A Reminiscence.

Watching the SBS classic albums doco on The Doors tonight put me in mind of the autumn I was in Paris. It was the nineties, I was very young and, mais oui, I was indeed in love. The day we, mon cher and I, strolled arm in arm around Pere L'Achaise cemetary was windswept and suitably spooky. Cold too, after a summer in the south of Spain. I wore red gloves. My hair was rich with Moroccan henna. I had eaten brioche and bananas for breakfast. Dead leaves fell all around. He took my photo as I stood breathless at the grave of Oscar Wilde, where someone had laid a single red rose.

We followed the trail of graffiti to Jim Morrison's grave, heard him before we saw it. A group of people were gathered around, the Doors were playing on an old tapedeck and the grave was a mound of flowers. Candles and incense burned, joints were passed around. Someone stood and read some of Morrison's poetry, quiet and reverential at the head of the grave while we lay about and got high, and the leaves scudded and the clouds rolled by and the crows cawed in reverence to the Lizard King.

I wandered off then, and found Piaf. No hoopla there. Standing before her headstone, I thought about regret. Young and in love, I found I had none. Now, years later, I wonder at the girl I was.

My friend, J, she of the Hemingway story, has also visited Jim. J likes to write her poetry on toilet doors. On the door of the toilet at Pere L'Achaise, J wrote (one poet to another):

'Poor old Jim, you're better off dead

You've got a bunch of hippies sitting on your head.'

She has a certain turn of phrase, oui?

To Paris.