Page from my notebook
Quarter of nine.
Gray rain-shiny paving.
Washed-wet-headed women walking with their men.
The Street not yet awake.
Sleepy-eyed daughter standing in her pajamas and rain jacket and black rubber boots with her papá in the boulangerie; two baguettes for the family and a chocolate croissant for her; bread in one hand, his daughter carried in his right.
Redheaded shop girls smiled and bade her "adieu, mam'selle."
Bought a flaky apple pastry to eat while the washer churned. No smile.
The laverie antiseptic under its yet-blinding fluorescent bulbs.
I chose the largest machine. Twelve euros, and I have to buy detergent. We don't have that much to wash, but I can see the water sloshing. I guess it's worth it for the week's wear.
Two cars pass.
Then two piétons.
Another car.
The street blinks and yawns and starts to stir.
I sit with my flaky apple pastry and watch my laundry try to beat itself to death in the white water, and I read in the slow-growing morning.
It's a holiday, and I'm a stranger.
The "Lav'Club" is midway on the block of Rue Geoffroy Marie. At the end of the block the two-story gilt danseuse on the face of the Folies Bergère struts, here long leg glistening in the drizzle.
I need to read Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet, and the Portuguese poets, and the French. But how can you not overdose on them and drown in their words?
On the way back, the rain mostly gone, I passed a mamán, with a youngster striding under his own umbrella. The baby had a choke-hold on the other umbrella and glared at the world with the focus of a furious mushroom. She smiled when I pointed to the mushroom and grinned "Bon petit."
Gray rain-shiny paving.
Washed-wet-headed women walking with their men.
The Street not yet awake.
Sleepy-eyed daughter standing in her pajamas and rain jacket and black rubber boots with her papá in the boulangerie; two baguettes for the family and a chocolate croissant for her; bread in one hand, his daughter carried in his right.
Redheaded shop girls smiled and bade her "adieu, mam'selle."
Bought a flaky apple pastry to eat while the washer churned. No smile.
The laverie antiseptic under its yet-blinding fluorescent bulbs.
I chose the largest machine. Twelve euros, and I have to buy detergent. We don't have that much to wash, but I can see the water sloshing. I guess it's worth it for the week's wear.
Two cars pass.
Then two piétons.
Another car.
The street blinks and yawns and starts to stir.
I sit with my flaky apple pastry and watch my laundry try to beat itself to death in the white water, and I read in the slow-growing morning.
It's a holiday, and I'm a stranger.
The "Lav'Club" is midway on the block of Rue Geoffroy Marie. At the end of the block the two-story gilt danseuse on the face of the Folies Bergère struts, here long leg glistening in the drizzle.
I need to read Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet, and the Portuguese poets, and the French. But how can you not overdose on them and drown in their words?
On the way back, the rain mostly gone, I passed a mamán, with a youngster striding under his own umbrella. The baby had a choke-hold on the other umbrella and glared at the world with the focus of a furious mushroom. She smiled when I pointed to the mushroom and grinned "Bon petit."
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