A New Song and New Friend in Montmartre
When the Absence of Love comes, it’s often best to sing and dance
In this week’s newsletter, readers will meet another character named after a different good writing friend, Judith Bachrach, who has been a reader of our adventures since we began My Life with Gracie many years ago on WordPress. You can read her current work here on Medium or here on Wordpress. Judi will always have a special place in our hearts because she shares with Gracie a great love for dance. She, like Gracie, was a dancer, and when Gracie learned that, she knew she had a distant friend for life!
Fun Fact: There really is a place named Le Maison Rose in Montmartre, but it doesn’t look quite like the illustration below. (We needed an illustration that would allow access to a Dance Studio in the basement.) You may want to look up Le Maison Rose online for actual photos and to plan your own visit there!
We begin with the first half of our little band of travelers who have already made their way to Paris as they meet a group of pigeons who turn out to be quite helpful in many ways and also share how their world of Paris in 1888 is not so different from the world of Nate and Gracie back home in the story’s current time, and yet they are quite surprised to learn about one of the main differences concerning The Living Library. You may think of “Marvelous Bread” as the “Wonder Bread” we had when we were kids growing up! But there is this thing with names trademarks which can complicate things!
“We are trying to get to a place called Montmartre where there is wild music, dancing, and artists who make pictures. Can you help us?” asked Pearl to a small gathering of pigeons.
“Of course. We can give you information, but what can you give us?”
“We come bringing something from another place and time,” said Pearl. “It’s a bread like no one—not even those with hands have ever tasted here in Paris ever before!”
“Give us some of this bread to try, and we will lead you to any place in the city you’d like to go.”
Pearl had carefully rolled up some of Aunt Grace’s feather rolls and a slice of Marvelous Bread inside her drawing pictures.
After the pigeons began sampling the two, they gave their opinion as a group.
“This one that you call ‘Marvelous Bread’ tastes like nothing from Paris.”
“It’s a marvel anyone would even want it.”
“We would all starve if that’s all we had to eat,” said another.
“Too little taste. And too much softness. I need lots of water just to get it down my throat,” said another pigeon. She laid her bite of bread in a puddle to get a drink and watched as the bread floated on top of the water and then soaked it up like a sponge.”
The pigeons said together in their typical pigeon way, “We promised to help you for some bread, but that other kind must taste better than this.”
Reluctantly, they took chunks from Aunt Grace’s Feather Roll.
“You say these are called ‘Feather Rolls.’ They don’t have feathers in them, do they?”
“Not at all,” said Pearl. “But they do have butter on them that has probably melted in some after our long trip here.”
“This pain et buerre is much better,” said the chief pigeon. “Bread and butter in your time and place are very different from ours.”
Pearl looked at the pigeons with innocent and hopeful eyes until one of them spoke. “You are indeed a foreigner in our land. According to the Ancient Stories, we are to help all foreigners. Now let’s get you and your band of travelers to Montmartre and a lovely little café named Le Maison Rose.
“If you are from another time, we have to save the birds of that time from this awful bread you call ‘Marvelous.’ There is no telling what else will change, and not for the better!”
Then one of the more quieter pigeons whispered, “I think this may be a trick by The Absence of Love.”
And with that the pigeons shuddered.
“You know about The Absence of Love?” asked Gracie.
“If there is The Absence of Love when and where you come from, then we have work to do!” said the leader of the pigeons.
Emily spoke up and said, “Gracie here has a gift that we believe can stop The Absence of Love from doing any harm through those with hands.”
“You do know, when all is said and done, it’s up to people to free themselves from The Absence of Love, don’t you? But we can discuss it at Le Maison Rose, perhaps with a plate of nasturtiums and marigolds sprinkled with sunflower kernels or dried mealworms.”
“We know that it’s up to people, but we have to do what we can, just like you pigeons,” said Emily. “I’m sorry but we do not understand the French part of what you have said, only the part in the Ancient Tongue.”
“I’m sure I understand,” said David. “I hear a lot of French in some of the newsreels back home. Le Maison Rose, I believe, means The Pink House. Pigeons of Paris, do you have a Living Library here? We could use the help of a Page who knows both languages, especially when our friend Nate is able to join us, and he speaks mostly English. He’s actually quite nice even though he does have hands like people.”
“Le Maison Rose,” repeated Gracie. “Our Ballet that we will perform is about a Rose Garden. Even though we thought we came to the wrong time and place, I think we are exactly when and where we need to be!”
“We know a Magpie who is a Page of the Living Library who will likely be able to do that. We will call her for you.”
The pigeon leader call out, and there was a return call.
“She is on her way, but she said she doesn’t want any of your Marvelous bread. And I should probably add—so that she doesn’t have to—Paris is the home of what you call The Living Library which has begun to spread to wherever there are songbirds throughout the world. It is what we call La Bibliothèque Vivante. Try not to forget you are in Paris now.”
Just then, a loud and exotic call was heard, and the travelers looked at one another. The sound was so loud that even Nate and Amelia heard it through the drawing that they had been leaning towards for any sign or sound from the friends they loved.
The Magpie arrived just as the strange call ended, and he announced, “That call was not from me. Based on how it makes me feel, it could only be from the pet of The Absence of Love.”
There on the other side of the gate, Amelia heard it and said to Nate, “Our friends are in desperate trouble. That is the call of the White Peacock, and there is only one in all the world that could be there in that time and place—the one who belongs to Professor Accipiter.”
In this next chapter, we learn more about Tippity and her special knowledge and skills which stretch beyond dance into the world of song. To separate out her song words, they will appear in italics.
Our first and bravest band of travelers followed the pigeons down the sidewalks of Paris, and from time to time they took what would be called un raccourci pour un voyage à pied in French. If Nate had been along, they would have called it a short cut for a walking trip with thanks to the Magpie’s translation.
“I have a feeling that this is indeed the most wonderful new experience I have ever had, Aunt Gracie,” said Tippity. “This feels like everything is beginning again, fresh and new and so very different from the time and place from which we have come.”
“You will have to tell us about it later,” said the Magpie, here we are at Le Maison Rose. And just so that we all don’t need to feel so formal, you may call me Maggie.”
Gracie looked up in amazement at the beautiful three-story house on the corner where two streets intersected at a close angle. It was painted in two shades of pink, one quite pink and one that was a perfect match for pale pink camellia blossoms from Nate’s Garden.
“This reminds me of home,” Gracie said. “I love this place! I don’t know what kind of flowers those are growing up all over it and even planted in the boxes along the balcony, but they are perfect, even if they aren’t camellias.”
“It is beautiful,” said Emily. “I will have to draw it so that Nate and Amelia can get here to join us.”
As Emily spoke she noticed Pearl quietly sneaking away from the crowd of birds gathered in front of the Le Maison Rose.
“Be sure to look everything over carefully,” said the Magpie. You see the door on the corner with the table and chairs for outdoor dining, but do you see another door on the opposite side?”
“Yes, there it is!” said Bessie, “I only wish we had Nate here to read the words to us.”
“I can read them for you,” said the Magpie. “It’s one of the things I have studied. Some of us in the Paris Living Library can read the words that the people write on signs and in their books.”
“My mother worked with the Living Library back home,” said Tippity.
“Really?” asked Maggie. “Well, I must tell you that I like all of you immediately. The Living Library may have been started by the songbirds, but we have always had a chicken as our Head Librarian here in Paris.”
“We have never heard that!” said Gracie’s Wren and Nate’s Wren. “It is not that we don’t believe you, but no one from our Living Library has ever told us much about how the Living Library started or that chickens have ever had anything to do with leading it.”
“That is fascinating!” said Gracie and the other chicken travelers. “Chickens as Head Librarians!”
“Well, my little Tippity,” said Lefty, “I guess all of those hours spent studying with your mother are starting to look quite useful, aren’t they?”
“Yes, Dad, they sure are!” said Tippity. “I can sing everything that she taught me. In fact, I’ve been wanting to sing something since we first went through the gate.”
“Well, go ahead, my dear,” said the Magpie.
Tippity began to sing, and Gracie, Bessie, and Lefty remembered how they had once sang as a comfort to one another in Nate’s garden. As she sang they all felt comforted by her words.
“It was at the beginning of time, and we were waiting for the world to begin,” she sang.
“We weren’t there then because it wasn’t our day yet, but if we had been there, we would have seen the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness being shaped and separated.
“We would have seen Sky and Land and Water being made and separated out in the ordering of a great chaos.
“That was when we would have waited to usher in the Kingdom of Light and Life and Love in all of its glorious splendor.
“We would have shimmered and seemed to glow with a curious radiance.
“Waiting would have been all there was to do for the first three evenings and mornings high on our cliff sides for those first three days before the beginning of time and the moment the world would begin.”
“Then on the fourth day we would have waited high in our trees as well in absolute silence as we waited for the beginning of time and the world to begin.”
In the trees around them, the songbirds grew quiet, not wanting to interrupt the flow of this new song coming so sweetly from Tippity’s beak, though it seemed as old as The Ancient Stories themselves.
“What is your name, my dear?” asked Maggie.
“Tippity,” said Lefty, seeing that his daughter seemed embarrassed to suddenly be the center of attention. “It is the name she was given by our friend named Nate. She knows what it means even though he doesn’t, but my little girl is unsure if she will be able to live up to all that her name means.”
“I see,” said the Maggie. “Well, you must know that the Head of all librarians, the Principalis Bibliothecarius, will be told of your arrival and will want to meet you.”
“We don’t seek to be famous or celebrities,” said Gracie, and Tippity nodded in agreement.
“Except perhaps for Pearl who loves being in the spotlight,” added Emily. “She has slowly crept away and gone off on her own.”
“I believe she has gone off to find The Moulin Rouge,” said the Laughing Gull. “She knows we are going to need art supplies to get back home after we get Nate and Amelia here where we are—and she is also eager to learn how to do the Can-Can!”
“Well, if she had waited a bit longer,” said Maggie, “She would have found that the other door just around the corner and a few steps down will open to L'école de danse de Madame Judithe—Où tout le monde est le bienvenu! or as you would say The Dance School of Miss Judith—Where everyone is welcome!”
“How perfect!” said Gracie, and hurried over to the door that the Magpie was pointing towards with her beak.
As the chickens perched on the little table and chairs, the shrill call of the strange bird came again—only closer as if directly across the street.
“I do wish Nate and Amelia were here,” said Bessie.
“Tell us about the Fourth Day,” said Maggie. “I believe it will strengthen us all.”
“If you know the words, will you sing it with me when I give everyone a nod?” asked Tippity. “Each of you should sing in your own language. Only then will we experience it as the first birds most surely did.
“Next we would have had our first reason to move and to make noises because we would have seen The Great Gardener shaping the most pleasant homes for us as we were looking around at all of the plants with tasty leaves and fruit and seeds which were quite curious because, with time, wherever a seed would fall, another plant like the one it came from would appear.
“We would not experienced any of this without The Great Gardener. It was like The Great Gardener had given us not only delicious food to eat but also lights to help that food grow and to help us find that food. But The Great Gardener had placed these things as gifts upon the Kingdom of Land before there was any living creature to see them, eat them, appreciate them, and be thankful for them.
“No longer will I say what we would do if we had been there because after that, we were there—on the Fourth Day—high in our trees. We were the creatures best suited for The Air Kingdom. There were other creatures best suited for The Water Kingdom, and some of us were invited to join that kingdom and did as long as they were able to return to The Air Kingdom.”
Then Tippity nodded for the others to join her.
“We were not sure that The Air Kingdom was truly ours, but then as we saw the gifts of food spread out endlessly around us, we could not control our enthusiasm and joy. As one body, we bent our knees, stretched out our wing and leaped into the air.
“We were the first creatures on the earth to speak and sing out. At first, our words and songs were in thankfulness for the gift of food. Then our words and songs were in thankfulness for an even greater gift, the gift of flight.”
With the concluding line, every bird flapped their wings enthusiastically.
“And let us not forget the gift of dance,” sang out Madame Judithe as she performed a turn and sweeping bow which ended with the placement of a platter overflowing with various delicious fruits and vegetables on the cafe's table for the assembled birds to feast upon.
With the smile of Madame Judithe, all the birds who had travelled through the drawing of the gate immediately knew that Le Maison Rose was to be their home away from home, and Madame Judithe was to be their hostess and teacher. They loved her instantly.
In writing the words of Tippity’s song about how birds waited for the world to begin, I was reminded how I’ve said before that this series is what I should have written from the beginning because it allows for spin-off books.
I’m considering a much smaller spin-off book (no more than 64 pages in color) of Tippity’s songs about what birds believe about the truths that guide their lives. (I found that writing this chapter was very thought-provoking for me and made me reconsider what I think about Genesis and other books of the Bible.) You may notice similarities between Tippity’s song above and the first of the two accounts of creation as found in the book of Genesis. My chickens found it quite interesting that trees and plants used for their food and homes were created on Day Three, while birds were created on Day Four could appreciate them through song and flight. This occurs before the other creatures that make noise—the beasts of the field and forest—are created on Day Five. Giving validity to their claim that of all living creatures, songbirds were the first to fly and the first to make noise.
Until Next Time
If you have any comments—good or bad—please share them on Substack or you can also reach me directly at John.Spiers@yahoo.com. We are looking forward to sharing with your exactly what happens next when our cast of characters (made of chickens, songbirds, and their friends) encounter Professor Accipiter and his White Peacock!
Our Best Advice for the Days Ahead: Be sure to take some time to sing a little and dance a little. Let the joy of creating enrich your heart!
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Pearl, Blanche, Emily, and Amelia
I really admire the way you have developed the backstory here. Considerable room for spin-offs in the form of prequels and sequels.
I have organized a lot of my fiction writing to develop spinoffs as well; my superhero characters were created as individuals before I decided to team them up, and I still want to keep them up as independent characters apart from the team. And there are other settings and characters that can be developed just as well.
Television is responsible; that's where the idea and term of "spin-off" originated.
I was reminded when you mentioned the "Maison Rose" that the first album recorded by The Band was called Music From Big Pink (which in French would probably be Musique de la Maison Rose Grande), so named because of the house in upstate New York where it was conceived and recorded. You introduced me to another pink house.
Your writing and chickens make me so happy.