September 25-28: THREE MAGICAL DATES IN PARIS

Arriving at Paris Gare de Lyon, I navigate the confusing array of signage to jump onto an RER A train and ride it for three minutes to the thrumming hub of Châtelet - Les Halles, planning to head up, up, up the escalators towards the exit and Rue Pierre Lescot. Paris's comprehensive, reasonably priced (Zones 1&2 10 ticket carnet €14,90), public transport system is full of labyrinthine transfers and this connection is mercifully straightforward. But on my way out of the station (welcome to Paris, you person with a heavy, slightly frayed, safety-pinned, punky-looking backpack, a Rollkoffer, and a full handbag) I am plucked out of the matrix by a security guard.

Stained glass, Notre-Dame. If only the signage and transfers in Paris's underground were this transparent...

It's like being dropped back into the highly shielded procedures for the film festival in Venice, with the same amount of fashion and without a lagoon. I'm wearing the same blue linen dress as then but it's afternoon, underground, and the lighting's just not working for me. One passer-by sees how it is with my stopped luggage and rolls her eyes in sympathy. The guard and I quickly establish we can't speak any of one another's languages. The gates to the city are temporarily closed.

Hopeful Christian migrants rowing their boat in the centre of the city of lights

I slide my pack off, put it down on the stainless steel bench, wriggling my fingers non-committally at the numerous pins holding the broken zipper slot together, then, with a wave of my magical poetry hand, draw the guard's gaze toward the Rollkoffer, unzipping it in the same gliding move to reveal the colourful and glittering trove of single poem poetry books within. 

Voila!

"Poésie" I say. Yes, I actually know one of the most important words in French, surely the most important subject in the school curriculum from year dot given the way les enfants are brainwashed with it, and the word which to my mind most informs wordy French conversational, philosophical, and diplomatic culture. Of course, I am very thrifty with my own words: as you can see it has only taken four paragraphs to almost say "I got stopped for a bag check at the giant shopping mall/public transport hub, said I was a poet, and that near-instantly diffused the high security alert situation". For without the use of any concealed explosives, that single word functions as a little puff of bewitching smoke.

"Vous êtes un poète?" (He probably says. "You're a poet?" the Babel fish whispers in my ear.) 

"Oui."

Somehow I also understand when he asks me where I'm from. Best Olympics French accent: "Nouvelle-Zélande." Given the history, saying "Berlin" is not going to cast the same beguiling spell. The guard uses his magical security pass hand to wave me on. I even extract the directions for Rue Pierre Lescot, "up the escalators".

Hand waving. International language. Non-threatening passport. Sorcery.  

I buzz-code my way into my friend's building in the second arrondissement then can't work out how to open the second internal door. I try to go back out to the street but I can't work out that one either. Trapped in a dimly-lit hallway! With incredible timing my friend Marie descends the stairs from the fifth floor. All I have to to is pull it, she says. There is a (concealed to my eyes) handle built into the entire height of the door-frame. I should have known - this happened to me in Antibes as well. Smoke and mirrors these French doors.

Notre-Dame's front door

But these things are not so important. What is important is getting ready for my first date tonight, one arranged before summer, and that has been desired for a couple of years - featured poet at Spoken Word Paris, tonight's theme 'Saying Goodbye/Leaving/Parting'. On Facebook, friends seem inordinately excited about this date of mine in Paris. Marie cooks me food, Google Maps provides some (slightly nonsensical) walking directions, I speed on foot across town through the fluster of dense evening traffic.

SWP's current resident poet Antonia Klimenko (L) and longstanding ringmaster, David Barnes. PHOTO: Sabine Dundure

Spoken Word Paris https://spokenwordparis.org/ is an open mic night and writers’ community founded in 2006 by David Barnes, with sister events in several other cities round the world. It takes place on most Monday nights throughout the year in the cellar at Au Chat Noir, in the 11th arrondissement, and welcomes all languages onto its stage, with English the dominant tongue. As an open mic participant you get five minutes to strut your stuff before the bell tolls. In my two visits (the first in December 2015) I've seen vast talent here, in what is an extremely international, highly recommended, and entertaining evening of great variety. In 12 minutes I do my best to maintain the standard, and make at least one audience member cry with a particularly raw rendition of an archaic Ukrainian wedding song that farewells a bride - success! 

Before the tears PHOTO: Sabine Dundure

John, an audience member, bought one of these books. Be like John. PHOTO: Sabine Dundure

On the walk back home Marie and I get stuck next to the road on Place de la République. Paris's air pollution situation has improved in recent years, although with so many people and vehicles concentrated in a small area, it's still rotten in spots, and this is one of them. The skateboarders behind us are going great guns, but both of us feel compelled to cover noses and mouths with our shawls. In spite of taking a chill-out day, within 24 hours of arriving I have a little Paris cough. 

On my third day I venture out into the city centre hunting for my second date, a miraculous healing performed by the most famous entity in the city, along with the trees, vegetables, and other wildlife in and around her beside the Seine River...

Detail, wall of public toilets behind Notre-Dame

Salvia gauranitica, garden at Notre-Dame

Galloping giant vegetables, Batman! Garden at Notre-Dame, participating in the city's floral decorations "olympiades végétales" (plant Olympics) contest

Amaranth, garden at Notre-Dame

Wildlife, exterior

Nest, window

The 'Rastafarian' window

Notre-Dame issues her own calm enchantment wrought in stone, wood and glass. When inside, the non-stop city traffic roar falls mute onto her thick-walled ears. She bestows wonder at the hundreds of gifted craftspeople who created her, in a period spanning over 18 decades during the great cultural flourishing of the middle ages. When I learned of her allures, 30 years ago when studying medieval history in Aotearoa New Zealand, I made a pact to see her, and I do so every time I come here. It's an unconditional, unrequited love.

There is nothing remotely like this old makutu in my remote South Pacific home country. I am quite some time. In spite of my slavish adoration being rejected once again by the impassive stone, I'm much the better for her hushed mojo working.

A quick hunting stop nearby yields gargoyle fridge magnets for me and my Berlin neighbour. 

Fakes

Real thing

Heading back to the domestic cauldron, I make dinner and head north on foot to Montmartre for my third date, at Open Secret, run by poet and musician David Sirois. Usually this open stage happens every Wednesday at Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais, starting round 21:00, again open to all-comers, and a bit looser on time-keeping. After the show and a little bit of chatting, suddenly it's midnight. With a sense of urgency in an unfamiliar landscape I make it back home south before the Metro shuts down, via a couple of the oldest Art Nouveau-influenced lines, the lovely rickety carriages that pass along their tracks, and a bewilderingly long and wending tiled transfer. 

Being in that transfer late at night felt something like this

To get out of town from Gare du Nord the following afternoon, I make my last (rainy) Paris walk in plenty of time, which is fortunate, as there's a snaking, distorted reflection of my entry procedure - a  slowish moving line of considerable length comprised of business-people, family groups and solo travellers queued up to run luggage through scanners before boarding. My scanner's staffed by a woman who must surely be the most bored and inattentive security worker I've ever seen. So much for France's continuing state of alert (since the mid-November 2015 attacks).

It is in equal parts discouraging and heartening to find that my carriage, number 18, is right at the far end of the extreeeeeeeeeeeemely long vehicle, which has extra engine power half-way along and two buffet cars. I've only been able to reserve a second class ticket for this one, it's so full. According to the booking clerk I had back at Gare de Lyon, everyone's using trains these days. Now that is magic.