One thing I really love about traveling is the times I stumble into the unknown, tumble into magic, encounter a bohemian wonderland. When I am in a new place, out of my daily familiar routine, my senses start to crackle with anticipation. Just walking down the street becomes an adventure, I turn a corner, and bam! I am swept away into an unexpected escapade.
For years my finger have tingled madly to write this story, but I didn’t know how. I still don’t know how, but I’m writing it anyway.
It was October 1995 when my best friend Kim and I emerged from the Metro in Paris in Montmartre, ready to see, taste, hear, feel, it all.
As we walked, we saw two formally-dressed women sitting at a fancy dinner table across from each other, served by a formally dressed waiter in black tie. Their table was covered in starched linens.
What made this extraordinary is that they were not in a restaurant.
They were sitting in the middle of a cobblestone sidewalk by themselves, no restaurant around. We were intrigued, and we stopped to watch what was happening along with several other people passing by.
The women ate elegantly, with impeccable manners, engaging in conversation if they were in a 5-star restaurant and not on a dirty street corner surrounded by curious strangers, mothers with toddlers, students and businesspeople, children and backpackers.
One little boy stood near their table, captivated, solemnly watching, until it all took a turn.
One woman elegantly laid down her silverware, then dug her hand into her food and threw it at her dinner partner, who joyfully responded by throwing her own food back.
This caused an exuberant uproar of stunned laughter from the spectators, the loudest delight coming from the little boy standing closest to them who gleefully laughed and pointed.
When sauces and creams started flying through the air, the little boy could not contain his delight, clapping and shouting over his shoulder to his mother in French.
Kim and I were spellbound, as the women stood up so they could smear the food onto each other with gusto, even climbing onto the table, the dishes crashing to the sidewalk, and then it all took another turn as they started kissing on top of the table, still plastering handfuls of cream on each other.
The little boy was doubled over in laughter at this point, his hands on his knees.
The women hopped off the table, covered in whipped cream, took hands with their waiter, and bowed, to the audience, then packed up their set, lit cigarettes, and walked down the cobblestone street, talking and laughing, with food smeared all over them. I could have imagined it, but it seemed the street lanterns were turning on one-by-one as they passed by, illuminating the darkening streets.
It was Magic Hour.
Kim and I looked at each other, unsure of what we just witnessed. The artists hadn’t passed a hat or asked for money. They just created a moment, an experience, allowed anyone who was passing by into their world, and then carried on their merry way.
We talked about that night for years afterward as if we had visited another realm, a fancy dinner on a cobblestone street full of mesmerizing characters, passionate sensuality, and enough cheeky wit to ignite laughter all around. It had somehow pierced a hole into our worlds and we never forgot it.
I have found there to be so much destruction and heartbreak in life, and traveling is one way to experience the opposite: the disorienting ecstasy and jubilation that comes with creating something new, something that never existed and will never exist again, a gorgeous shining moment on a delapidated street corner in Paris.
Even if I’m not sure what I am experiencing, or what it all means, my body tingles madly and something deep inside feels illuminated, something that wasn’t there before.
I often yearn to find myself bewildered, to encounter the unconscious and enter the realm of magic and the power of imagination to refuel my spirit.
What made it even more exquisite was experiencing it with my best friend, looking into her eyes in delight and wonder, linking arm and heading into the night knowing whatever we experienced, we did it with linked souls.
