Writing Spaces: La Palette

St. Germain-des-Près, Paris 6e arrondissement

The Saturday Brunch: a figurative flat white or fizzy to start your weekend

View from a VIP table at La Palette (author’s photo)

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Writing Spaces: La Palette

How does one get to sit on one of the reserved tables at La Palette in the morning?

This is a question you might one day ask yourself if you find yourself as a writer in Paris. La Palette is the Parisian cafe where Hemingway and Picasso used to go and where movie stars drink champagne for apéritif. One of the most famous in Saint-Germain-des-Près now listed heavily in tourist guides, though thankfully not always. But in the morning, it is rather quiet here, tucked away on a tiny little street corner of Rue de Seine, yet just a stone’s throw from The Louvre across the river.

The best spots - several cafe tables looking out at the sixth arrondissement with the wall behind them and a heater atop (if needed) - have little réservé signs on them every morning. These spaces provide the shelter of the cafe and its waiters with an open view to the morning — to the cold ancient stones warming in the sun, vines slowly creeping up surrounding windows, to the people going to the boulangerie for fresh bread, to the bicycles and street cleaners taking advantage of empty pavement.

Not anyone has indeed called to reserve the particular spots. No, they are held for the regulars. The art gallery owners and their entourage. At one time this group of regulars included, on some days, Jacques Chirac. One would think it were a seemingly impossible task to crack the shell. Even the movie stars tend to sit out in the open plaza space, though perhaps by choice; they want to be seen.

Surprisingly, it’s not. Hard to crack. Well, not if you are persistent only in time and patience. If one were to simply will their way in, I’m quite sure it would backfire. However, a certain nonchalance, observation, and politesse make it quite easy to slip into these spaces.

Sssh. Don’t tell anyone!

But I’ll tell you now: you must simply become a part of the place.

If you’re only visiting a day, then forget about it. But if you plan to start your morning quietly here for several days…or weeks…in a row, there is not so much you need to do. You arrive, politely say bonjour to the waiter and other seated guests (even if you don’t speak French), sit in an unreserved spot (do not ask for the reserved spot yet!), order your coffee or breakfast, do your writing, stay as long as you like (order another drink if it’s more than an hour), pay a small tip with the bill, and go. You arrive the next day and do the same thing. Perhaps exchange a few pleasantries with the waiter or another patron, even a ça va? will do. Do this for at least three days.

Then, if you are feeling both confident and relaxed, on the fourth day, move toward a reserved table (but not the two right next to the street — there it is a special privilege), and before you sit, catch the waiter’s eye to say: ‘C’est bon ici?’ or something else very simple to that effect. Et voila. Unless you have done something to annoy the waiter, you will get your special table and those talking or reading the newspaper nearby will nod at you with respect.

Now, you might be thinking: why do I need to sit at these tables or get the approval of the other customers or the “garçon”? Well, you don’t, of course. But if you want to inhabit this place and look out onto the street, to capture the energy of the early morning in Paris, to create from a space without people at your back, then you might want to sit at one of these tables and feel like you are a regular, because in fact you are.

You will know, then, that you have been accepted. You can write and linger as if it were your personal morning ritual.

This task will be much easier if you live in Paris, attend frequently enough to be remembered, or stay for several weeks at a time. I realize this is not the reality for most! For one thing, Paris is expensive. But if you happen to find yourself in this situation, maybe you’ll want to try to see how it feels. Or, you may decide to bring this type of morning ritual to wherever you live or go on writing retreats.

Don’t come to La Palette for the coffee or food. I mean, both are ok, but the coffee especially is not worth traveling for. There’s much better coffee in the neighborhood at Saint Pearl and a few other coffee-snob spots. (I get it, I’m totally a coffee snob!) But if pure caffeine and a writing space are what you’re after, then La Palette fits the bill.

Maybe it won’t for you. Writing spaces are personal. For me, the place has history. It’s where I wrote the majority of my first novel on a monthlong stay in a closet-sized Parisian flat during my time as a PhD student. There, I met a writing friend who was doing something similar. We would say our hellos, then get into the writing, sometimes pausing occasionally for a little chat, but mostly remaining focused.

I’ve also met friends in the interior or on the terrasse in the afternoon and evening for a drink and a catchup. The place feels completely different at these times, but still there is something friendly and joyous about it.

And some mornings are not as peaceful: delivery trucks, dogs, animated discussions between the owner and a regular, large tourist families…but you have to just go with it. They can become a part of the words getting written in front of me or a short distraction to reset my mind. Yes, I used to see Jacques Chirac there occasionally, but this made no difference on the calm energy of the morning. Olivier Martinez, however, showed up on his motorcycle with a young woman just a bit before his separation from Halle Barry. Likewise, nobody made a fuss, but the energy seemed focused on their table of croissants and orange juice at the center of the terrasse until they zoomed away.

Maybe I keep going back for the nostalgia. There is so much that’s better about many new places in Paris. The city, though, is also about nostalgia, isn’t it?

And writing? I guess writing needs just the right amount of nostalgia mixed with progressive thoughts and freshness. That would probably describe the way I spend my days in Paris, which is only a three hour train ride from here.

I can’t go for month-long stays these days. But even a single morning of writing here, perhaps just next to the reserved tables or - if I’m feeling bold and recognize the waiter - jumping right onto one, can give me just enough comfort and dissonance all at once to create something fresh that propels me forward.

I’ve come to write here with my baby son strapped to my chest; I’ve come alone; I’ve come with friends; I’ve come in all kinds of weather. But the feeling remains the same: my dreams and imaginations mix completely with me reality into something like hope.

Paris in the sunshine feels like that hope. But Paris also rains…a lot. And its winters can be rather dreary. Somehow, though, Parisians find a way to enjoy their outdoor space at cafes, and no, it’s not only for the smokers. Here, we want to feel everything. Whether hope and joy, or pain and sadness. Cold toes make my fingers move differently on my laptop keys.

La Palette in the October rain, under a heater (author’s photo)

Only someone who has grown up in the big city can appreciate its rainy weather, which altogether slyly sets one dreaming back to early childhood. Rain makes everything more hidden, makes days not only gray but uniform. From morning until evening, one can do the same thing-play chess, read, engage in argument-whereas sunshine, by contrast, shades the hours and discountenances the dreamer.

-Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, p. 104

The joy of the Parisian rain continues in my soul from wherever I write. But maybe, upon this reflection, I need a local place to occupy where there’s more out of my control than just the squirrels who jump onto my balcony.

I’ll probably keep it a secret, though, until I’m done with it.

Where do you write and why? How does it influence what you write (or vice versa)?