Yesterday, shortly after dusk, I cried on a bridge.
It’s a bridge connecting the two islands on River Seine, Cité and Ile Saint-Louis. A bright yellow upright piano, not a very tall one, stood in the middle of the bridge, with the keyboard facing one island, and the pianist facing the other.
I’m not sure if it’s the same “piano bridge” in my memory. As I was living in Paris 5 years ago. One day, in dazzling sunlight, I went across a bridge with somebody playing an upright piano on it. Another piano painted with playful colors. Maybe yellow as well.
That day was so bright that my memory was so vague.
Hi again, piano bridge.
This time the pianist was playing a classic. Something in the form of a Chopin or Liszt. Fast fingers, shorter chapters, quick changes of tones, sounds of tender waterfalls or the milky galaxy moving away. I listened to the notes that went across to one island, and bounced back to the other, wound the bridge several times and dissipated into the cold Parisian winter.
In the background, La Panthéon was lit up. The sky was precisely indigo blue which sets on my hair and shoulders, and spawn my negligible drops of tears.
Everything was tranquil. As my heart goes, I didn’t have anything that hung above me to cry for. No stress, no cravings, no hope, no fear. Nothing. At least not within the 5 minutes I stood there. I felt completed like a blue-and-white porcelain vase, withholding hundred years of love, affection, intricacy, softeners, waves.
But that feeling faded within an instant. Jia asked me, what did you have in mind when you bursted into tears. With her wet eyes, she stared at me.
I said nothing. She said, oh it reminded me the first time I was touched by something totally irrelevant by it’s mere beauty.
And she told a story. I said nothing.
I didn’t have anything in mind. I don’t even remember the first time I was touched by something irrelevant by it’s mere beauty.
It’s a good thing to be back in Paris.
maoa 