paris in the springtime

(Paris: my métro entrance, a view from the Promenade Plantée, Notre Dame from the South Bank, Monet's Les Nymphéas at Le Musée de l'Orangerie, paintings for sale, lilac blooming on a typical café, and the best bookshop in the world.)

There is a secret garden in Paris. It, like most secrets, hides in plain sight, and offers itself up as a reward for those willing to look a little harder and in different directions. It is called le Promenade Plantée, and it's on top of a disused suburban commuter rail line. It's one of those things only Parisiens tend to know about; a boy I met in Edinburgh told me about it - he had lived here for five years. It was my first stop today, and as I wandered through part of it, it felt like I'd tumbled into a children's novel.

And then it was down onto street level, and back into the real world of Paris in the spring, which is not really the real world at all. One of the first sounds I heard when I arrived in the city was an accordian being played on the métro as I travelled to my hostel. The first thing anyone says to me without me approaching them first is "she has stolen my heart! What can I do, I have a hole in my chest. I will keep my tears there." This is from a young Frenchman working at my hostel (joking about his coworker, who he swoops in to kiss on the cheek as she laughs), while I wait in line to check in. He's small and bearded, with a nosering, and it takes me five minutes to fall in love.

Paris in the springtime. The air smells of lilac (sometimes, when it doesn't smell of bread or coffee or spices or piss). I have already grown a lightness here. I wrote two poems to day, and a whole skein's worth of diary entry. When I was thinking about Cities of the Dead yesterday, I forgot that Paris is also a city of emotions; London is not. I am beginning to carry my scars on my chest, instead of my back.