Rhapsody in Blue

I celebrated my 26th birthday with a heavy heart and a hangover, slung on a park bench during a Sunday in March outside the Ecole Militaire in Paris. The whole trip had been a ridiculously romantic filled whiff of a sweet baguette and a tiny cup of Turkish coffee. In 1979, I encountered a woman I considered the love of my life while I was laid off from a factory in a rustbelt town near Detroit. Shortly after we met, she informed me she has been accepted to the University of Kent and was leaving in the fall. However, I was welcome to come and visit.



The University of Kent is located up the hill from Canterbury - getting there was as easy as utilizing the National Express airport bus transfer. Canterbury looked like a Monet painting in the foggy valley down below her apartment. We spent glorious hours walking through that fog, which silenced everything around us and kept us huddled close together for warmth. Things were looking good as my birthday approached, and she proposed a weekend in Paris for us.



The trip from Canterbury to London had been a popular European escape for over a century. My student status allowed for a great deal on Eurail, so it was easy for a broke American to get there. We also had friends in Paris who offered a place to stay. I remember looking out at those famous White Cliffs of Dover, appearing like gigantic salt blocks rising from the murky blue water. We avoided container ships while speeding at 60 knots on a Hoverloyd before landing in Calais and taking a train to Paris.



Because I was under the age of 26, the Louvre was free to enter. I walked through with a severely strained foot and, while hobbling, it still took hours to kick me out. The museum was an old palace, and the wing I wandered through was lit almost entirely with natural light. The paintings were hung salon-style in groups like grapes. It took me four hours to reach the Victory of Samothrace, awesome and powerful, but the Mona Lisa was so small.



Our room overlooked the Champ de Mars. I quoted Oscar Wilde:"Women are made to be loved, not understood", but my lady did not understand, and began to argue with me. I traveled across the ocean to be with her, only to disappoint her with my words. About every hour I would slip out and run down the hall to vomit up the superb bleu cheese and Bordeaux that I was consuming in sorrow. Off in the distance, as I was weeping in the park was the ornamental lighted photograph etched in my mind - La Tour Eiffel.