the tale of a space crossed

Today i walk on recommendations...i form a fragmented map... i have destinations i only have titles for...i get on the metro like lifting the pen from the paper...i can chose the places that exists on my blank sheet of paper that is today.

go to la defense he said it is the city in the air

go to cafe cheri she says its so cute

you should walk the river she said

la defense:

after a month of low skylines and noisy streets, la defense is a real shock. the space. the silence and the buildings made of windows that cut they sky like shards of glass. i was comfortable in the past, here i am confronted with the present which feels to much like the future. these free standing buildings make no sense to me, i look in on meetings and computer screens. Beneath the ground i walk on in a network of roads, car parks and shopping malls. who knows where the real ground starts. it is so quiet. There are cities working within these icicles, that reflect my woolen hat. i know they grew like trees from the ground, but they feel more like they landed like meteorites, crashing and flickering with strange new energies. A woman pours a bottle of beer into a glass. suited people stand still on red carpet. i am handed a free microwavable meal in a plastic bag. it is so quiet.

cafe cheri:

Under the metro track from jaures homeless people has made a sitting room out of sofas and coffee tables, they left their dinner over one of the grids that lets heat out of the metro to keep it warm. Miniature football pitches, skate parks and basketball courts are squeezed under the shadow of the metro line. In an archway he scribbled poetry on to the pavement with chalk. The men playing bowls have hung their satchels on hooks on a lamppost. i walk through the bones of a market, its skeletal archways. a black man jogs by with a cd player in his had he shouts 'fuck the pigs, fuck the white man, fuck him again'. cafe cheri appears, it is a small white block on the corner of the street, a string of red neon lights crawls out of the top window. i can see its mirrored pillar and collection of school desks for tables. The chandeliers have red bulbs and a cafe creme is 3 euros. i am inside the cherry, consumed in its sickly redness, its sticks to me skin making it an odd shade of pink - i nest in my sticky sweet corner.

La seine;

The river catches the movement of living lights

The taxi boat is loading up, on this end the path is broken stones and worn grass, it starts to rain and a cyclist shelters under an arch to change into his water proofs

i pass a police scene and church bells ring, i am bothered by my misbehaving umbrella. i enter this time warp of wet cobbled stones where it is easy to imagine couples in appropriate period costume.

The river widens after the islands and the louvre, the walkways are punctuated by spotlights over benches.



i catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower and know that the river will begin to bend towards it. i am accompanied by a small white dog, we walk across the bridge.

a healthy community of house boats soften the edges with their creaking and plant pots. i pass a monster of rubbish in a corner of the river, that is so thick it forms an island for large rat to crawl over

it is true that Paris looks good under a grey sky. It seems as though the stars saw the lights of Paris and just gave up.

i pass lady Di's memorial, a golden flame frozen in a south westerly breeze. me and an old couple witness the leaves being blown from their branches, we come to a place where white birds are evenly spaced.



i think about walking on the sea bed. about the depth of the seine. the sea bed is an accumulation of debris that has been thrown in, passed through and caught, grown. this is the ground we walk on.

whilst walking the seine i became aware that i was walking a line that had already been drawn, and once mapping that line the map would be more recognisable as Paris - the first things people draw when drawing a map of Paris would be the river and the periphery. i am interested in the walking as drawing lines in the city, drawing lines on the city and attempting to walk them and walking lines that have already been drawn. The river was hear before the city (the city is here because of the river), but the periphery road was drawn on to it, someone must have drawn that line before it was built, and building it was drawing too. i decided to walk the periphery. when you have a line, you can walk on it, around it, across it, on either side of it, it was like this with the periphery, which made it altogether a good adventure.

what do i remember?

i remember the roar under the bridge and the orange glow

i remember being scared in abandoned places that lead to the railway track

i remember a van that felt lived in

i remember a boy lifting a girl over a climbing wall

i remember the road disappearing beneath me as i stood on the bridge that reminded me of Brooklyn bridge

i remember the point when i didn't know if i was inside or outside

i remember carrying a broken mirror

i remember being lost in the woods and coming across a campsite

i remember being the only woman in crowds of men, so many bowls games

i remember a race

i remember her standing with a buggy by the car

i remember the lake

i remember puppets and yellow trees

i remember them listening to the radio on steps

i remember his gut

i remember the journey

i remember the road like a tunnel or a well.

Walking has real potential for story telling, as a journey is the ultimate story. tales of travelers arriving and discovering. The narrative quality of a journey can be found in every walk.

This is currently one of my major concerns, on return, how will i tell the stories of my walks.

through words, through conversation, through pictures, through video, through maps.

i could lie...well, exagerate?