De retour à Paris

One of my favorite parts of traveling is coming home.  Exhausted after an overnight ferry from Santorini to Athens followed by a delayed flight back to Paris, I melted into my deliciously fluffy bed and could not have been more content.  Dahling, it was like BUTTAH.  Make no mistake, Greece was delightful--a 10-day binge of sun, knickknack shopping and yogurt.  And oh my god, the yogurt and honey.  I was already a fan of Greek yogurt--but for the past week and a half, I literally became addicted.  Greek yogurt and honey for breakfast.  And dessert.  And snack.  I took to stealing the mini honey packets from hotel breakfast--Just In Case, I told my friends--so I would never be caught with only one half the magnificent duo.  But I digress.  Spring break in Greece was génial (or, as we Americans would say, "great"; I couldn't, however, use "great" because "Greece was great" sounds too cheesy).  I was, nonetheless, thrilled to get back to Paris.  The air was soft and threaded with the scent of flowers.  The gray spaces of the garden below my window have been filled with voluminous greenery.  The Hausmanian buildings stood stately and magnificent above the boulevards.  Businessmen scurried along in their sharply-tailored suits and neatly-tied scarves.  I wandered along the quiet streets of my neighborhood looking for takeout and said hello to my favorite local dog, a large chocolate lab with a big, boxy snout.  He thumped his tail on the ground and gazed at me sweetly.

Nothing makes me love Paris as much as its absence.  It's only when I'm away that I begin to realize the scope of my attachment.  And what a snob I've become!  I find myself turning up my nose at imperfectly manicured gardens and wondering why other cities are not pretty.  Living in a city as beautiful as Paris makes one think that aesthetic pleasure is a right to which one is entitled.  The glitter rubs off on even the most mundane activities--my stroll to the grocery store, for example, is quite pleasant.  There's the old abandoned hospital--sobering but admirably crafted, its belfry rising with a certain majesty over the otherwise unremarkable street.  From behind the hospital walls peek the flowering heads of trees; a fountain lined with fallen leaves instead of water announces the entry to the metro.  And that's only on the way to the grocery store.

Yesterday I met my friend Jasper in tiny Japantown--really just a conglomeration of sushi and ramen noodle places--near Place de l'Opéra.  The sushi was decent (one of the few areas in which the West Coast is supremely superior), the conversation was refreshing (as was the watered-down House wine).  But the walk from my foyer in the 6th to the restaurant in the 2nd was dazzling.  Strolling down Boulevard Raspail, which is now framed by luscious green leaves, I noticed--for the first time--a narrow clock tower, sanwhiched between the other buildings; the stone was sun-bleached beige and a thin curtain fluttered lazily out of one of the windows below the clock's white face.  Soon I was on Rue du Bac, the Louvre's southwestern facade glittering in the early-evening sun.  The gray surfaces were plated with gold.  Soon I was floating across the Seine and into the Tuilerie gardens; the pyramid-like shrubs cast long, geometric shadows across the lawn.  The real pyramid sparkled, hot light and cold glass.  I waltzed under meticulously-manicured trees, their tops perfect squares.  I had the distinct impression I was wandering through a puzzle--angles and perpendicular lines and rococo curves, every corner shooting back a dazzling gold--I was Alice au pays des merveilles.  Missing was the warring deck of cards; weren't they playing croquet as the Queen of Hearts shrieked "Off with their heads!!"?

It was gloaming as Jasper and I perused restaurant menus.  Très doux.  Doux--there is no better word for a Parisian evening in spring.  Doux--or douce in the feminine--whose translation encompasses "soft," "smooth," "sweet," "mild" and "gentle."  The French pronunciation is exquisitely soft and light: it floats off their rounded lips as a puff of smoke would wisp into the night.  This, in a word, is what it feels like to wander the rues of the 2nd arrondisement, lazily looking for a restaurant, intoxicated with the douceur of spring.

And I thought everyone was exaggerating about springtime in Paris.

Bisous mes douces (also an outmoded word for "sweetheart")!  À bientôt.