I remember my first day in Paris. I was in love, and I was such a tourist. It was so embarrassing how many bags I had carried with me, bags full of materialistic things.
But by the second day, I had moved in. And my baggage started to loosen out. Over the next six or so days, I realized that those materialistic things I brought from the outside world are not necessary in Paris. For everything there is everything compared to everything in the outside world.
In Paris, I got my first taste of creativity. The way the words tingled my taste buds and the inspiration made me close my eyes and wonder what I had been eating the rest of my life.
Paris was where I bought my first journal. Where I first started to fill those Manilla colored blank pages with the words from my mind. Those words turned into a sweet prescriptive remedy for my lost thoughts and tears.
Paris was where I learned how to live. How to breathe correctly, as if I had been doing it wrong all these years, and now that it taught me, I feel like my lungs can fill themselves with twice the air as before.
Every morning in Paris, I would wake up to the beautiful smell of rain and coffee. As I slowly unpacked my things, becoming less of a tourist, I would take a sip of the delicious Folger's coffee and breathe.
Just.
Breathe.
I wouldn't ever need to head off to work, because in Paris, work is the last thing on your mind. I'd just ride to the Eiffel Tower to write poetry every morning with my cup of coffee. I rode the bus, and every morning, the same man sat next to me on the bus, and the same woman... Well I think they used to be together. They would both sit across from me, her head on his shoulders, the man wearing fingerless gloves, scraggly brown hair, dark thick scruff, and had a cup of earl grey with him. I did, however, see his paintbrush sticking out of his pocket. What did he bring them on the bus for?
The woman wore a faded filthy pink trench coat every morning... Before they broke up. She had a beautiful but simple ring on her finger, she would fiddle with constantly. Spinning it around her finger, because in the cold, her fingers shrunk too small for the ring to fit perfectly. Her hair was long and brown. A bit tangly, she wore brown boots that were covered in mud. How on earth did they get like that? Why doesn't she clean them?
But now, I see them standing on opposite ends of the bus. The man sits next to me and doesn't say a word, nor does he smile. His paint brush he no longer carries in his pocket. The woman is always standing up. Leaning her head against the pole of the bus, now wearing a clean grey trench coat. She would feel her finger as if to start spinning the ring that was no longer there, no mark left, because her skin was pale as snow. She starts to tear up every morning, now, and the world seems to have lost most of its saturation. Almost every day it rains, which comes as no surprise. But it still seems a bit darker than when the woman wore her pink coat.
And when I got off the bus to go to the Eiffel Tower, the man used to always get off at the same time, and go to a dark alley way.
Today I decided to visit that alleyway.
In it was a huge painting, not finished.
I continued with my business like always. Walking around the tower, thousands of people trying to sell me things, like I was a tourist. Don't buy any of it. It's much too expensive. Overpriced miniature towers, snow globes, and stupid t shirts.
I miss the bus occasionally, and when I do, I don't mind. Sure it's a bit cold, but the streets of Paris are beautiful. The bustling crowds, the smell of bread, coffee, and rain on the asphalt delighted my senses, and the best part, nobody would bother me. They would mind their own business, as if they knew I hated physical confrontation.
I hope some day you'll move in with me, my love, for it is a true wonder here in Paris.
My best regards,
Yours truly.
