River Brown

My first morning in Paris, I was briskly shooed out of our shared apartment with a moral charge to get café creme, write in my journal and watch French people.

Karen is going to have tea and oatmeal.  I loathe oatmeal and taking orders.   And more so, demands to know my Plans-for-the-Day before I’ve had coffee.

I was the only patron at the Boulangerie de la Butte aux Cailles, because the French don’t hurl themselves out of their apartments like Californians from South Carolina, ahem.  I have crumbs from an excellent mini-crossant, pain au chocolat, sticking to my lips and an excellent mug of coffee beside my journal.

I wonder if the French get tired of this school girl naivete that presumes to study them from cafe tables?  (Will a few French customers please step in so I can notice you?)

I will never tire of cafés.  In our Parisian neighborhood, several to a block.  I felt loss returning  cars and freeway structure in California.  Friends assured me there are cafés in San Jose.  But you have to drive to get to them.

What a café speaks to me is this wonderful value people find in talking to each other…and sitting and thinking, or having a drink or two.  Socializing, at once casual and sophisticated.

A café is like a writing attitude.

Invite your ideas to sit down with you.  Do a bit of idle noticing….maybe have another cup of coffee and scribble a bit. There’s no hurry.  And perhaps you can tell a friend when the words are there. Or not.