Note: This is the final installment I'll be posting from Monet, Mitchell, & Me: A Painter's Pilgrimage. This post consists of only the first half of the first draft of the final chapter. I want to entice you to read the whole book, so I'm saving the last half of Chapter 12 and the Epilogue as a surprise. In this segment the artist (moi!) returns to Paris grumpy after having found heaven in Honfleur. Thanks for your interest! Please stay tuned .... Ellie
Leaving Honfleur, we drive west on a winding road along the Channel coast where we take a quick look Deauville before asking Fifi to get us back to Pierrelaye, the Paris suburb where we first met, tout de suite. We take a direct route on the highway, speeding through the countryside taking a couple of hours to cover the distance we’ve spent two weeks meandering along the Seine. Familiar names of places we visited pop up on exit signs; it seems odd to whiz past them, not knowing when or if we’ll ever be back.
Soon Roo is letting me off at the train to mind the baggage while he returns the car a few blocks away. There I wait, for longer than 10 or 15 minutes we thought it would take, musing about what would happen if we were separated. I pat my back pocket to make sure my device and credit card are still there. But what if one of the hooded teens roaming this neighborhood were to make a grab? I marvel at how the mind is capable of endless catastrophizing. When Roo finally appears a half hour later, he reports having been delayed playing several rounds of You Can’t Get There from Here. Now, the train arrives and within an hour we’re back in Paris.
If I lived in Honfleur, I can well imagine that I would enjoy a long weekend in Paris every once in a while. These same tracks made it possible for Monet and friends to travel with their outdoor painting gear to spend a few days painting in Honfleur and Etretat. But as I enter Paris on this Saturday afternoon, I’m not thrilled to be back in the City of (Artificial) Lights. Now that I’ve been there, I much prefer the fresh natural light of Normandy.
There, Roo and I have enjoyed discovering new places together. Now, at the Gare du Nord Roo and I are arguing about in which way to take the train to our new accommodation. Usually better at getting us places than I am, Roo charges off in a direction that just doesn’t seem right to me. Underground, it’s easy to mix up east and west, north and south and the complicated Metro maps are confusing too. I look around and spy, obscured by an arch, a large sign that validates we need to go this way and not the way Roo is headed. I shout after him, but he seems intent on going in the opposite direction, so I just stand still, annoyed that he’s ignored me, until he turns around and I point to the sign.
We get on the correct train. My irritation with my husband subsides as Roo once again maneuvers our albatross bags into a car packed with weekend revelers. Exhausted, we both just want to get to our next Airbnb and crash. Only four more nights before I can sleep in my own bed. Only one more Airbnb to go.
After many stops, we get off at Luxembourg and, looking around, I recall choosing our next accommodation based on proximity to the gardens—we’d stayed close by once before. I vaguely remember booking a place called The Antiquary, described as “cozy and central;” I was impressed by photos of an antique desk and shelves filled with old books. The promotion didn’t lie—the shoebox is extremely cozy, as in, impossible for two people to move about in the space at the same time. The full-size sofa bed is pulled out and made up; however, as we collapse for the nap we crave, it’s soon clear there’s no way Roo and I will be able to sleep together on it—a king-size bed can be a challenge—for a nap, much less four nights. We find there’s also a pullout sleeping “chair,” which proves an uncomfortable but marriage-saving option. Drifting toward sleep, through the open window, a high-pitched beep punctuates the quiet every thirty seconds. Closing the window muffles, but does not eliminate, the sound. I do not sleep.
If Honfleur was Heaven, I believe I’ve just entered the Hell realm. Imagine living in this space where my 8 x 10 foot parlor rug would have a hard time fitting! The tiny well-stocked kitchen indicates that someone probably does stay here when it’s not being rented; like many Parisians, however, they must do their living elsewhere.
The preponderance of sidewalk cafes in Paris suddenly makes sense and we find one just down the street, next to the restaurant where we plan to eat dinner. A glass of kir royale while we wait for our meal at the Polidor makes the return to Paris seem a lot more palatable. We love the Polidor for its lively old-Paris vibe. (It's semi-famous for having appeared in Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris.) People are packed in—they don't take reservations—seated family style at long tables spread with red-checked cloths. Baskets filled with crusty bread arrives swiftly, but the imperious waiter takes our food order on his own terms and, yes, there is a wait. Yet, as it when we were first here seven years ago, just when you think he's forgotten and you're going to starve, monsieur delivers an abundance of food steaming hot. Our beouf bourguignon with buttery mashed potatoes is wickedly good; topped off with a warm tarte tatin a la mode, the meal is perfect. We delay our return to the Antiquary with a walk around the Sorbonne and surrounding area.
Roo loves Paris and I do too, but not as much as he does. He could live here, and I could too—if I had one of those luxury apartments overlooking the Seine (with a view of the Tour Eiffel) you see on “Emily in Paris.” Someone must live in these. I’ve read they’re mostly owned by the government and occupied by high level functionaries, not an American like me. Since I have no fantasy about living here, I settle for what attracts me most in Paris—her parks.
In the past, I’ve enjoyed spending time in the Place des Vosges in the Marais. Anything can happen there. One time, while on the hunt for a café that served fondant au chocolat, chocolate volcano cake, we ran into a dozen or more clowns on stilts. Another time, we happened upon a informal chamber music ensemble under the cloister that enclose the park. They were giving a rousing recital of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The Place des Vosges is one of those romantic spots where they shoot films and television series, like “Emily in Paris.” (“Emily” is total fantasy, but great for remembering favorite spots around the city.)
Last time we were in Paris we discovered Parc des Butte-Chamont. Here, in addition to eating a memorable crepe filled with sliced banana, toasted almonds, and Nutella, we walked along the lake, found a folly, admired huge tree, climbed hills, and lazed in the autumnal sun. I won’t make it there on this trip, but Roo has planned to visit on one of his early morning walks.
The Bois de Bologne, across from Fondation Louis Vuitton, will always live in my memory as a place where, on that 2015 visit, I avoided going to look at art by sitting in the park and making my own. I’m still recalling how later in the afternoon, Roo and I, along with my brother and his wife, rented bikes and cycled through the park using trails that took us far from where we started. We’d been warned that after dark the park was a dodgy place, filled with muggers, thuggers and thieves. We encountered none of these, but as the golden light faded, a bevy of beautiful beings of indeterminate gender (in skimpy hot pants) began to strut their stuff on the edge of the dense woods.
I also associate the Bois de Bologne with the Museé Marmottan Monet which we discovered on that trip. Home to over three hundred Monet paintings—the world’s largest collection of his works—as well as many Impressionist paintings, the museum is set on one corner of the Bois de Bologne, occupying an historic building that was once a hunting lodge. Wandering from one lovely room to another, seeing the paintings here was like being in someone’s beautifully decorated home. In the basement, we found the Nympheas gallery, hung with an extensive display of Monet water lily paintings. The room is round with a central area formed of benches facing out onto the gallery walls. It was far more conducive to contemplation than the tourist spectacle in the Orangerie galleries. Here we could sit in the quiet of the large room and simply allow the beauty of the art to sink in.
Later, in the gift shop, a catalogue from a 2010 Marmottan exhibit, Monet et l’abstraction, caught my eye and I purchased the book. The exhibition was designed to show how Monet’s later works inspired Abstract Expressionist painters such Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Lee Krassner, Joan Mitchell and others. Curator Jaques Taddie says his intention was to “foster a broader understanding of the originality and complexity of an artist who, having been one of the leading exponents of Impressionism, contributed in the first decades of the 20th century to the birth of a new way of painting, gradually freeing himself from the notion of representation that had underpinned this art.” As I was reading this, I’d only begun to appreciate abstract art; however, in retrospect, I see how my study of the images and words in that catalogue helped me understand a similar transition that was already unfolding in my own work.
As with Monet in his later years, my subjective, inner reality—Me—was rapidly becoming far more compelling than any objective, outer motif. When I came home from Paris in 2015, after that visit to Musee Marmottan Monet I made an abstract painting I titled “Bois de Bologne.” I still own the painting—it’s one I hang in my kitchen in the off-season. Deeply embedded in this painting is the mystery of a process of my artistic emergence that still intrigues me after twenty-some years. I behold both painting and process with awe.
To be continued....
Anticipated publication of the illustrated Monet, Mitchell & Me: A Painter's Pilgrimage by Clear Light Press in Summer, 2023.
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