Day 265
I am in the throes of a love affair.
There are days when I think I would like to put an end to it … and then there are days when I wish for more. Much more.
I’m in love with Paris. The city not a person.
A friend of mine recently told me she’ll be spending twelve days in the City of Light next July. She’s forwarded me the apartment she is looking to rent. I want to throw up it’s so gorgeous. Seriously. It is a beautifully appointed, very French, tiny flat with a balcony. Wonderfully located and a view, from the bedroom, kitchen and living area of … yes, the Eiffel Tower. And not in the far-away distance but it’s RIGHT THERE!
I am so green I am practically a martian. Or at least a Granny Smith apple.
Years ago, after Tim died, I planned on going off to Paris for a month. To go breathe different air. I needed to go and collect myself. I was shattered and thought nowhere on Earth sounded better than the city that stirred my soul like no other.
I thought I could begin to heal if I walked along the Champs-Elysée, if I could sit at a sidewalk café while people-watching and eat a gluten and butter-laden croissant and sip a cappuccino. I planned on sitting outside Notre Dame for entire days … just looking at that incredible structure … soaking up every beautiful inch of it so I could preserve the memory … to bring to mind when doing mindless tasks once home.
But, as life does, so often … it intervened and my plans fell like the financial market. There went Paris.
And every now and then … like every third day or so … I wonder what life is like over there. I think to myself that that night I’d go to the opera … another day I’d go to one of the museums … another day I’d sit and watch the artists. And all the time I’d write.
I’ve said it before but Paris got me. It infused itself into my soul and I am hooked. Hooked on Paris. I guess there are worse things to be possessed by … or madly in love with … because I am … madly in love with that city.
And, how long was I ever there – you might ask? I don’t truly recall but it was only a few days. But during the time there I walked every inch possible of that city, visited museum after museum, ate and drank, people-watched and took a boat down the Seine. It was fabulous … and somewhere during that time I simply fell in love.
So, while I am green with envy, I am so thrilled that my friend gets to experience the city in such an amazingly grand way. The apartment is fabulously stunning, the balcony is beyond expectations … and then that view!
One day I’ll get back there … my love and I will be reunited. I will stroll the streets, sit at the cafés, go to the opera, wander through the museums, eat the baguettes – gluten and all. And I will breathe that different air and love, again, every moment.