#tourists
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Paris settling in. My every appliance, gadget and charger have been bricked by the weird, French electricity, which bobs when it should weave or something - but you still can’t stick a fork in the sockets.
I’ve also been meandering the right bank* arrondissements for fashions. Students at Université Paris Cité, in the everyday, dress more chicly and elegantly than Yalies or nerdy Harvard ‘barneys.’
I’ve noticed a lot of Asian, selfie-taking tourists in Paris. They come in like waves of invaders as the river-cruises dock. Now, anyone that’s known me for some time, will tell you that my friends and I’ve been taking selfies for decades.
Just not in the middle of the street or with total strangers trying to relax on crisp, cool, early summer morning, while sipping an espresso hangover cure. Was COVID deadly? Well, it certainly killed off the last etiquettes that separated us from the animals.
I’m not anti-tourist - nope - I just moved back here myself - but these smiling, terribly polite, middle-aged people, think nothing of stopping someone abruptly in the street to ask directions, in a foreign language - as if they’re at Tokyo-Disneyland where the locals are cast members simulating real life.
Would you expect anyone on a busy, work-a-day Manhattan street to happily stop and converse? Not a chance. Women would recoil like snakes and the men would dodge like O.J Simpson or shoulder you to the ground. Still, they call Parisians rude.
I am becoming more serpentine and evasive as I shop, as-if I were a spy in occupied territory. Charles and I form a one-man phalanx, with me following in his wake, like a dolphin trailing along a great ship.
They may need to put up signage, like, “Look (at the locals) but don’t touch,” but in what language?
Let’s wax free-versely… freever-ishly?
*It’s a pleasure to walk the banks
of the dark, reflective Saine again.
and watch the warm, evenings for
the first cool stirrings of fall.
Once you’ve visited Paris, it stays with you.
Nothing’s simple here, not the moonlight,
the serene european atmosphere or
the better-than-you sense of right and wrong.
I’m young in a very old city.
I like dessert crawls, and “rock’n’roll clubs.”
Hemingway wrote, that
‘‘You receive in return what you bring to Paris.’*
That’s probably not an exact quote.
but I think that’s where they got “What happens in Vegas.”
.
.
Songs for this:
Come to Me by Koop
Leena by Caravan Palace
Right Now by The Creatures
Aug 15, 2025
Aug 15, 2025 at 10:11 PM UTC
Peter (my bf) and I were in Paris, about three weeks ago (I was on Spring break, he was on vacation from work).
‘Headstart for Happiness,’ by ‘the Style Council,’ was playing low somewhere.
“This is the kind of starry winter night that guy from the Netherlands used to paint,” I observed.
“If you were writing about it,” he asked, “how would you describe it?”
“Imagine a deep, still blue, hosting a field of luminescent light scatter, and a bashful moon, low in the sky, as if it were hiding in the trees.” I guessed.
“It’ll moonset soon,” he said “within the hour.” he added.
“I never think of moonsets.” I said, looking at the sky like it was new.
“The moon follows the line of the ecliptic,” he said, as if that meant something, “more or less,” he qualified.
“To think I grew up under an undifferentiated sky,” I marveled.
When I’m with him, I can relax, I don’t have to be-on, he’s smart enough.
Of course, I’d come in handy if he went into cardiac arrest or started choking on something.
We were sitting side by side, outside ‘Le Café du Marché,’ a bistro near the Eiffel Tower. Our waiter, Léo, had just refilled our coffee. It was 9:30 PM and we’d been at this table for about two hours.
We’d reduced the tarte-tatin to a few crumbs forty minutes ago, but Léo knows me and although they're thirty tourists in line for tables, he won’t rush us.
Like puppets dance, we often mimic lines - I don’t know why.
“I was stalking you,” I confided, running a finger along his long-sleeve shirt-cuff.
“I was stalking you,” He said. Our eyes were fixed on each other.
“No, seriously,” I said, moving in much closer, to be serious.
“No, seriously,” He deadpanned back.
“Then I caught you,” I went on, and I was very close now, our lips maybe two inches apart.
“No, I caught you,” he said, smiling as I got very close. “It was ****** Jujitsu,” he softly bragged.
“Wax on, wax off,” I said before I stole a quick kiss.
Peter was shocked, a scooch, by French teens.
If French teens have a crush, especially in Paris, it’s a ‘drop what you’re doing,’ snog-fest - between classes in the hall, on-the-metro, in a coffee shop or grocery store they go-all-in, because love must be stormy, urgent, tinchy.
Here’s a secret. Peter says, “You **** my face, like no one ever has.” It must be the French in me. Ha!
Of course, I learned all I know about love from Taylor Swift.
Let’s see, first, I must be willing to let down my guard - because love can happen at any time.
Love, at its best, is overwhelming, mistake prone, meaningful and powerful - but I can’t assume it’ll last, because my lover may have ulterior motives. I could be hurt or changed by the experience - but I’ll have the memories. Eventually though, I’ll heal enough to try again - with a new set of expectations.
Maybe I’ll even write a song or a poem about it.
Apr 13, 2024
Apr 13, 2024 at 1:49 PM UTC
When they came down from their disk
With their blinding lights
And their alloy ramps
It quickly became obvious
Unexpectedly, in our hubris,
That they wished only to
Gas up,
Take some pictures of squirrels
And stretch their limbs
Before setting out toward a finer frontier.
Aug 31, 2021
Aug 31, 2021 at 10:24 PM UTC
He walks the end of the pier, alone
No home to go to,
A ghost in ragged clothes
Passing among the crowds,
Unseen and unheard
But he always feeds the gulls,
Their noisy raucous squabbling
Over a few scraps of bread,
Reminds him of how unhappy
All these tourists really are,
Pretending to enjoy their holiday
Kidding themselves they are free.
Sep 17, 2019
Sep 17, 2019 at 6:37 PM UTC
off the view
a tree stands in mute amazement
watching beside him
another group of tourists
devour the scenery
with flashy teeth
Jun 18, 2017
Jun 18, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
Daily walks would lead me down
The tourist laden streets
Where people from all walks of life
Would congregate and meet
Buskers, singers, ne'er do wells
Would work throughout the throngs
But in back of Giannis restaurant
Sat an old man sharing songs
He didn't sing so much as talk
His voice was hoarse with age
But a milk box and an orange crate
Were his table, chair and stage
His instrument, an old guitar
Scarred, battle worn and black
His guitar strap was as old as he
An old potato sack
He sat and played to nobody
He just let the words be there
His audience could be a hundred deep
Sometimes it could be air
His music was his lifes blood
It was everything he had
So he shared it with the people
And the people....they were glad
The tourists, stayed away though
They were more attracted by the flair
Of the buskers and the jugglers
Not this man who wasn't there
He never left to join the crowd
And to sell his songs to those
Who really wanted nothing more
Than to hear some manufactured prose
The people who he played to
Were just others from the street
They worked the bars and restaurants
And at night they'd find a seat
In front of this old bluesman
Sitting by his orange box
Playing his guitar by candle light
Taking in his songs and talks
He sang songs from the heart, I guess
About those who'd he'd met
He'd sing about a dozen songs
That would constitue a set
Then he'd open up his silver flask
And ******* two gulps down
"This here's just my medicine"
"My past lives just to drown"
He sang of Truck Stop Beauty Queens
And of Walks out in the park
He sang of people living life
Not just hiding in the dark
He sang of things so real you'd see
Their pictures in your mind
He'd sing of places and of things
That others would not find
But tourists, they just stayed away
Near the buskers blowing fire
While yards away this old man sat
Just like an old town cryer
His audience would leave a bit
of change for their free show
He never asked for anything
For this was his row to ***
At two though when the street shut down
He closed his show down too
But he always had an extra song
A special one for you
His music came from in his heart
He shared it without fear
For once it left his throat it was
A sound that was so dear
The tourists went to hotels
Once the buskers all went home
But he just moved his crate and box
He slept out here alone
He sang his songs of characters
Who helped make us his life
His words were sometimes gentle
While others cut you like a knife
His world was just that orange crate
And his music helped unfurl
The melodies in this mans mind
It helped him share his world
He knew some things and people that
Would take rather than give
He sang about the street people
Because among them he did live
His home was just a cardboard box
Behind Giannis bar
And if you want to see a real good show
You don't have to go far
It's just a little beaten path
Away from tourist fare
Where this little, old, shy
Bluesman sings to hundreds or the air..
May 4, 2012
May 4, 2012 at 12:13 PM UTC
I do not believe I could ever love anyone enough to make them my home. My home will always be red dirt and oak trees under the best sunsets in the entire sky with potato patches and country dirt roads, fumbling through sticky tourists on steamy days and letting the salt water feed my skin on the beach I spent all my summers at. My home will always be raspberry cordial and late nights in lovers lane with Canada days in crowded parks and childhood pictures with cannons, my home will always be drunken sidewalks and midnight Chinese, dancing in my drive way and smoking on my back porch. I could never make home in a person enough to follow them away from the place I love...
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
Covent Garden.
Midnight.
Revellers and tourists combined.
The market is heaving.
Last trains are leaving.
An eclectic mix to broaden the mind.
Covent Garden.
2am.
The place is pretty quiet.
Pubs have closed.
Clubs.... God knows.
The tourists have frozen their riot.
Covent Garden.
4am.
A drunkard stumbles by.
Flood lit shops.
A rickshaw stops.
The backdrop against a reddish
sky.
Covent Garden.
6am.
Blokes lurk down Langley street.
The glint of a blade.
A blur in the shade.
Lava tip of cigarette falls to a strangers feet.
Covent Garden.
8am.
Commuters emerge from underground stations.
Workers prepare.
Visitors beware.
Pick pockets attracted like gravitation.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 2:30 PM UTC
Thank you, tourists
For pausing.
For capturing
Every moment.
Your cameras draped,
Quivering below your necks
Your necks rosy
with sun.
Sunscreen scents
Swarm the air
But the air bursts
Diverse Dialects,
Dogmas,
and Dreams.
Thank you
From a resident,
A student,
A visitor,
A wanderer.
Thank you
For immobilizing
Glorious minutes
For impeding time
Just for a moment.
For acknowledging-
So that those who neglect to notice,
Once again realize their riches.
Thank you
For your quiet grins
As you regard
The world.
Thank you, travelers.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 6:08 AM UTC
Rolling on by east west way
I could almost see behind me,
As I almost did yesterday.
In my right corner eye
I saw the sun shine setting
and on my left the ocean was swaying and swelling.
Rolling on by east west way.
The sand searchers toy store
was full and flowing more and more.
Yet while staring at it straight ahead
I only saw a light changing to red.
Rolling on by east west way.
So I glanced a moment to the setting sun
and to my right was the only direction
I could see the light.
But the sand searchers toy store was blocking the rays
and it only beckoned me to play.
Rolling on by east west way.
If only I could've rolled on by east west way
as the sun was rising over the ocean's sway.
Then perhaps I would see and stay
in the right light.
Not rolling on by east west way.
Oct 3, 2011
Oct 3, 2011 at 7:43 PM UTC