alors

OK, I'm back, sitting at the kitchen table, with my 25 days behind me (and god only knows ahead, cf. "jour no. 21"), listening to moody Chet Baker play his moody trumpet, and being very moody indeed.

Actually, I'm moodier than I'd expected. To be honest, I was expecting to enjoy my time in Paris, maybe do a little reflecting on my life and my future, eat some yummy food, and then come back home, ready for whatever's next.



Instead, Paris slowly, over the course of my 25 days, got completely under my skin. In addition to the sheer pleasure the city offers, I also liked the challenge of speaking French (and feeling like I was improving), and I really liked my blog. It gave me a good focus on my experience, and it made me appreciate what each day gave up to me. I'm going to miss it! {Merci beaucoup for your clicks and comments.}




And of course, Paris also represents something, something that I, in my aimless state, am very susceptible to: it represents a life lived with meaning, in beauty, a life lived richly.

Unwisely, on the plane I chose to watch "Revolutionary Road," a movie that I'd initially avoided, but then became curious about as I heard the backlash to its negative reception, and even more curious after I saw the well-received "Reader," which I deeply loathed. I figured, maybe I'd just got my Kate Winslet movies crossed.

At any rate, as many of you know, the plot point for "RR" is that its protagonist (Kate Winslet) wants to escape her typical 1950s suburban life and move her husband (Leonardo DiCaprio) and children to Paris - "to live," as she puts it. Paris is the Shangri-La, the city on a hill, the antidote to the regular-old, garden-variety, 40-hours-a-week life that pretty much all of us figured we were going to avoid, and which pretty much all of us now have - some of us contentedly, god bless you, and some of us, not so much.

Of course (and I really don't think this is giving away anything, since it was all quite clear from minute one), the new life in Paris never happens, and much tragedy ensues.



Note: POOR CHOICE FOR VIEWING ON A PLANE TAKING YOU AWAY FROM PARIS.

{last pic: painfully appropriate detail from Rodin's "Porte de l'Enfer" at Musée d'Orsay}