See paris again

Here I am, in Paris at last.
Five days of tripping down cobblestoned streets in sparkly ballet flats, singing La Vie en Rose and chewing baguettes.
Five days of the finest art one can see: the Louvre, La Musée D’Orsay, L’Orangerie.
Five days of sipping muscadet at Les Deux Magots, climbing la Tour Eiffel by stairway, walking the allées of Montmartre, gazing at Sacre-Coeur, seeing the sun shimmering on the Seine.
Five days of hot chocolate at Angelina’s, macarons at Ladurée, moules marinières et frites in a tiny bistro, and sketching patrons at Café de Flore.
Tonight is my last night here. I could traipse these curious streets for a lifetime. I will think of kindred, write poetry that only love and Paris can inspire. Five days in Paris! A goal like no other!

I dreamed I missed the plane. At the airport I realised I did not even have my luggage. I saw travellers with all manner of delightful souvenirs and tchotchkes and was forlorn, deflated. It was failure upon failure and missed opportunity. I am not quite over the prickly feeling of a dream that’s wiggled its way under the skin, but I am hoping vigorous breakfast karaoke and mocha smoothies will do the trick.

I have had a pig of a dog kind of day, with one ball of confusion thrown at me after another, until I am juggling with… well, with a whole lot of metaphor and very little substance.

I’d rather be in Paris, I said. Not metaphor. Really. For macarons and love of art and architecture, for real walks along the left bank, for good bread and the city twinkling at night.

I once wrote in a journal what seems like long ago, when I visited the first time in June 2007:

“In Paris, not everyone is in love.
But yesterday, I saw the shining example of what that would be like. Walking from the Louvre, I ducked in and out of shops in intermittent rain. A balloon, bright orange, floated out of reach over the dark, wet, cobblestoned road. A small boy shrieked with delight. I carried a demi-bouteille of vin doux. I watched with interest a couple riding a bicycle. She sat on the handlebars, exhilarated, facing him, her arms thrown around his neck as he manoeuvred through traffic. L’amour, I thought, and plenty of it, unrestrained.
There are plenty enough people, pensif, leaning with measured, out-of-love unhappiness, or that’s how it looks. I enjoy that also. I would like to say it is a city in which everyone is reaching for the love of something, or love itself, or the lack thereof. It would be more accurate to say that Paris intensifies the emotive state. If you are in the dizzy, blissful state that is love, Paris amplifies that, provides the perfect setting. If you are unhappy, Paris celebrates that.
It is a helpful place to learn what one does love. I lie in bed at night and think of all the people the city is wrong for. Then I look for beauty and perfection. That must be what I love most of all.”

I looked at this today and said out loud to m’self a version of Screw this, let’s go. My long-suffering grrlfriend of dozens of years who happened to call up to chat this afternoon, said I’m in. Five days. Mid November. We’re booked. That’s it. Can’t wait. Paris. Again.

here kitty, kitty, kitty.

I have failed.

Morrissey’s I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris is playing, and I’m dizzy with his bitter joy! Oh City of Lights, I want to throw my arms around your steel and stone, too!

and tonight Paris beckons again. I know now it will always be like this; a fusion of thought and fancy and suddenly there’s flight through time and space and the universe opens to allow a hurtling Rat through it. My scarf is trailing stars, comets and love ballads. I have sweets in my pocket for the ache in my heart.

since Paris was mine. In the middle of deep blue nights I squealed, running playfully through narrow streets, my breath catching, hearing close and closer behind: Rat! Rat! Rat! Must I catch you? There is nowhere to hide! Then the lasso around ankles and a gentle tumble to the ground, soft and sweet as meringue.
I shall fly there tonight: Must I invite you? There is nowhere to hide! Catch me!

and she wrote a charming little book on Paris. I received the book a few months ago, and since then recently discovered we have two mutual friends. People in common! Is this like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? Are the degrees spaced farther apart if there is an ocean between us, or do we use another method of measurement? (Rat suppresses only one desire today, and that is to blurt Six Degrees of Kelvin Bacon! like it’s the funniest bit of esoteric humour known to humankind.)

O snowfall light and gentle! Although I should know better, I am already out in it, around it and within it for tonight’s visit to Paris. I wear not boots, but best intentions and a coat of affections. I’m looking for bread and hyacinths, an endless embrace, a kindness, a happiness that radiates beyond warmth, and then a friendly yank on a pony-tail. I have until dawn. I have much to do, and one to seek.

vicariously, she tossed book in air and, slipping feet into repettos, retired to sun-room, to pen and paper: a plan, a concrete plan for four days of la belle vie. First stop: Angelina’s for impossibly oncteux chocolat, with Ruinart grand cru fizzing sweet nothings in ear.
Je viens. “I want the finest wines available to humanity. I want them here, and I want them now!”