TEMPORARILY AT HOME ON THE AVENUE SECRETAN
-- Paul Terhorst, Paris, France &nnbsp;  March 2002

The ambience of our furnished apartment in Paris can
best be described as old-lady kitsch. The owners are
two aging sisters who now live in Guadeloupe, in the
Caribbean Antilles. They've decorated their Paris
place with flowered bedspreads, flowered curtains,
flowered tablecloths, and flowered seat covers. Walls
are covered with pictures of flowers, hung on a
background of flowered wallpaper. Our friend Michelle,
who arranged for us to rent the place, thoughtfully
put fresh-cut flowers in vases in all the rooms, to
welcome our arrival.

Besides flowers we have reminders of the Virgin Mary:
statues, pictures, crosses, holy water, and postcards.
Another motif is booze: half-empty or fully empty
bottles of rum, whiskey, cassis, and other firewater,
mostly from the Caribbean. Finally, every cupboard,
every closet, every contained space is crammed full of
empty bags and jars. So we have that going for us, a
wide selection of empty jars, which is nice. Not that
we feel free to use this stuff. I sometimes imagine we
inadvertently use one of their plastic grocery bags,
and months from now we get a call. The ladies are back
in Paris. Do we possibly know what might have happened
to the plastic Carrefour bag, the pretty yellow one
wedged into the space between the wall and
refrigerator?

We're still piecing the story together, but apparently
Grandma, or Great-Grandma , built 22,
avenue Secretan, where we live, in 1880 or so. The
building has 14 apartments, along with other units in
buildings in the rear courtyard, and Grandma
filled them all with children, relatives, and friends.
Over the years the heirs have sold off most of the
apartments, but the family is still the dominant name on
the mailboxes downstairs, children and grandchildren,
nieces and nephews.

Our current apartment is on the second floor
of 22, avenue Secretan. The lovely avenue Secretan is
pure French: three butchers, a cheese store, six
bakeries (!), four fruit and vegetable vendors, and a
wine shop. There are guys on avenue Secretan who make
keys, repair shoes, sell hardware, rent videos, sell
dresses, develop photos, sell cell phone service, and
explain Internet access options. Across the street is
a medicine man. There are a couple of hotels, ATM
machines, and banks, and a dozen eating and drinking
establishments: cafes, brasseries, bistros, and
restaurants, including a McDonald's across from the
subway entrance.

For pictures of our apartment and neighborhood go to
http://photos.yahoo.com/paulvic/ . You'll notice in
the interior shots that Vicki has cleared away the
religious icons, the booze bottles, and the empty bags
and jars, to lighten the load a bit. But you'll see
the flowered wallpaper, flowered bedspreads, pictures
of flowers...you get the idea.

Avenue Secretan, in the 19th arrondissement, is
surrounded by both pleasant and rough neighborhoods.
Walk in one direction and you'll find majestic
buildings, some new, some old, occupied by responsible
people; walk another way, and you'll find partially
boarded-up buildings, with people living in hallways
and basements, seedy characters hanging around, and
the smell of urine.

Our next apartment, beginning April 13 through the
first week in July or so, is around the corner in a
newer high-rise building. There we'll be on the 13th
floor with a view of all Paris, dominated by Sacre
Coeur, the white church around the corner and up the
hill from where Vicki and I used to live in
Montmartre. After July, when we get kicked out of the
second apartment, we'll have to come up with
something. Perhaps a trip to Thailand or Egypt. Or we
might move to another apartment in Paris. We'll see
when the time comes.

Return to the Paulvic Table of Contents.