I have found that Paris is just like any other city: completely dominated by cars. In some ways, it is just as bad as any American city in this respect, and in some ways much better. However, it is making good progress in reversing the great car culture mistake of the 20th century, where cities across the planet made cars the center of their existence.

Examples of something good against Parisian car culture

Anne Hidalgo’s persistent efforts to retake the city for people instead of cars are commendable.

This interview showcases her patient, rational approach. She is not dismissive of the wails of parking advocates but instead points to the democratic process that elected her (a socialist) and other environmentalist leaders.

In the interview, she says, "Une partie de la droite parisienne s’est ‘trumpisée’ sous l’impulsion de Madame Dati. C’est délétère pour la démocratie." In other words, when a loud minority is losing the social tide, they resort to nasty attacks online and turn up the polarization by claiming to be under attack and using other such tactics. Another word for it is "gilet jaune-ification," referring to the movement in 2018 where rural drivers shut down intersections to protest a number of vaguely defined issues, with high gas prices at the center of it.

Automated fines for noise pollution:

France has drastically reduced traffic deaths through automated speeding cameras. Now, after a long process of technical and legal refinement, cities such as Paris will cut down on the hellish noise that rips through neighborhoods and impacts human health. Automated sensors will fine drivers. This is one issue where the smallest moped engines make the most noise. They are truly obnoxious. It has been said that a single moped driving across the city could wake up thousands of people. Residents hate them. For police patrolling the streets, it is not a priority. Finally, the government will do something about it.

Eliminating parking spots and raising parking fees, especially for the biggest, heaviest, and most dangerous cars:

Some cities, such as Oslo, have had success in the war on cars by simply eliminating parking spots. Paris has done this and is also consistently raising parking fees for cars. The biggest fees will go to the most destructive vehicles: SUVs, trucks, and vans that are large, heavy, highly polluting, and dangerous. In my opinion, these vehicles do not belong in the city at all.

Interestingly, in the linked article, some drivers are accepting of the fees. They seem to understand that the users of a road should pay for the negative impact they have. But they also do their share of whining. I think this is because drivers here also walk. In the US, drivers universally claim victimhood and outrage when their free, ubiquitous, unlimited parking is threatened. American drivers have only the windshield perspective and do not experience life on two feet.

Bike lanes everywhere:

You can bike everywhere in Paris, but you have to keep your wits about you. There is so much activity on the streets that I am grateful I bought an urban-style utility/commuter bike with an upright stance and wide handlebars. Cars are a threat, but they are only a part of the traffic. As a result, you don’t see endless streams of cars roaring past at high speeds like in the US, where stepping into the road is risking your life.

Even where there are no bike lanes, speeds are lower, stoplights are frequent, and there is safety in numbers. A driver cannot plow through a crowd of people without getting caught and going to jail, whereas in the US, a driver can easily kill a person and then use the ironclad defense, "I didn’t see them."

Drivers and politicians here are walkers too

This youtube channel does a great job of documenting the issues around non-car mobility in paris. The author recently posted a video and analysis of a local politician intervening in an altercation between a jackass cab driver and a cyclist.

A ban on rentable scooters:

These electric foot scooters, although fun, are simply not needed. Paris banned them because they were being left to block sidewalks, and clueless tourists were joyriding and breaking their skulls on the concrete. Micromobility is a good thing, but Paris pushed back against tech companies in this case, especially after it was shown that people who used the scooters would have just walked if they were not available. Paris does not bend over backward to serve tourists and tech companies. (Of note, a lot of those loud and polluting mopeds are from drivers working for gig delivery companies.)

Slower vehicle speeds and no stroads:

This has been proven again and again: slowing down cars saves lives and makes the city livable. Eliminating US-style stroads is also essential. The only taste of a stroad I have seen here is in the Périphérique, which rings the city. As expected, it is polluted, hostile, and dangerous, and there is often little reason to cross it since most of the good stuff is inside this ugly perimeter.

During recent days of higher than usual ozone and particulate pollution, citywide speed limits were reduced further.

I look forward to the day when all cars have a speed delimiter that allows them only to creep within the city and can be reduced until all traffic deaths have been eliminated. It is cars that kill. Once we control the cars, we eliminate the deaths.

Examples of something bad in Parisian car culture:

Diesel cars dominate:

Unfortunately, Paris has many diesel cars. The exhaust from these vehicles includes a huge amount of particulates, which cause cancer, pulmonary disease, dementia, and premature death. The streets reek of diesel exhaust, and it will be a long time before this gets better since these engines last forever. This is yet another example of a society prioritizing cheap convenience over human health.

On a recent day when particulate pollution was four times the WHO limit for health, I witnessed a driver sitting in his idling diesel work van for half an hour while he ate, picked his nose, and played on his phone. This was just feet from an outdoor workout area where people were trying to exercise. Just like in the US, I sometimes feel I live in a different world than certain people, where we each have alien arrays of facts, values, and understandings of what is acceptable and what is not.

Mopeds:

These vehicles are noisy and smelly and need to be electrified and reduced in number ASAP.

American-style SUVs, vans, and pickups are spreading here:

Sadly, I saw a Ram pickup truck on Rue St Jacques recently. It could hardly fit into the parking spot, so its ridiculous ass-end was extending out into the street. Other SUVs are growing in size and obnoxiousness as well. This Ram was dinky compared to the lifted douche wagons I see in Washington and Oregon, though.

Drivers kill and maim people here just as anywhere else

Tragically, a driver struck a cyclist in my neighborhood last week and then sped off. The young female cyclist had her legs amputated as a result. Bafflingly, the news publication referred to this as an “accident,” just as in coverage of car carnage in the US. Hit and run drivers (the scum of the Earth) are here, there, and everywhere.

European cities will figure this all out first. American cities will eventually get there.

European cities were designed before car culture came to dominate. They will be the first to create livable, climate-resilient cities where humans are centered, and not cars. Eventually, American cities will follow. I have seen a lot of progress in Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, Seattle, and Paris. And I will keep pressuring my local politicians for car-free cities wherever I live.

About the photo

This guy channeled the spirit of Vercingetorix. Yet you shouldn’t have to be a fierce pagan warrior to survive biking the city streets.

In Parc Montsouris, a few blocks from my apartment, I had the privilege of attending a Chopin concert. The pianist wore a red scarf and a white dress, reflecting the colors of the Polish flag, and she showed mastery of the pieces that got the crowd excited and (some of them, at least) rapt.

The connection between the nations of France and Poland runs deep, exemplified by the harmonic genius of Chopin himself and his resting place in Père Lachaise Cemetery (next on my promenade à vélo list).

A music video by a Parisian filmmaker featuring Hania Rani’s music and the natural beauty of the French Alps also reflects this relationship. This video is a marvel, expressing harmony, awe, spontaneity, and synergy. It effortlessly transported me to epic montane surroundings, where I felt caressed and elevated by the rhythmic repetition of "Hello" in Hania Rani’s tranquilizing hush. It’s a nice video that shows how joyful movement and sound relate to the magnificent natural world.

During the Montsouris performance, which included familiar nocturnes and polonaises, my thoughts drifted to a film I had watched the day before called "Les Innocentes," a portrayal of a French doctor aiding Polish nuns who had suffered in silence and isolation, impregnated by Soviet troops during World War II. It served as a reminder to branch out from my usual film viewing and try something new. I thought about Kurt Vonnegut’s portrayal of Poles as the clowns of World War II, whereas the French are generally portrayed in cinema and literature as a cultural powerhouse (but who tend to lose wars).

The concert itself was an emotional journey for me. Arriving ten minutes early, I discovered that the seats were already filled. Adapting, I perched beneath a nearby tree, seeking a spot away from the crowd, hoping not to stand out conspicuously as an outsider. I wanted to listen with focus and be both highly present and elsewhere.

As the concert unfolded, nature had its own plan, and raindrops began to fall, gently at first, then with increasing intensity. A crowd gathered around me, seeking shelter from the warm raindrops. I felt a growing sense of claustrophobia as people pressed in on me, their feet shuffling incessantly closer, inches from my eyes. I tried not to look at (and imagine) the diabetic feet of the woman in front of me, with her cankles, cyanosis, and calloused flesh on the verge of necrosis and amputation. But these were negative-tending predictions about the future, whereas the present (I reminded myself) was a concert in a Parisian park with warm rain coming down. I averted my gaze, focusing on the music and following the mental journey of the pieces.

Rain continued to come down, and predictably, the crowd under the tree got denser. Feet inched closer, bringing with them the odor of sweat and mundane family conversations. A mother even started singing "Baby Shark" to her young child, seemingly disregarding the pianist playing a mere fifteen feet away, who had traveled a long way and prepared a lot to perform here, only to be drowned out by rain and the viral productions of PinkFong.

I turned inward while focusing on the music, using mental concentration muscles developed through meditation. I reminded myself of the impermanence of every mental and physical state, finding that I could let go of judgment of the flaky skin and human blemishes in front of me while celebrating the music that had resonated with me countless times in digital format. Although live conditions seemed to hinder its full splendor, I remained rooted and absorbed the lesson that external distractions did not dampen the essence of the performance.

In fact, I considered how a pure "Boltzmann brain" floating in remote space and hooked up to high-fidelity headphones to appreciate this sequence of exquisite keystrokes would not be a superior or inferior experience to the present one, if such a brain existed. It would just be the reality of the matter. Similarly, when, in Steppenwolf, Harry Haller lamented the tinny, adulterated Mozart played through a radio, or in Watchmen when Dr. Manhattan fled to Mars to craft a sterile crystal palace with indifference to the impending human slaughter on Earth, neither one of them was accepting what was before them. In the end, though, they came around to acceptance and a balanced understanding, and so did I.

The rain was sudden and intense enough to provoke flooding on the other side of Paris. The impermeable concrete and asphalt of this city are increasingly a liability. However, the city is acting to correct these climate vulnerabilities.

The pianist moved into a piece of impossible complexity that reflects the height of human skill and harmonies. This sequence was included in one of my favorite movies, which happens to be a French made-for-TV movie based on "Flowers for Algernon." This adaptation happens to be better than the book, in my opinion, due to the limitations of the journal format of the original book. The sequence I refer to is at 56:23 in this link and points to how a rendition that is too "cerebral" is just not right, in a way that is hard to articulate.

Eventually the rain subsided and the crowd dispersed from beneath the tree, no longer encroaching on my personal space and immediate field of view. The pianist concluded the concert with flawless (and emotive) renditions of certain polonaises, nocturnes, and mazurkas. The smiling, petite, blond pianist bowed and beamed. I took one last look at her pixie hairdo and red scarf and walked home.

Now, I feel a desire for more. Hearing Chopin’s complete preludes performed live, even if remotely approaching the caliber of Seong-Jin Cho’s rendition of the 15th, would make me bust a nut. There are more Chopin concerts in the park coming, and I will be there for the next one, and I’ll be ready for the rain.

About the photo
A view of the epic walk from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, past the Place de la Concorde, where 1300 people were guillotined. At this time of year the sun is right over the Arc and the gentle uphill climb feels like a pilgrimage.

The Bois de Vincennes is a realm of parkland and urban recreation just outside the périphérique (outer ring road) of Paris. Although it is crisscrossed by roads, there is a lot of nature to observe (and not just well-fed Canada geese). I biked from my apartment in the 14th arrondissement to this large green patch on the map.

I enjoyed the sights of boaters, picnickers, and children hitting piñatas. Going further into the trails of this regional park, I discovered the Jardin Botanique, a sanctuary of botanical science. Here, there were exhibitions of centuries-old bonsai trees, each branch, leaf, and needle telling a story of resilience and harmony in response to deliberate deprivation of soil, nutrients, and space. Amid these small forms, peacocks strutted around, and although they squawked loudly, I did not see the full display of their tail feathers.

Walking in the Jardin Botanique is a journey of ecological exploration. Each area of the garden carries a theme, such as an area of plant evolution (for example, cycads that dominated the Earth for many millions of years) or a regional type of plant flora (such as northern conifers). The interplay of the Paris region’s climate with these carefully cultivated spaces held my attention for a few hours of wandering. A light rain threatened to get more intense but held off for the evening. Although it was very humid, I appreciated finally getting some rain after many days of hot, dry, dusty sunshine.

Amid my enjoyment of nature, a familiar event happened. As I looked for the ornithological center (closed off and inaccessible), a man approached me and asked if I knew the woods well. I hate to stereotype, but I was near the nudist area, and I think he was a gay cruiser looking for some kind of sexual encounter. This has happened to me before as a clueless birder in an urban but secluded natural area. I like vaginas only, but I might return to improve the consistency of my tan. When I said I was looking for the ornithological center, he said, "Alors, bonne chance," and moved on.

I think the Bois de Boulogne on the other side of town may be a more primeval natural area with fewer roads, and I plan to visit it soon, even though it is farther from me. Although I liked the Bois de Vincennes, it is very much an urban oasis. I will revisit this extraordinary sanctuary and also find other tranquil and accessible patches of green near me.

About the photo
Temple Romantique de l’Île de Reuilly au Bois de Vincennes, juin 2023

I visited this incredible gallery of life forms in paris and learned a lot.

French natural history museum, opened for an exhibition in the late 1800s

The Grande galerie de l’evolution opened during an exhibition during the heyday of Paris and was renovated more recently. The displays are lifelike and out in the open, a far cry from other natural history museums where the specimens are locked in cabinets and behind glass. The African animals on the second floor are in a procession, allowing you to see and compare their often immense size. The whale skeletons are unbelievably huge and allow you to look at the leg bones which have almost disappeared over the evolutionary timescale.

Blown away by the models and taxonomy. Informative text

The saddest gallery is of course the one on extinct or threatened species. I especially hate the thought that we continue to kill off our closest relatives, such as the chimp, gorilla, and orangutan.

Recent reports on the ivory billed woodpecker come to mind. A researcher once again used poor quality photographs and wishful thinking to claim that the species is still alive somewhere in Louisiana. We want to believe we didn’t kill off this iconic American bird by destroying its habitat. We want to preserve this one species while not restoring the swampland where it evolved.

Connect to my summer of reading in biology

This summer I read widely in biology. Two books were my highlights: on the Origin of species by Charles Darwin, and the Deep History of Ourselves by joseph ledoux.

My personal admiration for Darwin grew. I loved his homespun experiments and observations. I liked his extensive correspondence with scientists throughout the world, noted conversationally in the book. Several of them are cited in the Grande galerie and on the street names of paris. The book is actually pretty readable.

I wonder about the inductive method in biology and how it might serve us in the future. It is sometimes looked down upon as not being scientifically rigorous despite being the foundation of darwin’s method. For example, if you applied inductive reasoning to the motion of objects, you would be misled. Only experimentation and mathematization would lead you to the laws of motion or relativity.

But especially now, AI can synthesize a huge amount of information and come to conclusions without necessarily using the scientific method. The scientific method may just be a guard against human heuristic errors and thinking traps. An AI could bypass some of this if trained (or trained to train) in the right way. After all, some of the frontiers of science are partly speculative. We cannot run experiments on distant life forms or exoplanets. But we can model and induce and generalize based on what we observe, just as Darwin did.

The Deep History of Ourselves was fantastic and it felt like a powerhouse display of all we have learned since Darwin’s time. The book captures the endless inventiveness of nature, the tradeoffs of multicellularity, and the relentless selection pressures that eventually selected for consciousness. The book ends abruptly with a chapter on emotion, suggesting that emotion is the most recent and most derived trait in the conscious mind.

The book, though subtitled as being about minds, was much more than that. As Ledoux described in his introduction, his writings about the mind led him further and further back, until he was outside his realm of expertise and had to adopt the writing process of a science journalist. Funny, because the same thing happened to Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan when they wrote “shadows of forgotten ancestors” (also highly recommended).

Napped on a bench

I napped on a bench in the Jardin des plantes under a plane tree and enjoyed the crows, doves and parakeets that live in this park.

Author reading

I dropped into an author reading at Shakespeare and Co. I immediately disliked the author when he spoke, within 2 minutes, about how he “dislikes” capitalism, apologized for writing a “manspreading” book, and said that F. Scott Fitzgerald was problematic. He also dropped the words misogynistic, patriarchy and bigotry like they were code words for immediate acceptance by the crowd.

I reflected on how he also did a reading at the Portland OR book festival while I was there. So he gets to criticize capitalism while being feted in cities across the globe. And he criticizes colonialism while existing as a white man with the same first name as villain Hernan Cortes. And, he disavows and veils his status while enjoying the privilege and prestige of celebrity.

I am a liberal but I understand the vexation of conservatives who see liberals guarding some strands of international culture like a club where you have to use the correct language to enter.

Square Michel Foucault

On my bike home I stumbled across Square Michel Foucault. I thought of my high school teacher who said Foucault’s Discipline and Punish was the most influential book on him ever.

A college professor also alluded to this book but I disliked him, especially when he blended his scholarship with cultural criticism.

When I finally read Discipline and Punish I found no overall theory but much theorizing. The most important idea for me was how power is often internalized rather than being imposed on us through visible means.

The most important image I retained from the book that of the panopticon, where every subject knows he could be watched at any time, but does not know for sure. I brought it up when we discussed la surveillance automatisee in my French class.

Now, almost all cultural output is being synthesized into something we can’t predict. Not just text, but also images, voice and video are being pumped in to AI models. What comes out is already shocking us. What will eventually take shape is uncertain. There is a feeling that there is no turning back.

In that square I considered the smallness of human life and the fractal nature of reality

Take a dart and throw it at a map of paris. The street or square is probably named after a person. Each one of those people has a thousand scholars who have spent their career studying the ideas, art, or discoveries of that one person. Plus innumerable Wikipedia articles, imitators, and local applications of their work.

With the endless minute iteration, refinement, and detailing of human output, perhaps we are in need of something that can take the entire sweep of things and create something new or general within seconds. This might be a meta-contribution that AI provides.

However, it’s also possible that our true legacy is those endless cultural productions. If we meet aliens, they will have refined the same science and engineering that we have. It is cultural evolution that we have to offer. As EO Wilson observed.

Which brings me back to culture.

I lounged in front of la tour Eiffel and a little drama played out

Two young Italian women were picnicking.

A loose medium size, long haired golden retriever juvenile ran up and went straight for their sandwich and devoured it.

The young woman of 20 or so years said, no, no, no, but did not grab the dog.

It swallowed the loaf and then pounced on another food item: some chips.

A French woman ran up and apologized profusely.

They communicated and eventually sorted out that the woman would go to the shop across the street and buy what the dog had stolen.

Dispatches from home

My mom and dad got covid again. Now it is just a nuisance instead of a deadly threat.

A friend visits California where family and summertime experiences of a man in his 20s await.

Another friend raises a young family. I hope to pick up right where we left off when I return and see how his young kids have shot up.

A friend from india helped me find a contact in France who will help if I run into trouble. I reflect that Indians are everywhere across the globe because of their huge and growing numbers (1.5 billion).

A sister has a new baby on the way. A 3D ultrasound shows her face before she is even born. She and her wife are creating the family they deeply desire and have nurtured already. I sometimes wonder if I have turned my back on them by moving away. I know that I am looked at with puzzlement and misunderstanding. But I can’t live in Minnesota because it is too cold there. And I can’t help but keep people at arm’s length because I basically trust no one.

About the photo

Three apes (I think they are bonobos) pant, hoot and gesture at the Grande galerie de l’evolution.

I arrived on 01 June and started my four-month stay in the city of lights. I look forward to mastering oral communication in the French language, exploring the city on bike and on foot, and turning to a new chapter in life.

why I am here and why I chose a long stay

I have studied French for a long time but never attained fluency. I considered how much I had been marked by a one-month stay on a francophone island and by a four-month biology semester in South India, and decided to take another “semester” to finally reach fluency or near-fluency.

I committed to the idea almost as soon as I thought of it, with no weighing of options or consulting with anybody.

I looked at economic trends and reassured myself that hiring will remain strong for the rest of the year.

I looked at my finances and realized I had a mostly unused car sitting on a parking pad 24/7. I sold that and got more than I had paid for it two years previously. I have unreimbursed health expenditures from my health savings account that I can liquidate at any time. I have credit and some contract income and in an absolute emergency I can raid a retirement fund (though that will only happen if a disaster strikes).

I considered my investment horizon, which was too far out. I had been saving money for my 70s and 80s. However, those days may never come. After all, my mom developed dementia in her 60s. Other relatives have died young. I have no drooling children to save money for. Life is good and it’s meant to be enjoyed now. Although I expect a long life, I can only reasonably plan for 3 to 5 years out.

I also considered the absurd fiction of money, and how I was earning a higher hourly rate in an entry level job performed by high school dropouts and non English speaking immigrants than I had after getting a bachelor’s degree and working in science for 10 years. I realized that I could come back and do absolutely anything and it would be a step up from what I am doing now. I also have remote earning opportunities and technical training to commence anytime.

I looked with regret at my expired passport, which meant I had not left the country in ten years.

I looked at my life and realized I craved a turning point, a marker. Although I celebrate my childfree lifestyle, which made this trip possible, that kind of life does not have automatic markers such as “Jimmy went off to school today,” so it helps to create your own.

my travel and logistics experience

Getting a long stay visa was pricey and required a drive to San Francisco and there were small delays. I had intended to depart for the spring. But I think I will enjoy summer and early fall here even more. I am a lover of hot afternoons and warm evenings.

Getting an apartment took some bureaucracy but was worthwhile since I secured a stay for four months in the same place, with no hopping about during my stay. The place is nicer than my living space in Seattle and my neighbors always say bonsoir.

The trip was simple and involved a one hour layover in Iceland that saved me $800. the view from the tarmac was cold and foggy. I watched Tar and Goodfellas and both were excellent.

At Charles de Gaulle airport a French class classmate recognized me and banged on the window to say hi. He is a gentle retired doctor who reads French policiers and visits the country often, especially by train.

Taking the train into town was simple, and walking the compact city is easy. first impressions upon emerging from the train was that the city reeks of diesel exhaust, plus there are lots of inattentive crowds and many foreign and domestic tourists.

my Airbnb host was good. I had to stay in this tiny attic accommodation on the Ile St Louis one night before I could proceed to my long term rental. I accidentally locked myself out first thing and had to crawl onto the roof, which gave me a good photo opportunity as the Pantheon and other sites were visible.

I had Indian food near the Centre Pompidou because it was the only terrasse that was not crowded.

The next day on my walk to my long term rental I visited the pantheon, had a sad iced coffee that was meant to imitate a cold brew but fell short, relaxed in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and overheard some female American students discussing how to increase their “body count” ASAP, and I enjoyed the fantastic dry weather hovering around 80 F during the afternoon and evening.

on the walk to my apartment I passed through the Montparnasse cemetery and stumbled upon the grave of former president Jacques Chirac.

laptop, bike and groceries

The rest was simple. I secured the foundations of daily life, which for me are the same here as in Seattle: a laptop, bike and grocery store.

The bike shop staff who helped me was a friendly, fit blond named Amandine. After I said I wanted the bike, she asked what I wanted for dessert after this plat principal (as in, bike accessories). I wanted her for dessert but did not have the language to say so.

first fun excursions and visits

I jogged through the Jardin des Plantes, did lots of walking, enjoyed sunset and meditation on the seine, and checked out the Centre Pompidou.

I biked around to enjoy Nuit blanche events, where the city is lit up with outdoor opera, music and art installations, and a lovely concert in the courtyard of the Archives nationales de France. In this place in particular, I enjoyed the large painting of the heads of aristocrats being paraded around by the people. And in the pop-up opera at the tip of the Ile Saint Louis, I had an almost magical moment when the two female singers performed the Flower Duet of Delibes. It was almost magical, because the nearby drumming and guitar from young people picnicking and drinking on the Seine mostly drowned out their gentle voices.

planning an ideal day

With four months of unemployment ahead of me, and some worthy goals in mind, I must plan my ideal day. I have this in mind:

wake up at an hour fitting my chronotype

read the news and enjoy my coffee (this habit will never change)

work out with a jog or bike ride and a weights session at the plein air setup at Jardin du Luxembourg.

study French

go on an excursion (usually free, sometimes a museum, performance, reading, or other). Take photos and get better at photography.

get home and do some writing and actual work

do something to integrate in French society such as saying hello and meeting people, picking up trash, volunteering in native plantings, etc.

evening: cook, grab a cocktail, watch a movie or read a book in French.

In other words, I am designing an ideal day, and in the future I will ruthlessly cut away things that detract from this ideal day (the primary target being the rigid, on-site, 40 hour workweek)

gray man techniques

I am intrigued by the idea of the gray man, who blends in wherever he goes. There is abundant advice online on how to do this.

You don’t want to look like a spy, but rather, be forgettable. A Russian woman in Seattle was once certain enough to address me in Russian, because I had a Soviet looking crew cut and was in all black. And my brother thinks I am a spy. I do like a martini and I plan on getting several of them here. But instead of cultivating mystery it’s better to just be a part of the crowd.

In a way, it’s uncanny. As a man with a purposeful stride, a face that’s been called stoic or expressionless, and a pair of sunglasses, I found that the only person who has approached me is one Asian guy with no English nor French, looking for directions. I had just been to the installation he sought so I was able to help him. But just as in Seattle, I can go for days without anyone saying a word to me.

thinking about and communicating with the people I have (temporarily) left behind

My mom seems a little uncomfortable and unwell. Some kind of crud is being passed around her care facility. I think she will bounce back with rest.

At least three friendships of mine were blossoming back in Seattle. I regret pausing them, but they are indeed only on pause, and Seattle is my permanent home. I will return. I am not a vagabond. this kind of trip is something I will do every few years, but I will not take off in abruptly.

what’s next

Tomorrow I will visit the Grand galerie de l’evolution and the Musee de l’histoire naturelle. I am more eager for these than the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. I imagine I will be seeing the specimens pondered over by the French scientists Darwin corresponded with, such as Saint-Hilaire, Milne-Edwards, and the elder Saint-Hilaire.

Four months means four day trips. I will visit the palais de Versailles, the chateau de Fontainebleau, la ville de Chartres, and the jardins a Giverny, which Monet considered his greatest masterpiece.

If I can, I will make friends quickly so I can enjoy their place at the beach or mountains when the city empties out later in summer. Failing that, I will simply enjoy the quieter streets and perhaps take a train to Rome or Florence.

I will find a female companion who likes learning, peace, fun and exploration. The women here dress much better than those in Seattle, where baggy clothes straight from the 90s predominate.

Next up is those museums and a book reading at Shakespeare and Co. I’ll check out the spectacular stuff. But mostly I will be biking, hanging out in parks, studying, and doing the mental and laptop work that will have a big effect on my future.

About the photo

Pop-up opera at the Place Louis Aragon.