I am sitting in my little studio which is wonderful, especially with its little balconies and view of the tower. I have tried to watch it light up every night but somehow missed the night it was lit up in blue and white in tribute to Israel having been attacked by Hamas a few days ago. The situation is still volatile, with Hamas threatening to kill Israeli hostages, of which there seem to be over 150 including children, for each attack by Israel, which has declared war on Hamas. I am actually surprised, though, by the strength in which France, the US, and other countries have come out in support of Israel, given how much criticism it has come under for its treatment of Palestinians. Yes, the violence is an atrocity, but is the Israeli government response much better? Today is my next to last day here. I have felt guilty just spending time in my little apartment, but have now convinced myself that it’s just as valid an experience hanging out here as wandering around the city. My only complaint is that it’s too hot! Really, in October. This is a very sunny apartment, and I have to keep moving around and moving tables and desk around to find a shady place. This apartment was once what they called a chambre de bonne, or maid’s room. They are small rooms that used to belong to the owners of the apartments below, with a separate back staircase leading up to them. Now they have become chic studios, or in some cases, student rooms, or so I’ve read. I once lived in one, in 1969 or 70. I remember my parents coming to visit. I’m sure they were shocked by the primitive conditions, although I don’t remember them saying so. I had only the room. The toilet was out in the hall, shared by all the rooms on the floor. I remember a family lived in two rooms next door, but don’t remember interacting with them. I don’t remember where I took showers. It must have been at school. I ate lunch at school, and probably just bread or patisseries for other meals. My friend Marie is coming in about an hour. We have been friends since college here. She was partly raised in the US, partly in Europe. She’d gone to high school at the American School in Madrid, where her father was the headmaster. Before that, he’d been headmaster at the Choate school in the US. She lives in Beaulieu, in the Loire valley, a tiny quaint town. She’d been an English teacher, is now retired. She is actually on her way to the US for a memorial service for her brother, although her other siblings still live in France. And her daughters, and grandchildren, live in England. We have managed to stay in touch all this time, although have just seen each other sporadically, mostly here in France. She did come to our wedding party in NY, though, bringing her youngest daughter, who was an infant at the time. I carried her baby into the party, wanting to shock my parents’ friends into thinking she was my baby. And I think I did, at least one or two. Really immature of me, I think now, especially since I was already 30 years old at the time. Marie will only be here around 24 hours. She has to depart about the same time tomorrow for the US. So it was really lucky that we were able to coordinate, since I am leaving just a day later. Yesterday, I went to see the badly damaged Notre Dame, being reconstructed for the last four years since the fire in 2019. They intend to have it finished next year, in time for the Olympics. I was expecting to get a small view and feel sad about the tragedy. But my reaction was different. I was overwhelmingly impressed by the scope of the project, with huge amounts of scaffolding and at least six cranes that I could see. Even though I’d seen a documentary on tv detailing the work of the restoration specialists, including finding trees to replace those burnt, and all kinds of ways they were reproducing the ancient techniques with which the cathedral was originally built in the middle ages. It just made me appreciate more all the work that was done to originally build the place, and respect all the work being done now even more. In a way, although it sounds strange, I feel like I appreciated the place even more than before it was damaged. I sat in one place for probably an hour, watching the cranes move and looking at the tiny workers high up on the scaffolding. I could have stayed even longer. I had deliberately gone to close to the place where I sat with a friend, Dieter, another student at the school, many decades ago, before dawn and similarly just stared at the cathedral. It was 1969 and I don’t remember how long we were there and what we’d done earlier that night. But I can guess we were high on hashish. The cathedral was in the process of being cleaned, a procedure that took a number of years, having become quite black over the centuries. We sat at the edge of the Seine. The side we were facing, and that I was facing yesterday, was still black, but the one around to the left had already been cleaned. At that time, I guess people had only known the cathedral as black. It must have been quite amazing to see it become white. And now most people only know it as white. Unless they are my age or older. I often think of Dieter. He became addicted to drugs, heroin I think, and as far as I can remember, joined the army because he thought he could obtain drugs more easily. I don’t know if that was true, or even if that was really the reason, or main reason, that he did enlist. I saw him once when he was on leave, and he told me about being a helicopter gunner, his job to knock off the people that tried to escape by clinging to the bottom of the helicopter as it took off. It’s now two days later, and my last night in Paris. I fly back to Barcelona tomorrow for one night, and then to Boston via London the next day. Loring has emerged from his adventures in the wilderness. I heard from him this morning. We will have lots of stories to trade when we see each other in a couple of days. Marie has come and gone. We met up yesterday afternoon at a café down the street from my apartment, right at the metro station. She had somehow gotten lost once she got to the train station in Paris and was quite late. She was pretty frustrated. I was fine. It’s hard to complain about waiting in a Paris café and watching the world go by. We went to the Pompidou yesterday after she dropped her suitcase at my place. It’s only a block from the Poissoniere metro, so very convenient, and I like the neighborhood very much. There’s a small supermarket across the street, and a bakery around the corner. The Pompidou was great. Their permanent collection is wonderful, and there was a Chagall exhibit. I hadn’t realized it, but the exhibit largely focused on his designs for the Opera Garnier ceiling, which I had just seen a few days before. There were lots of maquettes and sketches, as well as other designs for Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet. And several ceramic sculptures. I hadn’t known that he did ceramics. They had faces similar to some of his painted work. But my favorite pieces were a series of collages that combined painting and drawing with textural materials like lace.

There were some other fascinating works, including a tiny shop that had really existed, then been dismantled and reconstructed at the museum. It was very quirky and I wasn’t sure what it had actually sold. It was more of an art installation than any shop I’ve ever seen. Must have been quite something when it was out in the “real” world. Both of us were really tired but it was a while before we could pull ourselves away from the museum. By then we were hungry. There are tons of restaurants in the vicinity of the museum, but I assumed they would be tourist oriented, overpriced, and not great quality. That didn’t prove to be the case though. I had a delicious confit de canard, duck on the bone cooked in its fat, with potatoes and those wonderful thin French green beans. I really haven’t eaten at restaurants that much during my two weeks here. Not because I mind eating alone. I just seem to prefer having breakfast here, at the apartment, with some kind of snack during the day, a salad or a crepe, then something light back at home again in the evening. I think I’ve had just four real meals at restaurants over the last two weeks. A few days ago I went to try a restaurant a few blocks from here that my host, Paul, had recommended. When I got there, though, it was crowded and noisy, and even if there had been a table for me I don’t think I would have wanted to eat there. So I tried another restaurant I’d passed on the way, and had a delicious leg of lamb, with zucchini and potatoes, and a rich chocolate ganache desert. The server/owner spoke flawless English. Turns out she was originally from Connecticut but was married to a French man and has lived in Paris for many years. The name of the restaurant is Dylan.