I only have four days left in Paris and as I have spent the past 15 days in "full on" tourist mode--walking the city for between 6 and 10 hours a day, I'm feeling less perspective on Paris in the past couple of days and more on myself.
I've satiated my travel tastebuds for the moment and am moving more into knowing what's in my head and extrapolating from that what is ME and wha tis just junk that needs to be taken out like three day old trash.
There's a lot of "junk" in there--some that has been brought in, some that I bought, some that got left there by others, but I'm clearing it out nonetheless. It feels good to have the halls of my mind widened and cleared of what's been in my way of easy circulation.
I'm reading a LOT on this trip--which I always treasure so much about traveling. Everytime I get on an airplane, I'm excited because I know I'll get through at least one book each way--here too, I have so much time on the subway, which I've used to read and write. I'm trying to take as much from every moment and at the same time give myself to every moment in the process. I'm trying to do what I hardly ever do at home which is be 'present' with the moment. I'm always too busy being good at "multi-tasking", which certainly has it's place, but i need an on/off switch timer on it.
I'm sitting in a little park outside of Moulin Rouge--one of the more interesting parts of the city I've been to. It's pretty warm with quite a lot of humidity in the air--which isn't a good smell on Paris, but has become a familiar one.
I haven't been in a hurry here--not ONCE--and I like me this way. No anxiousness. No consideration of the time. I know it can't and won't last when I get home, but wow has it been refreshing.
I have a map that by now is worn out almost as much as my shoes are, but in the past couple of days I've found myself looking at it less and less. Not because I've learned my way around. But because I simply don't mind wherever it is that I am. It doesn't matter which direction I'm going and that's been one of the coolest experiences of walking Paris.
Instead of the first half of the trip which I spent mapping out where I wanted to go--this way I just walk and am surprised when just around the bend I see the Eiffel Tower come into view or I wander down a steep street in Montmartre and find myself in Moulin Rouge, like I did today.
It's definitely the way I'm spending the rest of the week in Paris. After all, that was the plan in the first place--to not be a "tourist" so much as a "wanderer".
And speaking of--the cobblestone streets of Paris are beckoning to me once again. And God I do love obliging them....
