Paris, Introduc-ed.

I told you we'd talk about Paris...

We were walking along the Seine, licking Berthillion ice cream cones, talking about our futures.  I decided to try out my new History of Paris knowledge on the beautiful French man walking beside me as we crossed over to Isle-St-Louis.  

"Ahem," (cue sexy French voice) "You know, this is the oldest neighborhood in Paris."

He didn’t miss a beat.  “Yes, and it is the most expensive neighborhood in Paris.”

Pause.

Why hadn’t I thought of that?! Instead, I thought: only in Paris is the oldest place in the city the most expensive!

“One day I will own an apartment on this island,” he continued, “and you will come and live with me.” Though I very well knew this relationship--or whatever it was we had--would not survive my departure from Paris, I nodded. 

 “Only if you drape me in jewels,” I teased.

And that is how life went in Paris.  I floated along in a dream-like state not knowing what was real and what was a figment of my imagination.  One moment I was a beautiful dame, draped in jewels, a cigarette in my wrinkly hands that I smoked through a long filter like they only do in old movies, calling everyone 'darling' and 'chérie.'  The next I was a young twenty-year-old staggering out of Pub St. Michel into the hazy dusk of morning in search of some carbohydrates and my bed.

Those six months were the sweetest I can remember, both because I consumed six thousand times my body weight in French pastries and because I cannot remember another time in my life when I did not have to seek happiness.  In Paris, it just found me.  I am not saying that I just floated down the tiny rues in a constant haze of utopia, but that even when I was miserable, it was beautiful.  Paris is the only city in the world that I have ever been to where you can be just as happy being happy as being miserable.  A glass of wine in an outdoor café tastes just as delicious when shared with a lover as when contemplating one’s miserable life.

Not to worry...Frenchie will return in future episodes.  (And my hangover is doing much better, thank you.  Must be all the cake.)