Today has been a race between meetings which consisted of a constant repetition of all of my paroles in buzzword lingo.
Our dearest heroine spent these meetings desperately peering between the seconds looking for spare words about last night.
� Montmartres, the heart of the only Paris that elicits romantic tears from my BOSOM.
� Montmartres the sheer thrill it is to, without guidebook or cinematic hype, happen upon one of your careful treasures.
Last night, only slightly winded from the climb up Lamarck and Dac and Saules, the strangest apparition of a little pink cabin with a bunny rabbit painted 'pon it, surrounded by log fence and picture-perfect trees, was the cleverest sight amidst fog-distilled rows upon rows of ironed black streetlamps so lovingly planted in between gleaming cobblestones and voluptous golden stone b�timents as though streetlamps they were the mighty oaks of Lautrec's gardens.
I only discovered this morning that the Lapin Agile is so wonderfully well known in Paris as the homely little bar where the vedettes of the Chat Noir either got their starts, and/or returned to in order to share that impossible coziness.
Before wandering in, I had to make my p�lerinage to the Basilica, to engage in the ritual of losing my breath (and cringeing at amerloque tourists) at the only angle from which the concrete sprawl of the rest of the city is beautiful.
Even the Eiffel tower looks like less of a bloated metal mutilation from the gargantuan doorway of Sacr�-Coeur.
Paying the fistful of Euros, we waited in the entryway for the end of a song before the woman with the ass-length hair showed us to the meticulously worn oak bench at an ancient oak table surrounded by gently humming patrons.
The homemade cherry liquer and it's uncanny resemblence to our polish family secret cherry liquer was the second shock.
The first was to wander into a wall of brilliant only-exist-in-fairytales voices singing one of the songs we sang about the table on New Year's eve...
ELLE AIME A RIRE ELLE AIME A BOIREUUUU,
ELLE AIME A CHANTER COMME UN LOUP...
Sitting at that table wrapped in his arms singing along to traditional folk and early century songs along with all the patrons of the bar is just the barest extension of the magic of belting out folk songs at a wild party.
I have not the words to explain the incredible spirit here, that I had found in Lyon and in Bretagne and had returned to France to find again.
Imagine, going out drinking to participate in a wonderous thing, participate in the swell of music rather than just going out to get drunk.
(To me, THAT is the purpose of a society, that feeling of community, not this modern method of getting as much as you can for as little as you can.)
This is one of the things that I begrudge the New Americas. Aloofness. Uncoolness. The stimga attached to quaint and warm things.
The utter loss of the ebullient encouragement to participate in group activities.
In America, you're a keener, a geek, a weirdo when you submit to ice-breaker games in camp and act like you enjoy them or have any spirit.
Last night, there was no shame. Only sharing, and the overwhelming beauty of the music, the voices, and the disbelief that such a thing was happening, and that I was there.
When the smile broke his face into a shining thing at the spectacle, my heart was near to exploding.