Some of you, reading my Subject line, might be expecting a morning cafe rap about how listless or despondent the city of Paris -- and me, because I'm here -- are at this Present Perfect moment in time. Au contraire, Pierre.
The City of Light *is* in its doldrums, but not in the sense of the modern meaning of that phrase. The Doldrums (capitalized) originally referred to areas of the oceans near the equator where the spin of the Earth often created long periods of calm weather that could become somewhat distressing for sailors. Their ships, after all, were wind-powered. In the Doldrums, there was no wind -- often for weeks at a time. If you were a sailor stuck in such conditions, you might indeed have felt a little listless or despondent, stuck in a small boat on a sea as smooth as glass. But I don't feel that way, "stuck" here in Paris during its yearly doldrums...quite the opposite, in fact. The Paris doldrums -- which are real, and known to all -- are caused by the yearly exodus from the city of pretty much every Parisian who can afford to leave. They pack up their clothes and swim fins and kids and dogs and cats and head off to their place (either owned or rented) in the country or in the mountains or on the seashore. Which pretty much leaves Paris EMPTY, largely devoid of its regular inhabitants, literally becalmed...in the doldrums. The calm IS occasionally shattered by the hundreds of thousands of tourists who come here during this period, unaware that they're busily snapping photos of a ghost town, one that contains a mere fraction of its population. But those of us who live here during other months see the difference, and more important, we FEEL it. Paris is SILENT. The silence permeates everything, even in the busiest shopping district or nightclub-strewn alley. If you're attuned to silence, all you have to do -- wherever you are -- is just stop and pay attention, and there it is. Such a deal. I'll be doing the same thing as the Parisians soon, taking off next week for the south of France, and staying there until the beginning of September. I'm looking forward to that, and to other types of silence, but right now, sipping my café crème at the Montebello and gazing out across the Seine at Notre Dame, I couldn't be happier with this particular flavor of it. It's as if the whole city has transcended. And all you have to do to "go with it" and transcend yourself is just to stop and pay attention to the already-present silence. Such a deal. Much cheaper than learning TM, and in my opinion, more effective.
