A recollection of the outstanding beauty that encases paris.

That day was the day I came alive. I ran through the trees, I swung on the lamp posts. Recklessly and without warning. I ran through the streets. I walked too slowly and skipped too fast. I soaked it up.

It was the love I noticed most, The beauty of it all. Everyone seemed in love in paris, in love with the city, in love with him, in love with her, in love with themselves. I fell in love that day with the taste of it all. It was as though time had stopped. People. Sip, sip sipping. Laughter. It was endearing, it was contagious, the colossal feeling of being there. It felt like magic. It was nothing other than breath taking.

I turned to a friend and told him that it wasn’t real. That it couldnt be real, it was too overwhelming and catastrophic. He looked at me and laughed, asking what I meant and I told him that none of it was real and that I think I’d been dreaming.

But I felt it. I felt it running through my bones.I could feel the leaves brushing my dress but mostly I could see the stars. I could see them watching me as I
ran
ran
ran.
Into the night, through the lamplight, people congregating on corners, sipping wine, inhaling smoke. Talking, always talking. About boys and girls, about love and life, fears of the future. I arrived in Paris with no understanding of what to expect, with fears of my own and prejudices of others surrounding me, letters and postcards and scrunched up photographs.

Yet once there, surrounded by these magnificent creatures, these undeniably free and outrageously creative people. I couldn't help but fall in love, with these characters I'd written stories about in my head, with the cigarette smoke, the bright lights and the window ledges featuring a colourful array of potted plants.

I collected it all up, all of the danger, the excitement, the contagiousness of paris and folded it up in my heart. I gathered it tight and folded memories deep within my pocket to read on rainy days, or sad days or sunny days or any day at all.
Paris was extraordinary and exciting and deep into the afternoon I'd sit with coffee perched beneath my fingertips watching these hopelessly in love people efortlessly float around town.