IHOP
I’m wandering around Paris. I’m supposed to return home on Sunday, the day after tomorrow. I just left some friends, among whom was J. I hadn’t seen her in years. I was in love with her then. She retreats into the building where she works, through an enormous marble and glass lobby.
Broad plazas, monumental buildings, not the kind of Paris I like. One street is flooded with turbulent rapids. I think I know my way around, but I’m really lost. Finally, I come across the Palais Royal and duck into it, hoping for some peace and quiet. Its spaces are indeed peaceful, of different shapes and sizes, but more like a Roman ruin—like the Palatine—than the Palais Royal. I keep thinking, “This is where Head of State A met with Head of State B and resolved Major Conflict X.”
But even within this odd “Palais Royal” I’m getting lost. I ask someone who works there if he knows a good inexpensive restaurant in the neighborhood. He does and says he would like to have lunch with me, but I suspect that all he wants is to take advantage of a tourist. Then I remember that I have too little cash on me and it’s in US dollars. We wait for a signal, a bell, from a tower, which will let us know when the restaurant has a free table. I talk about preferring Paris and New York to Boston. Other friends of mine show up. They all want to have lunch with us. One of them is M., another woman I used to be in love with. I tell the others that I’d rather have lunch alone with M. She agrees, so the two of us wander off, but the landscape is becoming more and more confusing, more like a ruin, more like places in Rome, this time the Colosseum.
M. is distressed. She went to a meeting this morning where people described conditions of extreme poverty and oppression, and inhuman atrocities. I am at a loss to respond. I suspect that these things could be understood, and that suffering could be eased, but I can only acknowledge their existence. I can’t say anything comforting.
Street musicians and actors are performing everywhere. "Healing the Feeling" from Ornette Coleman’s Virgin Beauty is going through my head. M. is very hungry. She says she wants pancakes. She nibbles at food in a stall, which I discourage because I want to sit down with her in a restaurant. But where? Finally, at someone’s computer, I search for “pancakes Paris.” Fortunately, there are a lot of IHOPs in Paris.
Broad plazas, monumental buildings, not the kind of Paris I like. One street is flooded with turbulent rapids. I think I know my way around, but I’m really lost. Finally, I come across the Palais Royal and duck into it, hoping for some peace and quiet. Its spaces are indeed peaceful, of different shapes and sizes, but more like a Roman ruin—like the Palatine—than the Palais Royal. I keep thinking, “This is where Head of State A met with Head of State B and resolved Major Conflict X.”
But even within this odd “Palais Royal” I’m getting lost. I ask someone who works there if he knows a good inexpensive restaurant in the neighborhood. He does and says he would like to have lunch with me, but I suspect that all he wants is to take advantage of a tourist. Then I remember that I have too little cash on me and it’s in US dollars. We wait for a signal, a bell, from a tower, which will let us know when the restaurant has a free table. I talk about preferring Paris and New York to Boston. Other friends of mine show up. They all want to have lunch with us. One of them is M., another woman I used to be in love with. I tell the others that I’d rather have lunch alone with M. She agrees, so the two of us wander off, but the landscape is becoming more and more confusing, more like a ruin, more like places in Rome, this time the Colosseum.
M. is distressed. She went to a meeting this morning where people described conditions of extreme poverty and oppression, and inhuman atrocities. I am at a loss to respond. I suspect that these things could be understood, and that suffering could be eased, but I can only acknowledge their existence. I can’t say anything comforting.
Street musicians and actors are performing everywhere. "Healing the Feeling" from Ornette Coleman’s Virgin Beauty is going through my head. M. is very hungry. She says she wants pancakes. She nibbles at food in a stall, which I discourage because I want to sit down with her in a restaurant. But where? Finally, at someone’s computer, I search for “pancakes Paris.” Fortunately, there are a lot of IHOPs in Paris.
posted by Joel at 9:43 AM
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