A Paris awakening

I’M ASHAMED to see that my last posting was back on April 3^rd. I can only put down my lack of activity as a combination of energy-less-ness and indolence. I think of it as the watching-the-grass-grow syndrome – and it can be quite an addictive pastime.

Still, conscience doth quicken and all that… My Good Lady has kept a fair summary of our doings over the summer in her blog, and I don’t feel inclined to repeat it all again here.

What’s fired me into hitting the old keyboard again is our latest holiday – and especially our visit to Paris for the first time in over forty years.

Oh, it’s changed beyond belief of course. It’s dirtier, busier, nosier, all that… But somehow, still quite fascinating. And it had one totally unexpected side-effect on me – it started me writing again.

I used to do a fair bit of scribbling – stories, articles, radio pieces, you name it – and all with a modest amount of success.

But for about ten years now the fire has gone out of me, the hunger, the need – the compulsion to write, the sense of somehow not being quite complete as a human being unless I can put into words what life around me is all about.

In Paris I find myself observing again – the prerequisite of all writing – and somehow needing to jot down what I’m seeing. Sitting at a pavement brasserie I find myself reaching for my pocket notebook to dash out this observation or that…

“…Three fat ladies sit on a low wall, eating ice creams…”

“…An old, lambretta scooter leans against the kerb, a relic of a bygone age…”

“…Two Japanese girls snapping each other against the background of Notre Dame Cathedral with dinky little cameras, both very young, in pastel-coloured coats, short skirts and tights…”

…Little notes like these. I don’t know why, I don’t know what it means. It’s just an itch I feel the need to scratch. Maybe the sheer human chaos of Paris has triggered a semi-defunct impulse into stirring again.

Anyhow, just thought I’d share this before I go back to watching the grass grow.