Letter from the Vineyard

Yesterday morning, I had a feeling of triumph – I successfully validated my Eurail Pass and made a seat reservation on the 10:40 TGV to Metz, where I transferred to a local train and made my way to Verdun, site of one of World War I’s greatest/worst battles.

The process was a little nerve wracking and I made it through with the help of Google Translate, my incredibly terrible French and the kindness of people who saw I was a baffled and, since I WAS trying, helped me manage with their far less terrible English.

By chance, I watched a man insert his ticket into a machine near where I was sitting and realized my ticket needed to be validated before I boarded, so I inserted mine also.  It says on the top, “BILLET a composter avant l’acces au train.” Loosely translated: Ticket composted [stamped?] before getting on the train.

The decision to go to Verdun was by chance.  One toss of the coin went to south, another to east; I looked at a map of France and to the southeast was Verdun, a recommendation of my friend David Arcara, who thought I would find it moving.

We left Paris, a Gallic fifteen minutes late, and raced through green farm fields.  As on farms in America, clusters of trees mark the placement of houses; little villages slide by in a moment as we travel at 312 kilometers per hour.  In a little over an hour, we arrived at Metz.

Last night, I had a delightful dinner with Pierre Alain Varreon, a friend of my friend Mary Ann Zimmer, at his favorite spot, Chez Paul, a vibrant place that winds through rooms and floors.  A set of repurposed subway doors from the 19^th century, separates two of the rooms.  He drank red wine; I drank white.  We talked for hours and then I returned to the hotel, curled in bed, slept, woke early to face the gauntlet of validation.

It has been forty years since I have spent this much time in Europe.  Each moment reminds me to be watchful, in order to figure things out.  It is a foreign country – they do things differently here, large and small nuances.

Yesterday, I walked from my hotel to the Eiffel Tower.  Reaching it, I discovered it in now enclosed in double walls of bullet proof glass at the ground level, black bereted soldiers holding machine guns are all around.  One has to pass through security to go to the Tower.  Finding a bench facing the entrance, I remember a night, almost forty years ago to the day, when I and a half dozen plus Americans, stood beneath the Eiffel Tower at two in the morning and sang our tipsy version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to the amusement and disdain of a few lightly armed gendarmes.  That world is gone; it, too, is a foreign country.  They do things differently there as well, in the past.

Pierre Alain, who is a lifetime Parisian with long stints abroad, is thinking of moving to Portugal, where, I am told, all kinds of expats are finding their way.  Jim, who drove a bus during the summer on the Vineyard on my route, told me he is going to winter in Granada, Spain.

On now the second train of the day, a commuter from Metz to Verdun, I sailed past French towns.  Leaving the toilette, I held a door for an elderly lady and she was on the train with me.  She attempted to ask me a question and all I could do was indicate my French, c’est horrible!  She smiled and understood.

Bridges and underpasses were splashed with graffiti art, much as in the States.  In Paris, it seemed every available surface had been painted.  My amateur evaluation:  New York has better graffiti.

After breakfast, I returned to my room and, feeling just a tad sleepy, lay down on my bed and took a nap.  Waking, I determined to go to the Atelier des Lumieres, where there was a program around Klimt, the painter of “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” or, as it more famously known, “The Woman in Gold.”  It was the subject of a film of that name with Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds a few years ago, about Maria Altmann’s quest for repatriation of the painting.

This was not a viewing of the painting, which is in New York, at the Neue Galerie, where I saw it a year or so ago.  This was a light show to evoke all that went into Klimt’s paintings.  It began with images of Vienna before the Great War, when it was capital to empire, mixed with film footage of the ghosts of that time.

It was the kind of program, that were I a college student, I would wish to see in a slightly altered state.

Leaving, I wandered through parks and stumbled on the Church of St. Matthew, my patron saint, lighting a candle to be shown where I might do the most good in the time I am given.

Leaving there, I wandered through several parks, filled with children and parents, basking in the warm sun of the day, playing on phantasmagorical play devices, including a great spider web of ropes.  In one park, there was a high proportion of fathers caring for children.  They were watchful while on their cellphones.

Seeing that there was a subway which would take me back to my hotel, I figured it out and took the 9 back to La Muette, my stop, and came back to my hotel to change and go meet Chuck and Lois, who prepared a delightful white fish with a magnificent dill sauce, accompanied by a Puligny Montrachet, one of my favorite white wines.  We phoned our friend Larry and, then, before I overstayed my welcome, I slipped into an Uber and returned to the hotel.

In front of me is a narrow Parisian street; I am looking out at it through the windows of the restaurant attached to the Hotel Aero, where I am staying.  The attractive lady with the red scarf is having morning tea, with a little white dog comfortably settled out of sight at her side.

After taxiing in from Charles De Gaulle, I checked into my little hotel in the 16^th on Place de Passy.  As I handed over my American passport, the gentleman behind the desk probed to see if I was a Trump supporter.  When I assured him I was not, he let loose with his not very high opinion of our American president.

Last night, I went over to the little Parisian apartment of my friends Chuck and Lois, which they are in the process of selling, as they, too, are thinking about what the next phase of their lives will be, how it will take shape.

We sat having cocktails avant le diner, when they shared with me they had come over on the Queen Mary 2.  Informing them I was sailing back on her, Lois asked, “When?”  As I said November 4^th, she squealed, and Chuck guffawed.  Turns out they are on that on that crossing, too, and we will all be together.  It felt like a very 1930’s kind of moment.

We dined at one of their favorites, around the corner from them, Le Clocher du Village, a small sweet café where they are known and appreciated.  Lovely steak frites!

Chuck and Lois shared that their experience of Paris since Trump’s election.  The French love Americans but have only vitriol in their hearts for him.  And for most other politicians, including Macron.

Back to my hotel, off to sweet sleep and it was, waking to a sunny Parisian day, warm but not hot, life passing in front of me as I sit here, sipping my second café au lait.

Lois, Chuck and I have discussed going to the Musee de Orsay today.  I’ll check in when I finish this.  If not with them, perhaps on my own.  A day to be explored, enjoyed.

As I stare at the screen in front of me, I am 5 hours, 26 minutes out of Paris, having left New York two hours late due to storms raging through the region.  I am sipping a not bad white wine, ensconced in premium class on Norwegian Air, an upstart airline recently come to America after doing business as an intra-Europe air shuttle.

It’s not bad, not luxe but not bad.  The beef for dinner was quite good; the blanket provided is one of the best I’ve had on any flight, anywhere, in any class.  If there were another scrunch of room in my two bags, I would be tempted to depart the plane with it but there is not a scrunch of room in my two bags.

Most of my things are vacuum packed so that I could fit a wardrobe for five weeks in two bags, including my tuxedo and dress shoes for the crossing on the Queen Mary 2.

My great friend Larry Divney has named me “the vagabond” and so I am going to call these missives the Vagabond Letters, reports from the road as I traverse Europe, trying to decide what it is that I will be when I grow up.

And how exciting it is that I am still working out what it is that I will be when I grow up.  I’ve done many things, each one could have been the place I stopped and none of them have been.

The summer was glorious, a simple book seller in the magical kingdom of Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, though it didn’t feel simple.  It did feel good.

Watching the map in front of me, it seems that in a half an hour or so, we will have passed beyond North America and will be out over the Atlantic at 36,000 feet, headed straight into Charles De Gaulle in Paris.  The last time I was at CDG, I was walking next to Bo Derek and her husband/manager John Derek, now long, long gone.

It was a blurry moment, one of those times when it seemed every other day was another country, another set of people to meet with.  On that trip, not only did I see Bo Derek, I arrived in Paris while there was a strike on.  Who was striking and for what, I don’t know.  To get to my meeting I had to walk up 7 flights, through the strikers who were, at 9:30 in the morning, eating croissants and sipping champagne – a very civilized kind of strike, I must say.

This is five weeks when I have no real agenda except to wander where I will, when I will.  During the bookstore summer I read Nina George’s “The Little French Bistro,” which was one of the great life affirming books I have read. It is why I would like to visit Brittany, where the book is set.

A row or two in front of me, a man is asleep.  He snores for the ages.  Earlier, I thought he somehow had managed to get on the loudspeaker system, but it was just him.

It is the middle of the night, I am sleepy and will go to sleep. When I wake, we should be coasting into Paris.

When I have done all my other letters, I have done my best to be measured, thoughtful, concise, perhaps insightful.  These are going to be more free form, a stream of consciousness, notes from the road.  It is 2:35 AM in New York and 8:35 AM in Paris.

Good night from over the western Atlantic, 36,000 feet.