theiere. Known for their tarts, I went with the Camembert/spinach/walnuts combo, Dylan tried another one and Jamie ordered duck terrine.  Having not understood what a terrine was he ate it and then complained it tasted like cold meatloaf. Dylan and I laughed. But to be fair I only know what terrine is because the Chef made it in Provence.

Having stuffed our faces with savory, we washed it down with red wine and moved promptly onto the sweets. (note- this is not my typical diet, but rather a fitting last meal with some good friends). The three of us dived into a chocolate mousse with a layer of some sort of cream, a towering piece of lemon meringue and the infamous Tarte Tatin, something like an inverted apple pie which has as many creation stories as it does chunks of apples. Dylan rattled off the version where a woman was baking a pie for the king or something, mismanaged the journey from the counter top to the oven and dropped it face down, in her hurry she salvaged the wreckage, flipped it on a plate out of the oven and voila, Tarte Tatin.

A cold walk back to the bookstore had us laughing and freezing and discussing odd bits about life. It was a winter day that began with no plan but grew to into hours of boisterous banter and wonderful stories traded between three guys who happened to tumbled through Shakespeare around the same time.

an adventure in personal hygiene

Pedaling past Notre Dame, I noticed a dusting of snow that covered the small park behind the flying buttresses. The cold air blew a deep freeze over my fingers as I made my way along the Seine towards the public showers. Minutes later, I wrestled the key away from the frozen bike lock and headed inside, my backpack loaded with soap and a change of clothes.

This particular bath house opens at 7AM, so when I strolled in close to 10:30AM, after opening up the bookstore, I could hardly be frustrated at the line that had formed. A collection of men, some cold, others dejected, and still others who smelled as though they could use a good washing stood just inside the entrance patiently waiting for a Frenchman to summon their presence towards the next open stall. I noticed a police officer searching the contents of a plastic bag which looked to belong to a man standing next to the sinks.

As orderly and clean as these public facilities are, there still exists in me an underlying sense of distrust with the men who frequent them. My eyes wandered around the tiled surroundings as I stood waiting. I made brief, unintended eye contact with a man seated on the bench. His shiny bald head was lined on the sides with greasy strips of hair that had been brushed forward from behind his ears. In the millisecond that was traded between our eyes, his mouth curled into a rather creepy smile.

A minute later a frumpy Frenchman in a royal blue one-piece mechanics suit called out the opening of two showers upstairs. Without hesitation I stepped towards the offer and, much to my discomfort, so did smiley. As I walked down the row of shower stalls, barely wide enough for one person, I turned shoulders with a younger looking man, I glanced at him, sensing his stare, and saw a slight smile followed by a quick wink. At which point I by-passed my benefit-of-the-doubt-everyone-is-just-happy-to-be-getting-clean approach to these odd smiles and bolted for the nearest open stall, spun around and flipped the latch of the lock shut as fast as the fastest cowboy in the history of western gunslinging duels.

Stepping back out into the frigid air I felt refreshed and warm from the hot water. When the weather turns, for many men and women who live on the streets (or at a bookshop with no shower), a stop off at the public bath house is the surest way to escape the cold.

7,800 pipes with a smokin sound.

I dont know jack about organs and how they make music but my friend Dylan's excitement and knowledge about the subject was contagious enough for me to be seated under the massive vaulted ceiling of Notre Dame listening to the (free) weekly organ concert today. 7,800 pipes started to sing, and I listen for what Dylan says is humankind's great effort to crunch the complex sounds of an entire orchestra into one magical instrument.

I am certain Dylan ears were more intent on picking up the finer points of one of the world's great organs than mine were. My ears were busy tripping flashes in my brain of sitting at funerals as a young boy, riding the carousel, and watching the Phantom of the Opera. Funny how music triggers dusty memories in our minds.

An hour passed, then the pipes fell silent. Dylan and I made the cold three minute walk back over the Seine to Shakespeare while taking in the view of Christmas coming to Paris.

lots of little feet shuffling through Shakespeare

20 eight-year-olds from a bilingual school toured the bookstore yesterday. The older a person gets the harder it seems to imagine what the world looks/feels like through eight year old eyes, but as I stood in front of them, speaking briefly about how I sleep upstairs, living in the library, their eyes went wide at such a thought.

That moment energy, with their young minds spinning and imaginations running wild, captured what I often miss sight of on any given day here at Shakespeare and Co, forgetting that such an existence, viewed through the eyes of a child, can evoke some of that same magic that one finds from those tall tales told by Lewis Carroll or E. B. White or Shel Sliverstein or, or, or.

The kids wrapped up the stairs, past the beds and the books, gathering in the library, where my friend and fellow Shakespeare inhabitant Dylan and I took turns reading from “THE GRUFFLO” while the other half went to the top floor to say hello to George, who opened the bookstore in 1951. He will turn 97 next month. -Now- I can only imagine what that experience was like for those little minds.