During my first semester of my MFA program, one of my instructors assigned us to keep a commonplace book over the course of the semester. A commonplace book is a file of quotations. It had to be at least 25 pages, so I had to be a bit of a bunny with our assigned reading. I couldn’t slough it off until the last minute.

More than three years later, I’m still going strong, although I’m no longer doing it in a document in exchange for class credit. I now have a small Moleskin notebook. I write in it by hand. No one is assigning me this. I just love to do it.

Please meet my commonplace book, as it records my readings during my stay in Paris over the past week.

“I always say that you can not tell what a picture really is or what an object really is until you dust it every day and you cannot tell what a book is until you type it or proof-read it. It then does something to you that only reading can never do.” – Gertrude Stein, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

I picked up a copy of Gertrude Stein’s “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” at Shakespeare and Company, just behind Notre Dame. I read it in one day. Admittedly, this is the day we flew home from Paris, so I had time on my hands. Let’s talk about the above quote, because not only is it the ultimate validation for my quest, it’s fascinating. I reread it several times as I transmitted it to paper. She really spelled “can not” as two words the first time, and “cannot” as one word the second time. This was a woman of great intentionality. I refuse to believe she made this choice casually. What does she mean?

I read Gertrude Stein’s poetry, if you can call it that, during the course of my program. It was inscrutable. It made me want to craft shoe leather out of the roof of my mouth, anything, anything to get away from her words. But “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” was pretty good. I’m glad I gave it a try.

“A little artist has all the tragic unhappiness and the sorrows of a great artist and he is not a great artist.” – Gertrude Stein, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

Ouch, Gertrude. A little close to home, yes? Me and my tragic unhappiness and sorrows, and sloppy prose. Alas. We went to Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre. There are no little artists featured there. I’m not much of a picture-taker, though. I delegate that to my husband. He loves a camera. Thus I took no pictures in the Musee D’Orsay or the Louvre. But I did take this photograph of a coaster at Les Deux Magots, where James Joyce used to drink.

What kind of idiot looks at fine art for several hours on two separate days, and takes no pictures, but does take a picture of a used coaster presented with her glass of red wine? Alack, a little artist.

I read two other books during the trip. Haruki Murakami’s “1Q84,” and Jean-Paul Sartre’s “What Is Literature?” Technically, I started Murakami at home, but the book is bigger than the telephone directories they used to give you for free. It was totally genius. The two quotes from the trip that I’ve put in my commonplace book I’ll withhold for now, as I may use them in a project I’m working on.

I also still have a bit to go with “What Is Literature?” Perhaps 70 pages remaining. Maybe 60. I read that immediately after finishing “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.” I never got up from my window seat during that Air France flight. Why worry about blood clots when there is the threat of brain clots? These are the two books I purchased at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. I worry that, like the maracrons purchased at the airport, I shouldn’t let Sartre go more than a few days if I hope to get back into it. It will be hard to finish that book in a not-captivity situation, but I’ll do it.

Things they do better in Paris, beyond the accurate “EVERYTHING” include public toilets and a genuine encouragement to give to the poor. This encouragement to donate sits inside the front gates of the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. I didn’t take photos of these graves visited: Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Frédéric Chopin. I was too busy looking at them.

Cemeteries are among my favorite places. I go in a cemetery a half dozen to a baker’s dozen times a month, and have been doing this for years. They are great places to still the mind, to explore, to run. Thus, Pere-Lachaise is the place we visited that was my favorite. No contest. I can’t believe how packed together everything was. Rotting grandeur is my favorite vibe. This one had it.

“You must have deep down as the deepest thing in you a sense of equality. Then anybody will do anything for you.” – Gertrude Stein, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

It is possible to lean on one another in life, and in death. This is what I see in this image.

Reviewing my phone, I took seventeen photographs during my seven days in Paris. The first photograph was of kohlrabi for sale in a market. My small-town Minnesota grandmother loved kohlrabi. As they say, wherever you go, there you are.

And that was me. Reading my books. Writing down quotes. Not taking many pictures. Eating croissants every day. Never looking once at social media (oh my God, yes). Drinking copious quantities of red wine. Not having Thanksgiving dinner because our family is vegetarian anyway. Rather, some nice wine and cheese.

This is what a nice Thanksgiving meal in Paris looks like when no one in your family eats flesh.

I was struck, landing at Charles de Gualle, and walking through customs, how different it felt to be in a country without fascist leadership. I felt much freer and safer than I did walking through U.S. customs on the way home. You never know what kind of shit they’re going to pull on the abortion people, and when.

But in Paris? I didn’t have to think about it.