I left Bath with its limestone buildings, older than anything in my country by
four times at least, and I got on the train to London, just a stop before
bullet-fast under the channel to France. 

The Metro is crowded, and there are shouts and and pushing and shoving in a
language that sounds like a waterfall, and I find the same meaning there:
Overwhelming, something to lose myself in, to dance and listen and watch. Made
of the same material as I, at least two thirds, and yet I am something other,
foreign in this place.

I escape the push and bustle and step into rue d'Montmartrê and take my
notebook and try to find a place to hide, hide with observations and memories
and hopes and dreams of who I want to be, and yet trying to not be at this very
second, to cease to exist, to not intrude even a breath in this place so I can
see it as it is without me.

The café is hidden, around a corner from around the corner, facing nowhere and
yet the center of its tiny world, spun safely out of the way from the street.
Back alleys have always drawn me, and here it seems as if even the alleys have
alleys. I watch the waitress and every time she turns toward me, asking with
her eyes if I need anything, I smile a distant smile and shake my head just so,
trying to fade into the woodwork. My tea is cold and the pastry I've been
working on the past hour is still there on the plate. It's not that I don't
hunger, but at once I hunger to disappear and be able to see who would take my
place at this table when I was gone, and I hunger to burst out talking and
shouting at the intense joy of being in this no-name place around the corner.

I finish my pastry, feeling the sweetness in my mouth instead of being lost in
the smell, taste and sight of this city, and turn to find the waitress, but she
is gone -- the first time she hasn't been asking since I arrived -- and shake
my head a little. She appears from within the kitchen, having only been gone a
moment and can see I wish to leave. I'm left silent again as she knows what I
want. I have yet to say more than five words since arriving, not trusting my
tongue to be able to form the liquid words I expect to come out.

I turn, I hand her a few coins and shake my head silently when she offers my
change. I slide out, notebook and small bag and myself and glide away. I strike
up conversations with her in my head, I ask her what her life is like, why she
lives how and where and why she does. She answers, but it is myself answering
my questions, my own voice taking both sides of the conversation as it takes
neither outside my head. 

The light begins to fade in the courtyard where the café sits, and I decide to
chase it, following the light as it shifts through buildings and alleys. I
follow it to the street again, and it teases me by receding yet again. I turn
on another street, running off in another angle the light won't follow and try
to find my room for the night, though the daylight will spend another hour or
two chasing itself around the city streets.

This week, I've slept in six beds in three countries, in five cities. My watch
hands chase back and forth on the dial, not around in circles like it does most
weeks. 3:15, 7:20, 4:35, Noon, and back again. It feels fitting to chase the
sun back and forth past buildings and down alleys today.