NEEDLING

EARLY MORNING WALK

The walk to the hotel is a good one around 6h15 in the AM. Early morning before the Parisians start their never-ending traffic war between pedestrians and automobilists. The cafés are barely open, the chairs haven’t been taken off the tables, the old fellows are already leaning against the counter sipping their demis, bluecollars and whitecollars alike are having their p’tit cafés and croissants next to the barflies… I like this hour… everything is quiet, the street lamps are still burning, the pigeons are asleep...

At this hour the gates to the hospital Saint-Louis are usually locked and I have to follow the road directly to the canal Saint-Martin. Inside the new hospital, there is a much older one, inside which there is a small square garden. It is a simple garden with old oak trees and four dirt path meeting in a center cicular lawn decorated with flowers. On a sunny day when the light is just right, it’s as if you were in the middle of another age far away from Paris right before the revolution when Robespierre and his pals were still idealistic students remaking the world around a mug of beer rather than around a guillotine. I climb the pedestrian bridge, the one where the canal takes a turn towards Stalingrad, and on top of the bridge is my private little spot, my quiet get away from it all. That’s where I take a breather.

It’s a peaceful moment. This morning, I looked at the quai thinking about the movie "Hotel du Nord.” Though the neighborhood has gone through drastic changes since they shot it, I try to imagine it otherwise, as it might have been once...

In recent years, old buildings have been torn down to be replaced by modern structures of glass and concrete… a multitudes of condos and apartments... a building development company’s wet dream (the canal is considered one of the more ‘romantic’ sections of Paris... not for long…) Small stores and dives have been forced to throw in the towel and give way to hip overpriced trinket stores or hip pricey cafés. Artists squats have been emptied by the C.R.S. (Army police.) There used to be a good one on Rue de la Grange aux Belles.

But at 6h30 in the morning, I can still imagine the voyous, the ouvriers, the artists, the marginals, dancing at a make-do guinguette and drinking table wine and Pernod on the quai. I can still imagine the accordion player doing his business!

Isn’t it silly to be nostalgic for a time and place you’ve never known? One that probably never existed except through the revisionist eyes of movies and books?