Like the Olden Days – and the Kindness of Strangers – Friday, 29 September

So, after my euphoria-inducing French “lunch” at Alliance (perhaps I could just call it “déjeuner” but that wouldn’t really do it justice either!), I decided to take a little walk to my favorite church, Saint-Séverin, which was only a few blocks away in the heart of the Latin Quarter. The scale, the quiet, the beauty, the “sacred grove” created by the double ambulatory, the height, the Chagall windows, the peace amid the rampant noise and tourism of the quartier – it’s my favorite place to just sit and be still.

And then, since this was St. Michael’s Day (or Michaelmas, as they say in England), I had my heart set on getting a selfie in front of the huge fountain at Place Saint-Michel just down the street. Unfortunately, when I got there my phone decided to go into whacky mode, phantomly pushing its own buttons and wearing down the battery. Oh, well, you’ll just have to enjoy this photo I found online featuring the same perspective I was aiming for!

So with my phone on whacky mode I couldn’t get an Uber either. But there was a taxi queue at the intersection, so I went and stood over there, just like in the olden days. For 15 minutes. And there was an old guy in line before me who had been standing there even longer. Apparently early rush hour on a Friday isn’t the best time to catch a cab!

But, harkening back to even oldener (!) days, there was a bus shelter right there where the #85 stopped (a route that goes within a block of my apartment). And I had a ticket in my purse. And the bus that arrived 5 minutes later wasn’t already full, so I could get a seat! Yippee! However, the yippee factor muted a bit at every stop as more and more people got on. By the time it reached my stop the bus was packed, and I couldn’t use my patented rock-and-lurch method for getting up (it takes some room to get the inertia going!) and there wasn’t anything close to push against for the leverage I need. But a couple of sharp-eyed passengers (both women, of course!) saw my dilemma and helped me up and made sure the driver saw that a slow-poke was trying to get off. God bless these strangers and their kindness!