Cherese's Recent Blogs

Happy Sunday today is a lot of snow here above the knee where is my hot guy who warm me up and melt the snow around

Happy Sunday today is a lot of snow here above the knee where is my hot guy who warm me up and melt the snow around

There is a certain, veritable energy, too powerful to ignore. I feel I can be a part of change here (even in light of certain political restrictions). I have now been here one month, and know my soul has wandered here before. Because in so many ways, it has felt like coming home.And now I begin to inscribe stories about my year here, willing myself to write again, marvel in things, and let myself be, well, more me. Jeanette Winterson once said, that when we let ourselves respond to poetry, to music, to pictures, we are clearing a space where new stories can root, and in effect we are clearing a space for new stories about ourselves.
So let the story begin. And in the attempted avoiding of over self indulgence, I very much hope you will be a part of it!
Life as a muse

All writing is inspired by and sourced from that which inspires me... relationships, writers, artists, places, books, music, love, dreams, spirits and everything inbetween. Life is the most wonderful muse.
Man greets you enveloped by the stores quaint and quirky, wrinkled and slightly delirious nature. Writers regularly read their work here, there is a piano to play, there is a bed famously slept in by great minds (and still available for volunteers, travellers ands writers). If you have not read 'Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co'. and spend your days dreaming of writing, old books and dusty bookshelves, and of course Paris, and adore the eccentricities of artists... then read it, and lose yourself in this warm and crazy world. After then I guarantee you will be as intimately involved with this place as the rest of us. It's magic. I implore you, if you are in Paris or are going to be, and love books... go here. You will never be same!

And in my observations, have decided that if one wished to change the world, he/she must first change themselves. Of course Ghandi was correct!
And so the decision came, after two years in a city I did not much care for in the throwing of nightmarish challenges my way.
I should move to Paris! A city depicted as one of mystery, history, romance and art.
I was set in motion.
So within one month, (not knowing exactly what I should change about myself, but knowing that change should occur nonetheless!) I found a job and moved to the city speaking one of the most widely spoken romance languages, in faith that the energy of this magnificent city, would re-introduce me to my creative core, allow my dreams to breathe, allow for the meeting of great and admirable fellows until we are able to move without effort, and love entirely without compromise. And in such, change the world. Or at the very least ourselves, and in that contribute to a bettering of things.
In theory.
Paris is a city that I love. It is dark, honest, and gruelling at times, and as full of poverty as it is riches. But it shines. It has a consuming energy and even on my darkest days can evoke a smile. There is a certain, veritable energy, too powerful to ignore. I feel I can be a part of change here (even in light of certain political restrictions). I have now been here one month, and know my soul has wandered here before. Because in so many ways, it has felt like coming home.

The making of big, life altering decisions seem to come to me in their own time. Usually when I wouldn't expect them and never as soon or as I often wish they would. But the decisions come, in an instant, simple, succinct manner. It is the realizing of an idea, and knowing without reservation that I have reached an impasse in my current environment. It may have been clear for some time that change was required (my life has a habit of falling apart dramatically around me as I desperately cling to keep it together with tape and glue, because I am somewhat of a control freak and simply won't give in to something until I am absolutely ready) but only when I know what that change is, for certain, do I make my move.
Those who know me, know what my journey has been up until now. I have been fluttering around with a highly tuned flight reaction, studying, reading, writing, playing piano, teaching, loving, battling ill health, making mistakes and learning lessons, nowhere and everywhere, stuck in an in-between space in the seeking of peace, pleasure, and people to share these ideals with. Believing that one does not have to succumb to the weight of the hardships that certain marionettes have caused around the world. But instead can choose to be informed, and in that change what one can for the better. Fight for something better!

One of the first things I did when I arrived in September was travel to this bridge at night, look across the Seine up to the Eiffel Tower in the west, then towards Notre Dame in the east, and breathe it all in (fuelled of course by a large overpriced verre de vin rouge). I have a painting of myself on that bridge and it now hangs on my wall in my 12m2 apartment, and reminds me every time I feel lost or lonely or frustrated in this big new city, to go walking. To cross over and keep my eyes, ears and heart open for something new!

So, after another particularly fraught morning at the post office trying very simply to get a package that was meant for me, but which they refused to give to me (note to self; forget Paris even has a postal service, one would have more luck with pigeons) this day I headed South, wandering without intention towards the passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, that crosses over the Seine from the Jardin des Tulleries down towards Boulevard St Germain. Some of you may be familiar with this little antidote, as in fact there are many bridges in Paris similar and also around the world (in China, Hungry, Italy and Russia), and this is one such bridge adorned with the symbolic promises of two people adoring each other and locking their souls together into infinity, via love padlocks.

This time last year I visited Paris with a great love. It was one of those perfect cold winter days leading up to Christmas, in which lovers can lose themselves in each other and the city, feeling warmly happy, and all darkness dissipates just walking around. You find yourself not just in the city, but feel yourselves becoming a part of it. It was on that day that Paris officially became not just a love for me, but the love. It got into my bones. I was reminded of that recently, when I went on one of my walks.
My all time beloved spot in the city is Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris. One of my favourite French movies of all time is Les amants du Pont-Neuf which was shot on this bridge, which has some of the most iconic and breath-taking views in Paris. It is wide and air flows freely over it, so you often feel the sense of your troubles being washed away as you step out onto it. There are also half moon concrete nooks dotted along the bridge where one can curl up and just look and breathe, talk with friends, read, paint... anything one wishes. It's a magical spot.

But I do believe, absolutely, in the sanctity of the book.
To me, just for a minute not thinking about the environmental advantages of e-reading, reading a work of fiction from the screen of a Kindle, is like drinking wine from plastic, or eating the cheapest chocolate when the finest is readily available to be enjoyed, or eating your favourite lunch on the run to your next meeting, or wearing your favourite outfit dancing around alone in your bedroom. The content may be no different to some, but the experience is in its entirety. A good novel and the reading of it, the setting of the reading of it, can be a magical, transformative, and almost spiritual experience. A romantic affair I wouldn't give up for the world!
So on a quiet Autumn Sunday I set out to explore Paris, bookseller by bookseller, in the seeking of magic and wistfulness.
Not a Waterstones in sight, Paris is full of thriving independent bookstores.
Most of these bookstores hold primarily or entirely books in the French language, however there are a large handful of English ones. And some of these are exceptionally special.
Initially this day I headed out to Porte de Versailles to wander around the Salon du Chocolat exhibition, but the throngs and throngs of people on the metro should have alerted me to the fact that everyone else in Paris had the same idea. And when I arrived saw a queue no less than a mile long that I was not about to stand in. I rationalized, what fun is stuffing your face with fancy treats if you are doing it all alone anyway!
So I headed back one stop and went to the market.

Blogging is all new to me. I will be honest, I have never yet (although I admittedly will start) read a single blog by a stranger that I have not first read either in book form, or in the name of research. I realize this resonates age and probably makes me appear somewhat peculiar (I should point out I am just 25) but I am not a massive fan of all technological advances! And I am a little old fashioned at heart, okay?
I am a modern woman in that I don't believe in many customs and institutions, such as the wedding for example. Age old traditions that simple don't apply sincerely in many cases to modern life, in my humble opinion.

I think about the process of being a proverbial tree, and also the importance of sharing, of having family. To just be there, love, put you arms around each other and be curious, but not judgemental. To think and embrace. It is the sharing of experiences that go on and on and on. And these experiences that stand forever to look at in gardens that another person once considered or experienced as you do, likely also with the person standing next to you.
All writing is inspired by and sourced from that which inspires me... relationships, writers, artists, places, books, music, love, dreams, spirits and everything inbetween. Life is the most wonderful muse.

One place I got happily lost in recently, as a lover of romanticism, art, roses and secret gardens is the Musée Rodin, discovered by Rodin himself in 1908 when artists such as Matisse and Cocteau were living and working there. Situated in the 7th arrondissement with a stunning view also of the Eiffel Tower one can splendour in the many sculpted works of Auguste Rodin scattered along the walks through this extensive garden in the grounds. The Thinker, my favourite next to the romantic embrace of The Kiss, is the central figure of the garden, the symbolic figure of the artist. Walk past the Gates of Hell and it is an Eden in Paris. A spot for nostalgia and love affairs (on an off tourist day).
And in this secret garden I am drawn back to the memory of the novel,
"One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever ... And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes."