A Mother's Day Prayer by Reverend Emily Freeman Penfield, Pastor, Woodlawn United Methodist Church

When Associate Pastor Emily Freeman Penfield was leaving Highlands United Methodist Church for her new post as Pastor of Church of the Reconciler, she presented the congregation with a gift--a small booklet of her prayers, Praying Through the Year.  I interviewed Emily last week for  my article about her and her work, "All in a Day's Work," posted now at www.weldbham.com. Her comments to me during that interview about what she always prays for on Mother's Day reminded me of this very poetic and sensitive prayer she had used at HUMC:

May 11, 2008
Mother's Day

Gracious God who dances in our lives and hearts
as Holy Spirit--you are always present, always abundant
and always calling us to yourself. Awaken us this hour to
what can be--encourage us in the vision you have created
for Highlands. We long to be faithful, even in our 
disobedience. We long to be pleasing, even in our 
shallow and selfish moments. We long to give back to 
you, even in our desert and dry seasons. Rain down upon
us, God, like the heavy rains last night. Drench us in your 
dreams and your breath that is life, that is purpose, that
is the very essence of what we are made for.

Today we give thanks for mothers--for our
mothers and for those who have given life and birth to us, 
for those who have cared and nurtured us, for those who
stand by our side and raise us up when we are low--
whether they bore the title MOTHER or not. We ask your
blessed embrace on those who are missing their mothers
today, for those who long to be mothers, and for those
who have no women role models in their lives. The
scriptures say you care for us as a mother hen does her
chicks. We need you, God, and your wings of grace--
sometimes for protection and sometimes to ride high, but
in all things, may what we do, be for you. In the name of 
Christ Jesus we pray. Amen

For more information on Emily's work at Woodlawn UMC and the upcoming fundraiser dinner theatre that will be produced at the church this summer, follow their Facebook page, Woodlawn UMC.
Here are a few shots I snapped around the church:

Stained glass from the original WUMC

Tree of Life in Emily's office

The Reverend Emily Freeman Penfield
Woodlawn United Methodist Church

Martin Luther King, Little Rock High School, diplomas

Apt verse for the desk of a listener

Wall in Cornerstone School cafeteria

Terrolyn, proud of her work--and rightly so!

School garden



To Write (or Not) in Paris

Nine months ago I took a trip and I’m still talking about it. Which is worse--this incessant chatter about my summer semester abroad with Spalding University, or bragging about my grandchildren?  When Mahala Church asked me to be a guest blogger at Lyrical Pens , a blog she shares with Marilyn Johnston, I was flattered, but what would I write about? Easy, peasy: I would write about Paris. Again.

The piece is divided into three parts, and if you’ve already heard more than you can stand about Paris, just skip this one and catch the second part this Friday that is a snapshot of how the Spalding University brief residency workshop actually works—the one I had in Paris in creative nonfiction with Ellie Bryant. (Sorry. Like grandchildren, this experience won’t go away, nor do I wish it to.)

I met both Mahala and Marilyn when we had short stories published in Christmas is a Season! 2008, and Christmas is a Season! 2009, twin anthologies edited by Linda Busby Parker, Excalibur Press.

Check out their archives at Lyrical Pens.

Mahala Church and Marilyn A. Johnston have co-authored the blog Lyrical Pens for five years. Mahala Church, R.N., B.F.A. teaches creative writing for teens and adults through her Barefoot Writing Academy. An award-winning, freelance editor and writer, she is the published author of short stories, personal essays, chapter in writing textbook, online and hard copy articles, ad copy, encyclopedic pieces, book reviews, newsletters, and press releases. She is the published editor of four anthologies, online and hard copy articles, blogs, websites, business documents, and marketing copy.

cj petterson (the pen name for Marilyn Johnston) is the author of DEADLY STAR, a suspense romance released in 2013. cj is an award-winning writer and poet whose work has been published in numerous anthologies and on-line.

            http://www.lyricalpens.com

No experience is wasted for the writer who puts on her readers and fixates on Nabokov’s “divine details.”  This summer I’ll be spending two weeks on the road in the wild, wild west. While Tommy tries to spot a grizzly that can outrun a buffalo (he saw that once already,) and re-lives all gunfights and  shootemup tourist spots, I’m going to put Paris behind me as we ride off under wide skies on an endless yardstick of a road headed into the sunset. YOLO. Hi-yo, Silver.

Poets, please sign in and receive a standing ovation...

Since April is National Poetry Month, tell me, dear readers, who is the Poet Laureate of the United States? M-m-m-mmmmm. Thought so. Don’t be abashed.  Here’s another one: who is the Poet Laureate of Alabama? If you mentioned the names of Natasha Trethewey and Andrew Glaze, then I O U a cinquain on the subject of your choice by the end of the month. And if you can name Phillip Levine and Sue Brannon Walker as their successors, I will simply faint in surprise with a case of the “vapors.”

Confession: most everything I know about poets laureate I learned after my first college degree. It’s the kind of thing you know about as a teacher of English. But I’ve also been privileged to get to know several individuals rather well. Our tradition in the United States hinges on the pleasure of the Librarian of the Library of Congress. From 1937-1986, a slew of poets served either one or two-year terms as Consultants in Poetry. In 1985 the name was changed to Poet Laureate Consultants in Poetry. The term runs from October to May and a poet may be asked to serve more than one term. Newly appointed Natasha Trethewey is initiating a first: she will make herself available to visitors at the Library of Congress.

The method of selection for states varies. Greg Pape was the Poet Laureate of Montana 2007-2009. I studied with him in the first workshop for poetry in the MFA in Writing program at Spalding. Since then I have been reading and learning from his poetry, those keen observations reflecting the landscape of wherever he happens to be, particularly the wildlife and birds. My landscapes in Alabama were quite different from Greg’s in Fresno and Bitteroot, but he also wrote a poem “Trains: Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Spring, 1983” in which he remembers his first train ride from Fresno to L.A. I learned from his various examples that I could write about what affected me, my own deck and screened porch as well as that of my own backyard birds coupled with a brilliant Indigo Bunting just passing through Birmingham in the spring after his long flight from South America.

Sena Jeter Naslund was the 2005-2006 Poet Laureate of Kentucky. She says she is known in Kentucky as “the fiction-writing Poet Laureate.” The guidelines for that position state the “the word poet in the position title is interpreted in it broadest sense to include person where accomplishments are in any of the recognized literary forms.” Naslund has published four major novels and when I caught up with her for this article was about to make a quick trip to Paris. Her novel-in-progress, THE FOUNTAIN OF ST. JAMES COURT, is set partly in Louisville and partly in Paris in the house where she lived and wrote the first national bestseller, AHAB’S WIFE, THE STARGAZER, on St. James Court.

“There’s nothing I didn’t love about being Poet Laureate. I’ve traveled from one end of Kentucky to the other, from Paducah on the Missississippi River to Pine Mountain in the Appalachian Mountains. Many people have a book or poems inside them. I was honored to be able to encourage them to try their own hand at writing and to talk about how reading enriches our entire lives.”

Robert Penn Warren was Naslund’s favorite Poet Laureate of the United States. “His college textbooks with Cleanth Brooks, about how to read literature—that is with an understanding of how its artistry works—influenced my education and my life. When I learned how to analyze a poem in freshman composition at Birmingham-Southern College, taught by the dean, Dr. Cecil Abernethy, I learned how to use my mind in an entirely new way. Now I could think for myself, not just understand what others explained.”

A native of Birmingham, Naslund teaches and writes in Louisville, but she never forgets where home is. “I do want to say how grateful I am to have received one of the Alabama Governor’s Awards in the Arts, for 2011, and for having been honored with the Harper Lee Award. Born and bred in Alabama, it’s always a joy to come home.”

 Of the ten Poets Laureate Alabama has had since the State Legislature passed a bill initiating the process, four have been female. Of those I’m pleased to say that three have been personal friends. Helen Norris and I became fast friends in the 80s when I lived in Prattville and she lived in Montgomery. Even her prose is poetic. In fact, I would say it is equally as poetic as her poetry and there’s a reason for that. Many of the poems published by John Curbow in her two books of poetry were “outtakes” from her short stories, edited out to hone the stories into what I consider her finest genre, the short story. Her work and her life have influenced me so much that I chose her writing as the topic for my critical thesis for the MFA.

Helen Blackshear who preceded Helen Norris as Poet Laureate was the other half of the two Helen’s. If Helen Norris is known for her short stories, Helen Blackshear is known for the sonnet form, and her stories of the early history of Alabama. That and, in loving laughter, her legendary bad driving.  Everybody was afraid to ride with her and after a car trip with her from Prattville to Tuscaloosa once, I understood why. I was a ready audience for her stories although I breathed a sigh of relief on our safe arrival because the steering wheel often went the way of her head as she looked at me and talked. 

I can’t remember my first meeting with Sue Brannan Walker, Alabama’s Poet Laureate, 2004-2012, but I knew her before I met her. Every writer in Alabama was aware of her literary magazine Negative Capability, and we all wanted her to choose our poems for publication. As recently as last summer I participated in a workshop where she handed us a sheet of a dozen or more ideas of ways to start a poem. This is one person who won’t let Writer’s Block even get a little toe through the door, much less a foot.

Two projects she initiated as Poet Laureate are memorable: an anthology and a web site for poets. J. William Chambers joined her for the first one as Co-editor. Another generous-spirited woman, Walker beat the proverbial bushes for poets and their best work. I think it would be safe to say that Walker and Chambers have published poems that may be the only poem ever written by that individual. Somehow to me that is important, historic, even. For after all, isn’t poetry first and foremost an attempt to express the deepest emotions, to voice the unvoiceable? Some are not poems that would gain critical superlatives. But, so what? As Poet Laureate of the people of Alabama, Sue Brannan Walker made a valiant effort to record Alabama’s poetry, if sometimes warts and all.

The second thing Walker did is to provide an online literary salon of sorts where poets can converse on things poetic, can post poems and ask for critiques, or, if needed, can just rant about one subject or another. Participants are grateful to Walker for this rare opportunity.

I salute all poets this month, especially Andrew Glaze, our newest poet laureate. I enjoyed a visit with him and his wife, Adriana, a few weeks ago. View the resulting profile of Glaze in the current hard copy edition of WELD and at www.weldbham.com.

Rabbit Hole of Writing: Looking for Pen Pals

My Dear Readers,

For the past year my blogging journey has submerged into that wascally wabbit hole of cyberspace, and this morning I'm trying to figure out just where in Wonderland all my "stuff" resides. Perhaps no archives exist here. Perhaps all of my early readers have fallen away because truly they were friends with my niece, Dorothy, anyway. (No she does not wear red slippers, although she is just as magical as that other well-known one is. See Picket at Pinterest.) 

WELD for Birmingham has tried to educate me to some degree about posting blogs for them, but I could never figure out just how to connect my friends to the blog. It was like sending out an email announcement to a group, and asking anyone who doesn't have email to pick up a hard copy of the announcement. HOW will they know? 

Ah, but occasionally there have been connections. (And isn't that the most a writer hopes for?) My aquatics class at One Nineteen found the Lane Cake essay and we talked that one to death. And just last week Hal told me that he had read the essay about my miracle in Paris which had to do with the Musee D'orsay. He said he would very much like to visit that museum someday. 

Ah, but this morning I'm returning to this blogspot for my personal blog--much of what I write here will be unedited and unorganized, but isn't that what a blog was to be originally? I have to admit even I liked looking back at the personal essays I concocted for WELD. We'll see where this path leads..."the time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things..."

One of those things is that I'll be speaking about: one story a month for WELD that will reflect something exciting to me that is going on around Birmingham. Those who know me best know that the stories I love best and tend to re-tell are those involving people. I am a people person as they say. In writing we call that characterization. So in my poetry there are persona poems (a whole group about a woman named Libby); in my fiction there are numerous characters--the latest one is Clyde, a reformed drug addict and he is at the center of a linked series of short stories; and finally there is the memoir I'm working on which have actually been inspired by the pieces I've been writing for WELD. Suddenly, I was in love with my first love--writing letters. For isn't the essay a letter of sorts? 

Anyway, let's be pen pals. If you know any characters around Birmingham that you think I would like to hear about as potential writing material, I'd love to hear from you.

All the best,

wordspinningbykathleen
P.S. Enclosed a few pics of the Aquatics Class at lunch.

Turnip Green Soup by Jo-Ann
Veggie-Beef Soup by Teresa

Nancy, Susan, Joan

Happy Bday to Sherry and Jo-Ann

Miracle sur la Rue de Vaugirard

Thursday, July 19, 2012 6:00 p.m. Best Western Trianon Rive Gauche, 1 Biz Rue de Vaugirard, Paris

The Best Western Trianon Rive Gauche has a larger lobby than many European hotels, but by American standards, it is Lilliputian. My husband and I stepped up a few stairs at the end of the area into a small room tucked away for special meetings. There was standing room only for the 69 students, faculty, and guests who had all arrived separately that day for the Spalding Master of Fine Arts brief residency in Paris. Most who gathered to meet and greet and go to dinner together at Le Train Bleu were fuzzy with jet lag from various international flights that had arrived earlier at DeGaulle.  Those had a reason to be less than cautious with their belongings; I had no such excuse. My family (husband, daughter, and grandson) and I had been frolicking in Paris for the previous eight days. My husband and daughter would leave Paris the next morning and I would stay on for Spalding’s Creative Nonfiction workshop for the next ten days. My grandson, Nicholas, would stay, too, to make a ten-day round of his favorite boutiques to include Diesel, Le Coq Sportif, and Colette as well as every art museum he could squeeze in. 

Spalding tour leader Katy Yocom welcomed everyone and made some announcements including the logistics of going to dinner that night at Le Train Bleu. I wondered if our tour guides Alexandra and Guilliame knew what the heck they were up against in trying to herd 69 folks through two metro stations, lines 4 and 14. As we exited the small room, I stopped at a round table, took my passport wallet from my decorative black cloth purse over my shoulder and chest, and carefully inserted my metro ticket and my museum passes into one of the credit card slots. I then put the wallet back inside the purse and got pushed along with our enthusiastic crowd. I was getting claustrophobic already and we weren’t even outside yet.

My effervescence and joy of meeting new writers that night, of saying hello to a few alumni I knew, of getting all the instructions for using the metro tickets, of classes that would begin the next day, followed by walking at the pace of the tour guides to keep up left me breathless, but smiling. This was a fast pace for someone who’d had a little over a year recovering from a shattered kneecap and who had turned 70 just three days earlier. Before I would put my head on the pillow very late that night, claustrophobia would be my last worry.

Nicholas and Michelle at the Polidor

Our hotel was in a great location on the left bank near the Odéon Theater, the Pantheon, and Luxembourg Gardens—the oldest part of Paris: just a few blocks away was the Polidor, a bistro frequented by Ernest Hemingway and those of his ilk. Our two cumbersome groups walked first to the Odéon Station to board what we termed the red line, #4.

The Polidor was used in filming “Midnight in Paris.” Pictures in the window were a real clue about tourists, but Nicholas and I tried it later anyway. We could walk from our hotel and that night we were joined by Michelle. A very dramatic and fun playwright, Michelle introduced herself as a New Yorker (or did I imagine that?) although she was living in Kansas. Screenwriter and faculty member, Sam Zalutsky, with his perfectly groomed and upturned mustache joined us a little later. I felt as though we might have been in a play or a movie. Although distinction among the bistro, the cafe, and the brasserie still eludes me, my beef bourguignon was delish, and could have fed at least three.

Boarding the train at Odéon went without incident since the train was not packed. As the train jolted forward, I staggered toward an available seat near Katy who was standing. She mimed for me to keep my little bag in sight. It had drifted to my left side in getting seated. Someone was seated to my left, but in the excitement, I couldn’t tell you whether it was a male or female. I clutched my bag to my belly with both hands. We had to change trains at Chatelet onto line 14 to reach our much-applauded destination at Le Gare Lyon. As the group jumped on, shoved and pushed into the mass already on board, I was only able to hold onto a pole nearest the door. Safe Spalding bodies pressed closely on all sides.

Our meal at Le Train Bleu required the wine glasses and silver flatware necessary to accompany the serving of this feast. There were at least four glasses at each place setting, two forks to the left, a dinner knife and a fish knife to the right, and a knife, fork, and spoon in the dessert slot. One of our written guides to Paris suggests that the best price to quality ratio in gourmet restaurants is the one with the most stars and the fewest forks. Another tip is that if there is an English translation on the menu, it’s probably too touristy. Truly, Le Train Bleu is probably best classified with the Polidor and Procope (where I had my 70th birthday meal) as simply historic although it seemed very gourmet to me.

When I saw the Entre (what we’d term “starter”) Tartare de sauman au citron vert lait de coco, salmon tartar with lemon coco milk—was that coconut? More precisely it said raw salmon. As it was. Shaped ever so beautifully by perhaps a pan the size of a normal muffin tin and topped with salade mesclun a l’huile d’olive. I ate the salad greens with olive oil but was brave enough to take only two bites of the raw salmon. And so it went throughout the extended meal. (No one rushes through a meal in Paris. No one.)  Then came the magret de canard rôti miel et gingembre. Roasted duck. Yuk. Even with honey and ginger. Next course: Brie de Meaux. I hate cheese from anywhere. Ah, dessert arrives: Vacherin Glace “Train Bleu.” This iced meringue filled with sorbets and whipped cream were almost as amazing as the art gracing the ceiling the train station.

I asked for les toilettes and was sent on a long walk through what appeared to be a luxurious dining car with small tables on either side. When I returned and picked up my small black bag for lipstick from the chair where I’d left it, it felt too light. All smiles ceased. My passport wallet was missing.

Tommy had not left the table nor had Chere, my seatmate to the left. Tommy and I searched around our chairs on the floor. Fellow Spalding diners joined in the speculation and search. It was time to leave, and still no wallet. And the fear of what besides my passport was in that wallet began to grow: my driver’s license, two credit cards—one to use, one as backup—an ATM card, my medical cards, some Euros, about seventy dollars, and $1,000.00 in American Express traveler’s checks. We were relieved to share Chere’s taxi rather than taking the metro back to the hotel.

What I felt is hard to describe. First, stupid. Tommy repeatedly warns me to wear the money belt with my passport around my neck or at my waist. And bumfuzzled. When had I last had the wallet out? I never felt anyone touch my bag, and Tommy and Chere were right there while it was on my chair at the table. How was it possible for a pickpocket to steal it? If someone on the train had taken it, I would have noticed how light it was before. 

Back at the hotel I asked the receptionist whether anyone had found my wallet there. Non. I told him the story and asked him to call the metro stations to see if it had been turned in. Oui, Madame. I listened as he chattered away in French. Alexandra and Guilliame both thought this phone call was a waste of time. “Nobody has ever had a lost wallet found and returned,” one said with the other one agreeing. They tried to assure me: “It’s a good thing it happened at the first of your stay and not at the end.” “It happens all the time.” “It has happened to both of us.”  

I heard nothing reassuring. Teresa and Nicholas wanted to go back to the metro stations but our tour guides convinced them it would do no good. Teresa started praying to St. Anthony, the saint of lost items. Tommy was angry at me. I was angrier at myself than he was. All four of us were up several hours canceling credit cards and travelers checks. And, by the way, don’t expect American Express to come running to your aid via bicycle or any other mode of transportation the way their ads depict it.  

The next morning Tommy and Teresa had to be downstairs for their taxi to the airport at seven. I would have to go to the police station, as our guides had said we would have to do (along with a roomful of other tourists who’d been pickpocketed, they said) which might take most of the day and then we’d have to go to the American Embassy on Monday and request a new passport. I did have copies of all our passports, which, they said, would make it easier. And they would go with me. That was somewhat assuring.
Next morning after only about two hours of sleep, Tommy and Teresa crammed their luggage into the tiny elevator to go down for the airport taxi. Nicholas and I slowly walked down the two flights of stairs behind them. As soon as I stepped into the lobby, the receptionist from the previous night called out, “Madame, is this yours?” He held out my burgundy wallet with the word Passport embossed on the leather. Perhaps I was still asleep. Perhaps I was dreaming. He was holding my wallet. No sooner than my heart rate pumped up to a dangerous level, than despair set in. It’s probably empty. I rush to the desk. I open the wallet. My passport. All pages intact. My credit cards and ATM are out of their usual slots and simply stuck back in. The driver’s license is there. The health cards. I was laughing and crying. The receptionist said he’d had a call at 5:00 a.m. from the metro station. The cleaning crew had found it. Someone brought it to the hotel.

“It’s a miracle of St. Anthony,” said Teresa. And I agreed, even though I’m not Catholic.

And then I opened the money enclosure. No Euros. No dollars. No matter. But, hark, the wad of traveler’s checks is intact. Apparently these are worthless, even to a thief. Or so I thought. When I finally counted them to return to my bank back home, one of ten was missing. One from the middle of the stack—another puzzle that has yet to be solved. 

All four of the Thompson family were crying and laughing as Tommy and Teresa left in the taxi. Nicholas hugged me and said, “Don’t worry, Gran. Your ‘little boss’ is here with you.” That epithet was given to him when he was ten. The four of us were traveling in Italy where Tommy was “Boss.” The physical resemblance between the two was striking. A friendly Italian waiter tweeked Nicholas’s cheek and called him, “Little Boss.”

As soon as Alexandra heard about the recovered wallet, she shook her head and repeated what she’d affirmed the night before, “I’ve never heard of this happening.” I think she was ready to believe in St. Anthony, too.

I repeated the story all day to anyone who would listen, the story of my miracle on rue de Vaugirard. Like the Ancient Mariner, I’m still telling it.

Glace, Sorbet, or Gelato?

Glace, Sorbet, or Gelato?

Ice cream, my dear readers. I know that is what you’re looking for and what I’ve promised. Yesterday our first stop was La Tour Eiffel and I tried Patiche et Citron (Pistachio and Lemon) from a little market on wheels. Sweet, sweet. I may not be able to top that one.

And for our first full day in Paris, it is the Louvre, of course. We must see if Mona Lisa is still smiling and whether “The Wedding at Cana” is still covering the whole wall at the other end of the room and, for the most part, being overlooked. This time we are not astonished by how small the smiling lady is in the grand room. Always before our first visit there in 1981 I had imagined this wonder by Michelangelo to be big, really big. The proportion of painting to wall seems as skewed as my stairwell looked when I only had one family photograph hanging there. What is surprising on this day is that the standing spaces before the woman and the wedding seem equally crowded. It is the day before Bastille Day, so Paris is packed.

We met up with Claire, Nicholas’s friend, at the ticket agency within the metro just outside the door of the Louvre. Claire’s home is in Canada but her mother is working in Hong Kong and her family will soon move there. She and Nicholas met in an architecture summer class at Cornell last summer. The student hostel where she was staying became so rowdy as groups of students came and went that she decided to move into a hotel. Unwittingly, she ended up in the red light district near Montmartre. But she is an amazing girl. She plans simply to “embrace the situation.” I haven’t seen someone with that attitude since my college days. An original flower child, L.L., used to sneak out of Hayden Harris to smoke pot and read poetry on the quadrangle pre-dawn—or so I heard. I was on the goodytwoshoes Judiciary Committee that heard the accusations.

Our group of five arrived early at the Louvre but the waiting lines had already serpentined around the foyer several times. By the time we were ready to enter, Nicholas couldn’t find his ticket. Luckily, a well-dressed man in a suit (who spoke no English or French, it seemed) had found it after, Nicholas surmised, he had pulled it from his back pocket along with his cell phone. Some situations require only hand signals. Before the visit ended, Claire had totally lost her ticket. But she and Nicholas, future architects, both had good excuses. They were preoccupied with what they would do to best use their time inside. Nicholas planned to record his impressions with his cell phone, and Claire carried a sizeable sketch pad and several colored pencils. Juggling equipment can be a bit of problem.

In 2006 when we first brought Nicholas, cameras were still frowned upon. You dared not leave your flash on by mistake. We saw flashes going off rather frequently in the large crowds and no sign of irate docents. A buzzer would go off if you leaned a little too far over into the roped-off area of a painting. It happened to me once this time when I was photographing the info about Roselli’s “Le Triompe de David.” If I had seen this wonderful depiction before of David in his dress holding the giant’s head by his hair, and the persons around David holding musical instruments (cymbal, flute, lute, triangle—that’s my best guess at what they were), I couldn’t remember it. I was so taken with the painting that my daughter Teresa had to point out to me that I had triggered a buzzer.

Planning what you will see in the Louvre is essential before you become so saturated your gray matter becomes goop. Nicholas apprised me at some point during the morning that the ancient sculpture “Victoire,” aka, the “The Winged Victory” might be a good possibility for our ekprastic project, so I added that to my list—a marble sculpture from the 2nd century of Greek goddess Nike. Nike stands atop the prow of a ship; her arms have never been recovered and only one of her outstretched wings. Still it is glorious even to my untrained eye that her flowing garments are exquisitely wrought to suggest the flowing drapery of cloth in the wind. He also wanted me not to miss “Le Pandemonium” by John Martin and “Le Bain Turc” by Jean-Auguste Dominique. The first is based on a scene from John Milton’s Paradise Lost when Satan is cast out of heaven. The second is an intimate look at a harem enjoying a Turkish bath, where the most striking detail for me is not the the nude body, but the luxurious and colorful scarf binding up the woman’s hair.

I’m addicted to the children’s books found in the gift shops of museums, so I always have to end with a shop visit. Here I had the choice of an array of shops. I only bought two books, a Richard Scary with both l’anglais/le francais for my grandson Will and a more sophisticated one for Victoria, 9, about how the eye can be tricked by illusion in art. I must take care not to load my bag over 50 pounds or I’ll end up having to leave the heavies at the airport.

Somehow as we board the metro to go back to our hotel, I become introspective. The slice of humanity getting off and on—the fear, the wonder, the sheer reality of whizzing through the earth as I grip onto a silver pole, aware that a pickpocket may be pressed up against me—all finally dulls the senses. I wonder if this may be my last trip ever to the Louvre. A big, big birthday is looming ahead in a few days. This trip has required a lot of strength—no problem for a young ingénue—but for this old bird, very taxing. Then I hear a French voice announcing: “Le Placide.” It’s our stop. We shoulder our way out.

Shall we look for glace? At a tiny tearoom across from our hotel, one may take a cooking lesson in macaroons, the signature sweet of Paris. As my daughter and I sip our Earl Grey, a fast chatter of French is nonstop in the adjoining kitchen. And then a loud whacking which must be the manual grinding of almonds for almond paste. We inquired about the class. Classes in English? “Oui, Madame.” It is so tempting to forget this writing business and take up making French pastries…

Where's the feast?

So, you think you’re flying to Paris? I was looking for Hemingway's "Moveable Feast," so I had plans of flying to Paris.


Our flight plan had two legs, Birmingham to Atlanta and Atlanta to Charles DeGaulle. Eazy-peazy, right. We planned to board the plane at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, have dinner during the layover in Atlanta, and arrive in Paris midafternoon Wednesday. We would check into our little Hotel de Sevres St. Germaine in a quiet neighborhood on l’abbe gregoire.

Instead of French baguettes et buerre this morning, and coffee so strong it tastes like espresso, I’ve awakened to a tiny one-cup coffee maker in this dingy hotel room in College Park, Atlanta. Not a Krups coffee pot. Not anywhere close. But after yesterday I was glad to see it. We didn’t get into this hotel room until 1:00 a.m. today, Wednesday, and we left for the airport in Birmingham at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. I didn’t notice the coffee pot at all last night. Who cares at that hour? I turn into a pumpkin at nine nightly, so I could barely turn back the covers.
A storm grounded all flights in Atlanta last night, and we missed not just one but two flights to Paris. As soon as we learned at the Bham terminal that we were going to miss our straight shot to Charles DeGaulle, we re-booked on KLM through Amsterdam. Three planes were trying to leave B.ham for Atlanta and all were stuck without permission to leave. One plane ahead of ours loaded and unloaded twice. You can imagine the sweetness and light surrounding that particular gate, right. Bedlam truly. Somehow our plane got bumped up to first horse out the gate. At about eight o’clock a Delta official who’d been fielding irate and weary and handicapped customers for hours suddenly became animated. He threw the phone down, jerked up the microphone, and announced boarding instructions with an urgency that might suggest the impending savagery of a tornado. “We have a ten-minute window to get boarded…” and continued to bark directions to the gathering crowd. The crowd, too, became alive. They texted, they zipped up bags, closed computers, got up off the floor, trashed fresh drinks, and jockeyed for a position closest to that opening our gate.

Naturally my group of four got waylaid and set to the side. We were different. We had two boarding passes, the old flight we’d missed and the one that we were going to miss if we didn’t get in the air by 8:30. The attendant assured us that it was truly only a twenty-five minute flight to Atlanta and that we should make it.
I’ve never seen such disorder and haste in a boarding process. It was such a small plane that large carry-on’s were simply thrown to the side to be put elsewhere. My carry-on held this laptop and I wasn’t about to part with it, so I just stuck it in front of me—it would not fit up top nor underneath the seat. Attendants usually so persnickety about where that item goes didn’t even blink an eye. They were shoving things and pressing flyers to get seated. By some miracle and more than a little chaos, we had eight minutes left to spare on the runway to get into our “slot.” My party of four relaxed for the first time since we’d heard about the flight delay. Nicholas, my grandson, offered me his personal pillow. Ah…rest…

…until we began to speculate about the large cities of light below us: there aren’t that many big cities between Bham and Atlanta. And then came the fatal announcement. “We are in a holding pattern with several other planes and will be circling Atlanta a bit before we’re able to land.” Clock watching again. Tick tock. Will this plane run out of gas? A plan began forming. “Gran, my jacket is above us. You grab it. I’m going to bolt out the door first, check the board, and start running to the international terminal. You check with the guy outside for directions to the terminal.” I imparted his plan to my husband and daughter seated behind us.
Have you ever raced through Atlanta’s airport? Nicholas at eighteen was way ahead of us as planned. The Delta attendant waiting to greet us with information had to use the board himself. The board said “BOARDING, F-9.” Fortunately the tram and escalators got us there in record time, but my heart rate had not been that high for that long since before I fell and crushed a kneecap over a year ago. At one point my daughter stopped long enough to ask for a ride for me in an empty vehicle not being used, but got fluffed off by some employee trying to make it home herself, no doubt.

When we got off the last escalator under the huge chandelier in Concourse F, my daughter lamented, “There’s Nicholas. We’ve missed our flight.” She had spotted Nicholas and his demeanor told the story.

Now I find that this wretched little coffee maker won’t even work. I was so happy to see it, filled up the paper cup, ignored the dust that had collected, pressed the button and no red light. I changed the plug-in. Still no red light. I restrained myself from screaming and throwing it through the window.

We were sent to this hotel by a disgruntled airline employee. I’m the only one awake here. I’m drinking a Dasani water from the vending machine downstairs that sells sodas and condoms (Nicholas noted as we entered last night they were sold out of condoms!TMI.) and munching on a bag of mini-pretzels from the plane.
I’m wearing my new pink raincoat (as a robe since my luggage was checked in Bham) purchased at Burlington Coat Factory just for this trip since it is expected to be rainy and cooler in Paris.

I’ve had a very unsettling thought: where is our luggage?