If you go off the wide streets of Paris you are likely to find many a gem. Quaint cafes, vintage dresses, unsung singers, et al. But there's something else you can find or not find ('coz you wouldn't even know if you see it!). It is a piece of art like no other. Five letters, the word 'Amour' written on the most unsuspecting canvases - streets, doors, scooters, railings, lamposts...It is an irrepressible chain of love notes one man leaves behind him every day. No body sees him, no body notices when he lays down his art...but they can see his work. If you keep your scooter parked long enough you might come back and find an 'amour' on it, or you might find it at the edge of pavement it is parked on. It is usually a tiny scrawl like a gentle whisper, a brief reminder of that wonderful word...that wonderful thing! (And, since he writes with washable white marker nobody seems to mind it!)
Don't know how you are imagining him...but I bet the reality is even more romantic! Just imagine a lean, old man with Jesus-like long silver hair and beard. He looks as much scruffy as dreamy and each one accentuates the other! And when he opens his mouth to speak in lyrical French he just completes the picture of an elusive legend. He was heartbroken once and since then this is what he's been doing...for years, for every day of those years...this is his life's work...and what a piece of work it is! It is nothing if you think about it and yet, isn't it everything?
(When I heard about this man I was so touched by the almost-surreal charm of it all I had to put this up. I just wanted to remind you all about the people who are liberated from the swarming and racing of our typical lives.)
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