Tag Archives: Paris

Underwear

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Here’s another of those sketches I wrote while living in Paris back in the 1980’s. (The previous ones were April in Paris and The Men of Paris.

 I didn’t get much sleep last night thinking about
underwear
Have you ever stopped to consider underwear in the
abstract
When you really dig into it
some shocking problems are raised
Underwear is something we all have to deal with
Everyone wears
some kind of underwear….
From the poem, Underwear, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

What kind of underwear people do, or don’t wear never used to interest me much.  Until  I went to the Club Gymnase in Paris.  Three times weekly, after my aerobics class, I find myself jammed into a steamy room with sweating women from a culture very different from my own.  What’s the biggest difference between them and me?

Their undergarments.  No, I correct myself.  That utilitarian word, undergarment, doesn’t work here at all.  Their lingerie.

Frothy bits of lace for bras.  Low cut or sheer, black, red, or pink.  Panties that always coordinate with the bra, little ruffled bits cut high on the hips, or thongs.  Satiny camisoles with lace-edged tap pants.  Garter belts holding up white lace stockings.  Silk.  Lots of silk.

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Adventure in a Parisian Cemetery

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We’d bought a map in a little kiosk just off to the left of the iron-gated entrance to Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris .  Alan, my ex-husband, and I had picked out the names of the honored dead whose monuments we wanted to find; Oscar Wilde, the Irish writer who died disgraced and penniless in Paris, now resting under a striking Art Nouveau monument; Abelard and Heloise, real-life star crossed lovers from the 12th century, separated in death by the walls of their adjoining tombs;  Frederic Chopin, the composer of deeply romantic melodies.

Oscar Wilde's Grave

These are kisses covering Oscar Wilde’s grave

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April in Paris

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Here’s another essay I wrote while living in Paris in the 1980’s.  The Men of Paris was the first.

April is the cruelest month
Breeding lilacs out of the dead land
Mixing memory and desire
Stirring dull roots with spring rain

So begins The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.   My theory is that he was inspired by an April spent alone in Paris.

For one beautiful, radiant week in an otherwise dreary April I walked the boulevards and strolled through the parks of a city superbly designed for love.  I was alone.

Alan and I drifted off to sleep Sunday night in a city caught in the final throes of winter, with a cold rain pounding against the bricks of our courtyard and a northern wind rattling the wooden shutters closed tight over our windows.  Early the next morning as I waved from the balcony as the taxi took him to the airport I saw that, voila, the amazing yearly miracle had happened over night.

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Ecstasy in Paris

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Note to self:  Never try a mind-altering substance while boarding public transit.

Good advice, don’t you think?

I wrote that note to myself 26 years ago because I foolishly swallowed a bit of Ecstasy right before climbing on a crowded bus on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Paris.

I recently found it in the side pocket of an old handbag I was about to throw out.  The note was slipped between a few used metro tickets and a business card from a restaurant.  I’d forgotten about that afternoon until chancing upon this yellowed slip of paper.

I blame Alan for what happened.  What good are ex-husbands if you can’t blame them for your follies?  His Swiss friend supplied us with the chemically pure formulation.  His knowledge of chemistry convinced me I wouldn’t hurt my mind or body with this pill.

We each popped one and then hopped onto the bus headed for Les Trois Quartiers, a chic department store  surrounded by the best food shops in Paris;  Hédiard, Fauchon, and Marquise de Sévigné.  None of these were places Alan had ever visited.  What better idea than to explore them on a sunny afternoon in September?

Les Trois Quartiers in Paris

Les Trois Quartiers to the left, the church of the Madeleine to the right, our bus pulling up right in the middle.

 

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The Men of Paris

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Digging through my desk recently I came across a long-forgotten folder of sketches I’d written when Alan and I were living in Paris in the mid 1980’s.  Here’s one of them.

Contented marriage to a handsome American man hasn’t keep me from observing the beauty of Parisian men.

I started observing my first day in Paris, one of those rare bright February days when everyone strolls the boulevards to get reacquainted with the sun.  The Champs-Elysees  was packed.  Our taxi was stuck in traffic.  He jogged up to the corner from Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, hesitated a bit, then thread his way in front of us, through the honking jam of buses, cars and taxis.   Light brown hair blown back from his face, except for the comma that fell over his forehead.  Strong square jaw, high cheek bones and heavy-lidded eyes.  He must be a movie star or at least a male model, I thought then.  Now I know he was probably an architect, bank clerk or accountant.  Handsome men aren’t that uncommon in Paris.  I see at least one a day.

Here we are, stuck in traffic. Can you pick out the man I spotted?

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I’ve Been Addled Before

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I touched his knee, that’s all.  It happened accidentally, quite innocently.  I leaned forward toward the driver, Trevor, to make a suggestion, he spun the steering wheel, the tiny Fiat swerved and I reached out to get my balance.

My hand landed on the knee of the tall, blonde, handsome executive crammed in the back seat next to me.  That’s how it started.

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Another French Take on Exercise

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One sunny morning in Paris, as my ex-husband Alan waited on the landing outside our apartment for the elevator, our neighbor, Mariele, joined him.  He was dressed in a t-shirt, running shorts and running shoes, so she said the obvious.  “You’re going running, aren’t you?”

He said, “Yes.”  That was that.

A week later, they shared the elevator as he headed upstairs after his run, all
sweaty and stinky.

“You run a lot, don’t you?” she said.

“Almost every day,” he answered.

This was in the late 1980’s and we were spending 4 years living in the French
capitol, thanks to Alan’s employer.

The next week, out on the landing, she said, “My husband Gérard runs, too.  Almost daily.”

The following week she said, “You and Gérard should run together.  He doesn’t get as sweaty as you do.  Maybe you could get him to work harder.”

Alan running the streets of our quartier of Paris.

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