"Finally I found myself destitute in Paris. Beautiful city. All this time
people had been uncommonly kind with me. Even rough rides had been
supportive too which was lucky because I was at my last gasp and
vulnerable pretty much everywhere. In Paris (during 3 weeks) everyone
smiled at me in the nicest possible ways. The friend of a friend I met
on arrival said as I turned to go no he couldn’t give me a job actually
and he didn’t know why he was saying it but if I ever needed money he
would happily give me some. I asked with some humour (and 30 francs* in
my pocket) and thin for the only time in my life and dressed to the
nines (sharp flattering haircut too with flirty big-cat colours) if I
looked liked the sort of woman who needed money, and he just laughed and
said praps it was the well used walking boots hanging from my rucksack
in reception! People stopped me on the street to tell me I was
beautiful, what a stunning smile I had, to give me free coffee or cake
with a wink/chut!, or keep the time I hadn’t used from the time before
on the internet, or to ask (3 in the space of a km) if they could help,
did I need money, was there anything they could do, when I was finally
in tears. My parents gave me money. In Paris I wrote a list of the
things I needed rather than wanted. Everything I could think of in any
direction of my life. I asked for the blessing of the city, and put a
beautiful flower in the river to honour a beautiful woman and ask her
help really to get myself into the current of my life, and walked and
walked and walked. And smoked and smoked and smoked."