lights. camera. action

Paris hotel and casino. a replica of the Eiffel Tower steps one giant welded leg into a generous lounge. statue of a man mopping the street outside a piano bar and crêperie. you grab the handle to help him. i take your photo. the action here never ends. brave faces under the lights. the work is never done.

#katyamills

couldn't stand the summer

trapped by heat. the relentless wave of sun. gimme a lemon ginger ale on ice. my mind in a prism. my thoughts burn through me like sea salt. the machines and engines double down like doom. throw me in a swimming pool. turn the sky to liquid falling down. cool rain reaches demigod status in the valley. leaking antifreeze side by fields. rivers are  the queens. sacks of ice pulled down from freezer doors to fracture on the tile. night sails in like allies freeing paris circa 1945.

the plot. ecstatic

A while back i was wearin a floral print shirt i bought with a gift card leftover from the holidays, and found myself perspiring through another busy day, what with the excitement of life in this little city, and my sweat comingled with the pattern, the print from the inside out, and the material began to stick to my skin. i tried to tug it away from time to time, whilst talking to people about their problems, then had to take my coffee break early, smiling as i excused myself, when to my dismay i found the print had firmly rooted itself into me, and my upper body was one big floral tattoo, a colorful garden up and down my arms and fingers, across my shoulders and breasts, around to encompass my back replete! i quickly made my way, unacosted, out a side door to exit the building, and running home from there i had many uninvited acknowledgments and gang signs flashed my way by passerbys, all in the breathless spirit of the life of ink, and finally i got over myself by a chain link fence a few blocks from where i lived. as i caught my breath in a lean i saw the clouds open up to the sun, and closed my eyes to feel the sudden warmth spread over me and fill me with a feeling i have never before known, a sorta ecstatic love! last thing i remember i was leanin more deeply into the chain link, which was giving into the weight of me, the side of my face and body getting waffled, one eye fixed within a quadrant of link. i opened it to see within, a community garden with plots for anyone who cares. i always wanted a plot of my own, beside pumpkins, green pepper and garlic. now i kinda sorta do! i seem to reside there, and they tend to me, watering and cutting me back every so often. i don't mind my rectangular confines, so long as sun can reach me and provide the ecstatic love, here where the plot thickens, in the heart of midtown, i have lost interest in anything else.

terrorism sux

Paris is incredible. Incroyable. Very possibly the most treasured city in the world, though I hate to use superlatives. Have you been there? You will understand the origin of the café and people will talk back to you, tell you how they really feel, argue with you, almost fight with you before you all get down to the basic human show of kindness, and share some bread crusts and cheese, water and wine, coffee and conversation. And embrace one another, locating a point of arrival  - by point of departure. You gotta roll up sleeves and put forth the knuckles of convictions first, show them where you stand. Only then can you find common ground somewhere between, which often is the character behind the words and philosophies. Willingness to defend your cause and country. Loyalty. Spiritedness. Cohesion. Esprit de corps. This is the French term for the universal experience of morale. Uniting behind a common cause. And in these times of terrorism (under attack today in Nice) we need the glue only France can manufacture. Let our hearts go out to the lives lost and the lives living with the loss. We all can feel the loss and let those who we have lost inspire us to counter by coming together somehow to heal these differences because we all can agree, on ALL sides, terror and Terrorism suck.

Journal # 03.06.15

We suffer the same as they suffered before us.  As we suffered before us. We are of the same. What I see in the eyes of the century preceding, I see in the eyes walking the streets tonight. Under another full moon. My eyes see the same they saw in the night. The way we relate, they relate. Arthritis in the joints. Dancing just the same. Minds plagued by worry and fear. Delighted by children at play. Fascinated by technology. Frightened by industry. Dreaming just the same. Lighting a taper. Lighting a stove. Samovar for tea with you. And me. Knowing no more and no less of a God.

the author at home. madness. 2015

 If time folded back on itself, and I found myself there, I would look into your eyes and you mine, and sashay on up to the guillotine we would,  the Place de la Concorde, where we pop popcorn and toast almonds and smoke our fags in the clear, together over wooden shoes, fin de siecle, talk of the American Revolution n'est-ce pas? Just the same. And then a collective pause and a gasp and a shout.  I turn my head into your shirt, when off with the head of Louis XVI. We will not sleep tonight! None of us. Everything has changed, just the same. Life. An amazement.