Paris

Someone asked me the other day about Paris, then yesterday I was reading a story about a writer who lived in the first half of the 20th century. And in this story there was a piece of a poem by another man, about the streets of Paris and the way they speak to you in a thousand different voices and colors and volumes, some whisper like soft skinned ladies with pale brown hair and light cotton blouses and then, on a different twist of a gray stone way you hear the voice change.
I've decided to freeze it - the image of Paris that I carry around - late 1950's Black & White film images ... the stories of Jacque Tati and his frequently bright, loving and sometimes melancholic descriptions of France as a collection of communities, each held together by shared experience and loyalty to each other as human beings and citizens of the Republic. Paris is also about love ... and anyone who has a story about Paris, also has a story about a girl, or a guy, who they met one stormy, windy, humid night, a night of dancing without parallel ... and they burned bright for a very long time. And even now ... in Paris windows, on any October afternoon, I expect to see her dark brown hair fold away and brush the window frame as she turns from the street and away.