Paris seems like a very maternal city. This is good for me, here in search of a connection to a mother-space. I like to see those two old islands girded in the middle of the Seine in front of my room, sitting like breast in the heart of Paris. This city’s hearth and birthplace are still food for an endless flow of tourists. One warm, afternoon, soon after my arrival, I stopped to let a woman cross my path. Her slim, high-heeled steps held her whole body up and forward and with a gentle urgency, her dress carried her breasts like fresh desserts quivering on a platter. Even I wanted to dip my face and savour. Everywhere women are celebrating summer with their breast. In the spirit, I have take to naming my left breast, Ile-Saint-Louis and my right, Ile-de-la-Cité!

This morning on my run along the Seine, there were as many women running as men, unusual; from my experience here, there have always been more men and they often run in groups of  3 or 4 or more. But this morning, there were just as many of us, all singly jogging along this road that is usually a very busy auto-route, but for the month of August it is part of Paris Plage. Today, I ran longer than I have ever run before. Last summer I managed to run 5 km. once. Today, I don’t know yet,  but it felt like way more than that. This is an accomplishment, because, I am no runner! I started years ago, just slowly doing more, because I needed a fast, cheap way to get my body moving and burning fat. Usually I run on grass to keep my knees and joints from too much impact, but there is precious little open ground that is unpaved here, let alone with grass growing, so I hope my shoes are good enough to cushion my bones. Today the entranceway to the path alongside the river where I usually run was blocked. So wanting to run further,  I had no choice but to either turn around, or head into the big, black tunnel. In I went and once in, it was not nearly so dark. It has it’s own lighting and there were others in there running, cycling, walking as well. But it was long, super long and I felt like I was in some giant underground worm hole and when the tunnel finally came up, I could see the dome roof of the Grand Palais in front of me. Wow! “Oh my God,” I thought,  “Now, I have to run all the way back.”  It went just fine. Maybe I could be a long distance runner yet.

I am feeling much better about being here. Since yesterday, I have found my feet or at least one of them is on the ground.