Postcards from Paris

Paris holds its alluring attributes despite having to share it with everyone else. It’s truly magical. Cliché? Oui! True? Oui! People expanding and compressing accordions down by the Seine, the architecture breathing elegance and the food just belongs in your mouth.

Walking down the rue seeking out a specific book, maÎtre d’s welcoming me, a woman resting on a crimson piano, dancers spinning the floral wings of their dresses and a pig roasting with a charred apple in a corner window. A man leans out of his blue shuttered windows to tend to blooming flower box bouquets.

Journeying past a few people practicing Capoiera in the sun, stopping only to take a photo of the cow mural near them. At first I wasn’t sure I understood but it became clear that 3 young French girls were suggesting I include them in the picture when she giggled and said “I look like a cow no?” I laughed and obliged.

The twilight of Paris is consuming. Tourists and natives alike congregate on steps, around fountains, under columns or pause in transition to look up and glimpse the soft yellow yawn rescind allowing the glittery blue to softly blanket over the city. I watched from the travertine stone of the Sacre Coeur. Her pearly whites, blackening in the corners despite the fact that it exudes calcite to ensure the Basilica remains free of wear and tear.

Paris at day and night is fast and slow, chaotic and sedate, anxious and beautiful. Flowers call out to you from little plots of dotted grass with graceful statues that dance and wink. When the traffic hurts your ears you can dip on to a side street and read a book under a shaded archway with vines that glance over your shoulder. Paris dares you not to see its beauty and when a boy asks you to dance in the middle of a busy walkway while he sings in his deep French accent, to not find it utterly what it is, romantic.