Trying to find even a small speck of logic in life is like trying to loose weight. At the moment we are starting to philosophically scratch our head or on that Monday when we cut down all food except from yogurt and fruits, it is already too, too, too late. By that time a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Too many mistakes on our back, too many chocolates on our hip, for things to be undone. And if we feel that this time we have finally reached some answers ..... what we have truly lost is only liquids!
I have long ceased to be searching for the meaning of life. I’m not that brave, and besides that, I’m only a girl of a small-medium size IQ. I have also long ceased to believe in happiness. Happiness is not a state in which one can lead a life. Happiness and orgasm are one and the same thing. Imagine if they could last for ever! That would mean the end of the civilization as we know it! Proust would never have bothered to write down so many words about a madeleine melting in a cup of tea, if he had better things to do.
The second week of this brand new year finds me with a pessimism that makes me hold an umbrella under a shiny sky. And on top of it all, for reasons that go beyond my reasonable control it will take me a while before being able to plan and make my next trip. To make a long story short, I am left with what is second to travelling, which is no other than dreaming of travelling. Not bad considering the budget of it. A few dozens of lost man-hours is the only cost you pay.
And what I am dreaming of is Paris. Being in Paris is to me being in the hug of a long lost lover. Every time I am there I have butterflies in my stomach. And every time I wish I were there I am setting Paris pictures as desktop background. Tour Eiffel centered, Notre Dame tiled, Place des Vosges stretched.
Paris has a beauty that brings tears to my eyes. I still don’t know whether the incomparable number of books I have read about it is the result or the cause for this love of mine. I remember every literary character who has lived in Paris, as someone I once knew personally. I have searched the map for the streets and neighborhoods found in P. Modiano's books. The hunchback of Notre Dame is of course alive and trying to find some peace in his tower, but how could he with all those savages exclaiming "Oh! What a view!"?
In Paris I remind myself to slow down. I sink down in the haven of the cafés, these democratic successors to the aristocratic salons and I rejoice the “zouzouzouzou” sound of the language around me. In the cemetery of Père Lachaise I don’t use the map sold at the entrance, I am sure my steps will lead me to the tomb of Balzac and to the angel adorning the tomb of Chopin. In the bars of the steep and narrow streets of Montmartre I am wondering if they still serve absinth, and below the open skies of the boulevards I only wish I could fly with the airship of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. I love this city because at a time when colored lips made the difference between a lady and whore, the Parisians dared to place among their urban palaces, and their magnificent structured nature, a huge erection made of iron, the everlasting symbol of modern era.
I’m standing below this four leg monster, which gives me the impression that it waves in the breeze, and I can’t help it to think that here, I can certainly be larger than life.
