Adam's feet and Leonard Cohen

The winter grabs the exposed skin without discrimination. It is usually the cheeks that get red and puffy and the tip of the nose. In the morning, Adam’s face is the only part sticking out of the long coat, heavy gloves and winter scarf. The fur framing the hood around his face has a functional reason, not just decorative.  Almost an urban Eskimo though his shoes give up his Californian roots.

After a long debate, he agreed to donate a couple of precious hours of his holy Wednesday for boots shopping. On the way to the music Cite – the chosen activity for the day -- we found a large promising shoe store for kids.

With a bit of help from Adam, fine-tuning my accent at the store, we were able to ask for warm winter boots with a questionable European size. An older saleswoman, with a voice adapted to cigarettes and coughing returned with different sizes of the boots we liked. Adam, who was aware that every moment at the store was one less moment of freedom, impressed me with his efficient attitude trying on the boots. Yet, both boots were too small.

The lady looked at me and said in a voice that felt like it was coming from another place, the way I imagine time would sound like: "Madam, it is all too small for your son here.” I looked at the number of the rejected innocent boot and said don’t you have a 36? And with the same patient and clear tone, she said “Madam, he needs a man’s size.” A sense of rebelliousness mixed with refusal to understand overwhelmed me so I continued, this time with a pleading tone “don’t you have a 36?” "No Madam,” she pointed to the store across the street – “There,” she paused to be even clearer “at the man’s store”. I looked at Adam’s feet with pain and pleasure, with horror and pride, with sadness and wonder. How did he grow so fast? I never thought it would be like this, to be pushed out of a certain social rubric by the shoe saleswoman. The closest feelings that I had had was on the last day of Adam’s nursery school, but there I had time to think about it and a group to share it with.

How all this is related to Leonard Cohen? Because this is what I really wanted to write about -- his performance here in Paris, a show we were lucky enough to attend last night. When I was 15 my brother took me to see Leonard Cohen in Benyane Hauma in Jerusalem. Cohen was the singer from the black, white and sepia album playing Suzanne , Like a Bird on a Wire, So Long Marianne and more songs which I adored. On the other side of the large square album were all the words to the songs which I barely understood. Suzanne was the first song I learned to play on the guitar. All the chords were written in neat red pen while all the words, translated to Hebrew, were written in pencil. I played this song endlessly, in candlelight, after a dancing party, to a circle of friends drinking cinnamon tea, around bonfires, in closed rooms where the past belonged to the parents and the future to us. I wondered about Suzanne who took her lover to the river and fed him tea and oranges.

At 15, when everything was painfully possible and I felt I knew everything there is to know, I saw the man who knew Suzanne and was probably the man who drank her tea and ate her oranges.

Sometimes, more often than not, I only know after the fact, the things that change my life. But with the Leonard Cohen performance a couple of years after the ‘73 War, I knew my life was changing as it happened, as he picked on the strings singing his songs. And I was right.

Before joining my army service I went all the way to Hidera Greece to knock on his door at the small house he had on the island. He was not there. For three days I looked in the café to see if he is coming. I got to talk to the waitress who knew him and that was the extent of my contact, plus a poem I wrote and left on his door.

For 35 years I followed his career; his dry spells, his spiritual journeys, his books, new records, his divorces and love affairs. I even met a childhood friend of his who gave me an album signed by him especially for me.

35 years later, here in Paris I watched him through tears for three and a half hours.
It was our 10th anniversary, Pete surprised me with tickets for the show that had been sold out for the last two months. The venue was small and contained a group of strangers who seemed to share nothing except an enormous love for Cohen.

Leonard Cohen, Gray and Old with a voice that aged like wine -- deep and full, told us about life, about time, about separation and attachment, about winning and losing, about playing and mourning. His feeble knees bent as he kneeled in front of us with the same, if not purer, gratitude that we felt towards him. He bowed to his musicians again and again, acknowledging their contributions with sincere awe of their talent. All the musicians on the stage were wearing dark suits and fedoras. The show was all structure and planned to the finest detail. It was formality at it utmost, yet it allowed a spontaneity and intimacy I have never experienced in any show.  This combination of the formal and the unique, the ceremonial and the idiosyncratic -- I have only experienced while practicing Za Zen – the Japanese strict form of sitting.

Adam’s long bare feet, which not too long ago, fit in my mouth -- did grow.   His giggles turned into articulate thoughtful sentences, and his feet now are long and elegant.  I can’t stop asking myself did I miss anything during this magical process of growing, did I stay aware of the time passing, was I present? and am I now?

As Leonard Cohen sang last night:

“ The birds they sang
at the break of day
‘start again’ I heard them say
don’t dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light comes in.”

In my Zen practice in Green Gulch I remember most clearly Norman Fisher saying: it's only when you know you have stopped being mindful of your breath -- only then is when you are able to come back to it.

 

wine cheese and full moon

Each full moon I long, more than usual, for my women friends who congregate together in one of their beautiful houses in Berkeley to talk, laugh, eat, drink, dance and cry together.

When I told my Parisian friend, Eleanor, about our monthly tradition back home and my monthly blues she, without hesitation, said: "lets do it here then".  

Before I knew it, I was punching an entry code on a very old building in the Marais.  I looked behind my shoulder at the full urban moon laying on an old chimney, spreading its silver mist towards the warm street light.  The elegant street light bowing its head, to welcome the blend of lights.  I climbed the wooden worn spiral to the top floor as I followed the intoxicating smell of, what I learned later, was original Hungarian goulash.

Jazzy music escaping the slightly open door was my sign to enter and a hall full of unique original art greeted me.  A moment after my preoccupied host appeared, exchanged three kisses and disappeared back into the misty kitchen.  I took my time with the art around catching my breath till a glass of red wine arrived.   

 

The Gathering was set to 7:30.  I knew better,  showing up at 8, yet I was the first to come.  We talked, laughed even cried a bit, all through sipping unbelievable wines as one of the members works in a well known wine shop -- however, no cheeses were served -- as cheese is a dignified course that follows the main course.  The dinner started at 11:30.   

When I told Adam that I will be away for the evening for a luna girl gathering -- after a moment of orientation he said: "is that the Paris lunas?" and before answering he suggested to franchise all big cities over the world for luna gatherings.  They will provide the option, he explained, for traveling women to drop in each city they happened to be in for a full moon celebration.  Of course, he will be the CEO  since he was part of the idea's early conception.  He thought that it is somewhat of a problem that this company would not generate money, but soon decided, recounting its logic, that it is not for profit because it's good for the world -- followed by an old time jingle -- "if mama's happy everybody's happy".

fskt  rasvct  wome thefri cooloeit took a minute for him to realize 

All women but me lived in Paris more then half of their life.

2008 Beaujolais

Yesterday morning was a lazy late Friday.  Pete and I started our date-day in a near by brasserie for breakfast.  Although it was after 11 am it was quite baffling not to have the normal friendly chat and the strong aroma of coffee accompanying the frequent loud roar of the coffee machine.  There was an absence of customers, with only a few workers congregating outside the door for a morning cigarette. The usual scattered newspapers and quiet radio chat in background analyzing French politics, was all replaced by frenzied movement of dozens of boxes coming into to the store and a strong smell of cleaning chemicals. The coffee, finally served, was luke warm with no sign of friendly chat.  

The owner's hectic behavior, a mix of excitement and anxiety was puzzling to say the least.

Feeling our foreignness, we sipped our compromised cafe creme and double espresso and started a game of chess in the corner as the owner announced, amidst an endless amount of boxes behind the bar "IT IS THE BEAUJOLAIS DAY! are you coming later?" His voice shreiked with excitement

Well, Beaujolais Day, we learned thereafter, is almost a national holiday -- people drink and play music all through the night celebrating the coming out of the yearly crop.  The beaujolais is the only wine that does not need to age and November 20th is a national beaujolais birthday.    

Later, being the first one to arrive for dinner at 7:30, in our favorite restaurant the waitress opened a 2008 beaujolais bottle for us. She waited with  serious anticipation for the first taste "Bon?" she asked with true curiosity, as if asking for the baby's weight right after birth. "Super" Pete quickly relieved her anticipation.  She filled the wide glasses first for me, then for Pete and then... for Adam -- no questions asked -- c'est normal. Adam could not contain his excitement grading his half full glass like a newly given treasure.  I looked with puzzlement at Pete and could see in his eyes "only tonight...its a holiday" I looked around the restaurant -- no Americans. Well, what could I say, "Ok Adam, but with your food".  The worst confession I would like to make is that Adam liked the wine and did finish his half glass. 

Adam and I polished our steak entrecote and Pete used the baguette to dry clean his dish of seafood risoto.  The Jazz singer, picked up Adam as her main audience.  He was fascinated by her performance, when not trying to figure out the sound system and the wireless microphone.  She, with a smoky look, sang Louis Armstrong songs in a pronounced french accent -- leaning on our table -- and wrapping her red shawl around her revealing black dress.  In between songs, to smooth her tarnished voice, she took long mindful gulps of the beaujolais -- whose redness thoroughly matched her red shawl.

Today, we learned from  some in the know French friends that this year the wine has a hint of banana -- that ended all hints of the fantasy that I know wine.  We also learned that the beaujolais is the bench mark for all the 2008 wines, the vines the grapes will share similar qualities.  Thus the Beaujolais' prophetic capabilities explains further the sense of dread and prayer the French exhibit as they open their first bottle.

Maybe it seems that I went overboard with the Beaujolais description but it is nothing compared to the preoccupation we witnessed here.  I took some pictures on the way back from the restaurant of enormous tipsy bands making beaujolais music for a proof.

But before the dinner and after our chess game I took Pete to my Gym to show him another piece of French life, and that is, how the French work out.  We arrived at my "Club-Med" gym in the well off part of the 17th arrondisment.  The interior design tells the tale.  The lounge area is big and surrounded by cushy seats as well as coffee and soda machines.  It is usually densely occupied with people reading papers, magazines chatting, watching TV and the occasional whiff of cigarette smoke.  The Gym itself, on the other hand, is mostly vacant, and the few  who work out are graciously and rhythmically moving on the machines with an ever so slight trace of sweat around their neck or along the back.  Whenever I see someone with a wet big t- shirt and old tennis shoes huffing and puffing, I start to speak to them in English and I am never wrong.   There is absolutely never an offensive smell of sweat in the gym but rather the fragrance is a mixture of expensive of perfumes and aftershaves.  All the french people who belong to the gym are in great shape and are very tan -- don't ask me how -- I have learned to live here with enigmas.  My only hypothesis that they go from the gym to a tanning club close by, or to the hairdresser, or to the nail salon, or for a massage or perhaps to the great brasserie at the corner with lunches to die for.  Which of coarse bring another enigma does anyone work in Paris? If yes when?

On the way to pick Adam up from school, we talked about the Parisian, the gym, and the beaujolais. We love Paris, we are in it, but we are to be ever observers.  Becoming a Parisian who ignores the sirens, the dog poop, the smoke, the cold, and the crazy driving  is too big of a commitment. And even with a commitment to join -- there is no guarantee you will be accepted.  Paris is for the short, intense and passionate encounter.