What happens when not much happens?

Have you ever sat on a bench, giving yourself the time and patience to take notes of all the little things happening around you?

Today, I wanted to try it for a few hours, and what better place to sit, doing exactly that, than Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris?

48 years ago, the author Georges Pérec sat here for three consecutive days, watching and noticing. His observations from these three days became the famous book 'An attempt at exhausting a place in Paris'. 

Minute for minute, he wrote down what he saw: 

'In the background, two boys in red anoraks

A dark blue Volkswagen crosses the forecourt (I've seen it before)

Tourists photograph themselves in front of the church 

The square is empty. An empty tourist bus passes through it

It's five to two

The pigeons are on the embankment. They all fly away at the same time.

Four children. A dog. A little ray of sunshine.  It's two o'clock.'

Pérec took notice of ordinary street events, the passage of time, the thousands of small details, the micro-events, and in this way, he described life in the big city, just as pointillists like Georges Seurat made their paintings - by assembling myriads of small dots into one grand vista.

The square is still a lovely place to sit, with the baroque Eglise Saint-Sulpice, the second largest church in Paris, and the cascading water of the imposing fountain, guarded by marble lions.

The travel agency, the bus stop, the newsstand, and "the dealer in pious objects", to use Pérec's inventory, are still there, as is the Café de la Mairie, the only café left of the three cafés, he visited in 1974.

I sit perhaps at the exact same place as he did.

The pigeons are flying low across the steps leading up to the church. A running boy stumbles, and a bus passes. 

48 years later, still not much happens at Place Saint-Sulpice, but what a lovely way to spend an afternoon.