flâneur

Is Elizabeth Gilbert right? Does every country have a word? A word that fits it so snug, and encapsulates its history, smells, art, and people so well that it has become synonymous with the country’s name itself? Rome is sex, New York is ambition, Paris is… Paris was…

The things I loved most about Paris were the things I did on a day to day (quotidienne) basis; frequenting the metro (métro) and traveling the world via its variety of musicians, buying a crisp (croustillant) baguette from my corner boulangère at her boulangerie, and taking my familiar tree-lined walk to school across the 15e and 14e arrondissements to get to the 6e, the ‘arrondissement des romantiques’ where Sartre used to sit in an up-market café ruminating about life and its mysteries, a cigarette dying between his lips. The nights (les nuits) spent along canals, boutique tearooms in the Marais (home of the world’s best falafel), and dozing off in palatial gardens. I can tell you where to find the narrowest streets (Rue de la Chat qui Pêche), the best fruit sorbet (Versailles, if you can believe it), a place that carries both WWII-era binoculars and Hanes socks (Marché aux Puces St-Ouen), the best in art house film (Le Nouveau Latina), a great little Cambodian place (Le Petit Cambodge, 20 Rue Alibert), or a vegan pastry shop in the heart of butter country (Vegan Folies, 53 Rue Mouffetard). I can tell you that the only way to get to know Paris is to get lost in Paris. To miss the train, to skip the Starbucks, to roam carelessly through its 20 districts, its lusciously combed gardens, elevated parks (la promenade plantée), wine bars, and jazz lounges. Paris must be tasted with the feet and remembered with the heart.

Can this Paris really have a word? Quotidienne, romantique, croustillant. Paris is the theme to “As Time Goes By,” the subtle breeze carrying news of a freshly baked loaf just around the corner, the daily dreams that are dreamed by would-be Parisians like myself who invent a city around us (books read, museums explored, loves lost, hope found—you know the sort). Paris is Paris. You should stop by and see it sometime.