Today, I fell in love with Paris.
August 5, 2008.
Today, I fell in love with Paris. The sunday morning air was crisp. Grey clouds loomed overhead, broken every now and then by teasing snatches of weak sunlight and glimpses of childish blue skies. I spent the morning strolling the cobblestone boulevard de la Magenta, rue de LaFayette and every enchanting street tucked in between, just savouring the stillness; feeling as though I was the first to stumble upon a secret, ticked away and hidden from the rest of the world. I know now that the magic of Paris lies not in the splendour of the Eiffel tower or the Arc de Triomphe, nor is it in the breathtaking view from the Palais de Concorde. It is in this: the clink of coffee cups, the chill of a parisian winter and the scrape of cafe chairs. It’s in the quiet stillness of it all.
PostScript: My love for Paris has been renewed lately on account of my love affair with Anais Nin’s Cities of the Interior. She just makes it all come alive. Anais Nin means so much to me, I could never put into words just what her writing has taught me. It fell into my hands at a time in my life where I really needed some guidance and her words just seemed to say what I both couldn’t express myself and what I also needed to hear as a woman. When I go back to France it will definitely be a month at the least. This time I want to see more of the country. I bought a painting recently from a French art student who was from Marseilles and he saw the way my face lit up when he showed me his black and whites of Paris. We got talking and he absolutely sold me on Marseilles and seeing the rest of France. I lost his contact details – pity, he was lovely and he offered a complete personalised tour of the place and a place to stay. lol, he was quite the charmer, did the whole kissing the hand thing, ooh la la, lol. Would have to decline the offer now though – get the feeling the BF wouldn’t be too chuffed about my staying at some French Art student’s apartment :P
