I want to wake up in Paris...
Photo 17. Paris
Maybe it was watching Lily Collins in Emily in Paris…
channeling Audrey Hepburn, before her…
Or, before her, Coco Chanel.
Or maybe just the word Paris. On a perfume bottle. Or on a gold shopping bag, “I ♥️ Paris” flaking off: someone packing their groceries in a Lower Hutt supermarket.
A perfect croissant. A chewy baguette. Cheese.
Macarons.
The Eiffel Tower, lit up at night. The flag: the tricolore.
The language: Mais oui, madame…
Princess Diana.
The national anthem at a rugby match: Marchons, oui, marchons…
Peter Sarstedt…You live in a fancy apartment, off the Boulevard St. Michel. Or Louis Armstrong: Life will always be la vie en rose.
The street names…Boulevard Saint-Germain, Rue de Rivoli…
The gardens…
Thinking you’d be a better writer, if only you could join Ernest Hemingway for a liquid lunch, at Les Deux Magots. Or Simone de Beauvoir.
Edward Degas’ paintings of ballet dancers. Chagall…
A postcard, from a friend, bought walking along the Seine one evening.
The bridges. Haussmann’s buildings. The glass pyramid at The Louvre. Cobblestone streets. The restoration of Notre-Dame. Gargoyles. Small dogs, in bags.
Tour de France cyclists on the Champs-Élysées.
Shops on the Champs-Élysées.
Smoking.
Scarves.
The Metro.
Phantom of the Opera. Les Misérables.
Woody Allen’s movie, Midnight in Paris,
or this scene from the 1995 remake of Sabrina, with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford.
Maybe, it is one—or all—of these things, that makes us want—so much—to go to Paris, some day. Nobody should presume to have a firm opinion about life, love or literature before visiting Paris.1
Or maybe—if we’ve been before—these are the things that make us ache to be back there, once again. Make us want…
To wake up, in Paris, with you.
(Watch The Hot Sardines perform their song—Elizabeth Bougerol on vocals—here).
Next week: Weka Went Walking
Djuna Barnes. American artist and writer who moved to Paris in the 1920s