NEEDLING

LETTERS FROM MY WINDMILL

Stepped out of the studio and went for a much needed little walk. And what a day for a walk. Found myself at the Père Lachaise walking around the tiny alleyways. What I like to do when I go there is get off the main pathways. I like to walk among the graves and get lost. The small alleyways and the main pathways go in all direction taking turns and such. In the older part of the cemetery, with the hills, the old trees, the decrepit graves, it’s easy to forget which way is which.

I sat down on a flat tomb stone to write on my spiral journal. I’m not happy with this blog, though I think it’s slowly going in the direction where eventually I’ll be happier with it, and I was asking myself some questions on how I could improve and find what I’m looking for. I was also feeling a little bad because I had fun last night and my entry makes it sound as if I didn’t enjoy the company who came to diner. It’s that I woke up with a horrible hangover, completely dehydrated, congested, and unable to go back to sleep. It was barely 8h30 and I found myself instantly in a bad mood. An acutely selfish bad mood. By the time I’d sat down on the grave stone, forty or so minutes after I’d left my place, I felt much better with life in general. Cemeteries do this to me. Especially this particular cemetery.

I never go to the Père Lachaise looking for any particular grave. I prefer as I said to get lost and to come upon different graves by accident. I sat scribbling on my notepad having chosen the slab I sat on for no reason except that it was very old, you couldn’t read any of the inscriptions that were once on it, that it was black from dirt and age, and that nobody in their right mind could be offended for me sitting on it. That’s why I chose it. Plus it was off the main track and I figured I’d be left alone.

To my amazement, a family of three stopped at a grave just next to mine, stood on top of the grave, and took a picture in the opposite direction. After they left and that I was through scribbling, I got up and looked in the direction they were pointing the camera. A medium size square mausoleum with nothing special about it except a bronze portrait of a mustached man. If you’re looking for this grave, you have to know exactly where it’s at because the portrait is in the back of the mausoleum and hidden behind and between a couple of gravestones. You cannot see it. I was sitting right next to it and I hadn’t noticed it. I got closer to read the inscription on the white marble the bronze portrait is set against. I could barely make out the name: Alphonse Daudet, 1840-1887.

After that I started walking towards Oscar Wilde’s grave. This goes against my personally imposed Père Lachaise visiting regulations but I wanted to go there. (The rule being I should have absolutely no itinerary.) It’s one of the easier ones to find. It stands on an important pathway in the newer side of the cemetery where instead of winding alleyways everything is square. It stands not far from Place Gambeta. You can’t miss it. It’s imposing looking, massive, and I like admiring it every once in a while. I passed the crematorium, took a right, and came back wanting to reach it from the back. And for some reason I walked right passed it without seeing it even though I looked everywhere for it. Then I was completely lost. Couldn’t make out my location. Which way my studio, place Gambeta, the boulevard… totally déboussole… I was all turned around so I kept walking missing Wilde’s resting spot and eventually deciding not to go back looking for it. I stepped out of the cemetery rue de la Reunion.

I’m sitting in a café rue St. Bernard, now. I’m having a couple of demis and a sandwich jambon-beurre checking out “Lettres de mon Moulin” by Daudet. Right before stepping into this café, I bought a copy at a nearby bookstore. It was the only book they had by him in the whole store.

Does that book hold any answers for me concerning my blog? Quite possibly.