La Chausse (The Hunt)

Cara Giovanni!

Comme-va? I think your card is fitting your postcard has a photographed scene from 'La Chausse', The Hunt, a French loved pastime and institution. We all run after someone on the chase at sometime and hold on to them captive in our embrace but as all things it ends.

I look out over the rooftops of Montmartre from the 6^th floor apartment the chimneys in terracotta the arrow shaped antennas and tin and copper roofs, balconies with flowers overhanging with geraniums spilling. The smell of fresh bread from the boulangerie that bakes every half hour on the corner and the hinted scents of Cigarillos wafting up here, high up in rarefied air of the apartment. The muted mutter of cars turning the block ten times to find a park. Men whistling as they go on their merry way, a claxon, a moto rumbles, the ring of a bicycle bell. In here it is just the sound of me tapping of the keys on the typewriter and the buzz of the jazz radio. I have no country no homeland just my thoughts my typewriter and the need for a quiet place to tap the keys.

I found my man alone in Paris with all of Europe’s problems and challenges weighing him down. My heart grows heavy, the hour sounds and the bells from the Sacré Cœur chime. We were together when the siren on the 1^st Wednesday of the month rang out all over Paris, France and Europe a reminder of WWII this place weighed down heavy by the past. I feel high up in this apartment like I can see the clouds in profile. I guess I should be without a care while I am here.

Driss is preparing Moules Marinier with a Muscatel wine and les huites (oysters) that are unopened, fat with the oily jewels hidden within and a big wheel of brie for dessert. If we were not tied to anything lassoed down by our obligations and responsibilities where would we all be? What would we all really do and make with our lives? However now we face problems like La Crise in the age of austerity.

... Fayroze ...

Allez à la découverte de Nao

Translation Letter Nao

            Allez-Allez-Allons-y-!-Allez-Allez-Allez-Allez-Vous-Allez-Nous-Allons-On-y-va  Allez-!

Allez à la découverte de Nao

Allez-Nao,

Comment vas-tu ? Mon amie, merci pour ton message. Alors je ne suis pas en Italie ! Je t’explique quand je vais revenir à Sydney. I found the ‘allez Nao’ in Le Parisienne a newspaper similar to the Sydney Telegraph. I found it in a seedy bar I frequent now whilst in Paris in effect I stole it. GiGi the proprietor of the establishment he named Le Belgerac on rue Saint Lazare close to the Metro St-Georges. There is a wooden tambourine hanging on the wooden liquor cabinetry. GiGi told me that it a gift from the Libertine himself Peter Dougherty another one of his regular clientele. It adds to the idea of just how lowlife the brasserie really is. I like GiGi even when he slips his hand around my waist or tries for a wet coquine kiss on the cheek. The other barkeep and regulars call him ‘le requin,’ the shark. Today he asked me where my typewriter was.

The weather today has returned to the days that are the joys of summer. That soft rose coloured light that gives a great ambiance especially on a Sunday, sipping on a Rosé from Provence with lipstick the colour of Bourgogne glossy on my lips. I actually felt loved today. I’ve stopped living in a Fellini film it is more of a Woody Allen classic with a Parisian backdrop. It’s all an abstraction anyway, a live-action film version of reality. I felt set adrift when I left Sydney and set sail for Europe, then shipwrecked in France now a return to being more at ease.

Is one person enough, all you need? Where ever you may be that can give you safe harbour to love you in their way?

There is the local market square near La Marie of the 18éme there is a fleuriste that only sells roses in all colours. It is beautiful rows upon rows of vases filled with roses in abundance €15- for ten long stemmed objects of beauty and the perfume that radiates from that shop is exquisite. La boucherie when I buy my cured meats for a platter of charcuterie or thick pieces of entrecôte has whole rabbits hanging in a row intact, all the fur on them right down to Peter Rabbits fluffy little tail. I find this shocking yet strangely adorable at the same time. The poissonnerie or fish monger in the same square was selling fish heads. I saw a sword fish head with the whole sword pointing out at me. I find these delightful far removed from the plastic packaging of the supermarkets back home! Et Alors Moi et Driss have a lot of private jokes we share, one of the charms of having a lover.

I would like to stay so I will remain here longer than originally planned. Like all places on a hot sun drenched day you feel like you spirit is lifted out of the monotonous grey. That the sun holds up your heart greets you. It kisses you on both sides of your face and at sunset on your forehead to say bonsoir or bonne nuit and hopefully à demain! It will be high summer in Sydney when I return and I can see the sea again. I feel à l’aise here now. I do not wish to call this place home but to come home to this man Driss.

fayRo3e.