December 3 (Mercredi)

 

Catherine arrives to drive us to Nancy railway station. Jacqueline waves goodbye from the kitchen window.

10.28 The train leaves.
10.48 Blobs of snow are scattered like rocks in a field.
The TGV is picking up speed.
I would rather be sitting so that we can see where we are going rather than where we have been.
The TGV is now hurtling along. I’m feeling sick.
Crows in the sky.
Haystacks.
Fields and village rooftops flaked lightly with snow.
All flash past.
I listen to Neil Young’s, Tonight’s the Night.

I’m climbin’ this ladder
My head in the clouds
I hope that it matters
I’m havin’ my doubts
I’m singin’ this borrowed tune
I took from The Rolling Stones
Alone in this empty room
Too wasted to write my own

 I first heard Tonight’s the Night, on a small cassette player that sat on a bedside table in Joelle’s room in Richmond. I don’t recall hearing Borrowed Tune. It’s such a good song, just a harmonica, piano, and that voice.

A black angel rests in a field. His wings are heavy.
A grove of bare trees is skeletal, like veins in a dried leaf.
All green is a field of Christmas trees.
There’s a young deer.
11.47 graffiti – industry – suburbs – Paris – it’s exactly 12.
We lunch at Foodissimo
4.13 Eurostar is leaving.
5.40 We enter the Channel Tunnel.
6.11 We are in England.
6.48 Paris time, Eurostar comes to a halt. I turn off the iPod and The Stones’ Little Red Rooster. We are in London.