Living Life on the Left Bank

It is true.  I am, at this moment and for the past five days, in the heart of Paris.  France, that is, not Texas.  Four months ago I asked for a week off of work (we make the work schedule far in advance) and then in January I had to figure out how to spend that vacation time. What a great idea:  go to Paris!  It had been about ten years since I visited this city, and damn the expense, I wanted to return. So I did. Fortuitously, my friend Tom was planning on being in Rome early in February and was able to take the train from Rome to Paris and meet me here, and thus we are staying in a fine apartment in the 7th arrondissement in the heart of the city.

It has been, so far, most excellent. The apartment is very lovely, the location is one we know well, the weather has been cool but not cold and Paris is as beautiful as she has ever been. We do simple things: walk a lot, see some art, stop and have a coffee, read in the apartment, go out for uncomplicated dinners. Tom and I have a long history of traveling together but again, it has been about ten years since we indulged in the pleasure of being in the same foreign place at the same time.  We laugh a lot, which is very necessary on vacations. I try out my French but as soon as shop keepers see us, they know we are not French and they speak English to us.  I don't care.

There is something so freeing about being far away from home, on vacation. The lack of proximity to one's day-to-day life means it is easier to leave the cares of that life buried at the bottom of the suitcase.  But at the same time, it is easier to ruminate on one's life, the point of it, the future, what one should do.  No decisions need be made, and that is a gift as well.

We have two more days here and then we jet home on Wednesday morning. Two more morning coffees at the small cafe down the street, two more chances to see a Vermeer show at the Louvre, two more days to finish the stinky cheeses we bought at the fromagier on Rue Cler. Two more days to suspend worries about work and money and two more days to pretend that Paris really does whisper in my ear.

Photos will be shared once I return home.  Bonjour!

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