Paris Casts Its Spell

(written mid-October)

Right now is one of those picture perfect Paris moments (minus my running nose). I was burnt out after being up late/early to finish my french paper and being sick, so after class I decided I should do something to make my day better, and so I headed to one of my favorite places in Paris- Ile St. Louis. At the moment, I am sitting down on the quay at the base of the island. My bare feet are dangling down the slanted stone wall, against which, several feet below, the Seine laps lazily. Tiny waves from passing tour boats and barges splash against the moss-slick wall. The trees on the quay have the first touch of fall and the faint breeze sends yellow leaves swirling down around me to land gently in the dark waters of the river. It’s late afternoon but the autumn sun has made it unseasonably warm and bright.

I have a superb view of Ile de la Cité and the buttresses of Notre Dame. A few guys just down the wall from me are having an impromptu chill session with their guitars. They’re playing Jack Johnson and old American stuff that is interrupted every so-often by the bells of the cathedral. My lips are a lovely shade of purple because I just finished some cassis gelato. For the life of me I can’t remember what the English translation of “cassis” is, but it’s a berry, and I don’t think it’s one I encounter often at home or I would know the word. *

There is an old man in suspenders with no shirt and his pants rolled up sunning himself while nearby seagulls dive for their dinner. Nelson, a once-white puffball of a dog, came to sit with me and watch the sun slip lower in the sky until his owner called him further down the quay. The sun marks a path of quicksilver across the water to my feet that is so bright it hurts my eyes and makes everything else seem dim. And that reminds me of a song so I start to hum, “and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His mercy and grace...”

Anyway, I know my descriptions can’t do justice to this moment, and even if I had my camera in my purse, it wouldn’t suffice to capture the feel of this place. It’s a moment that seems to suspend itself in time. It almost makes you sad because you know it will never be just like this again. The sun will set, the leaves will fall, and another day it will wonderful, but it will not be the same. But in this seemingly eternal moment, it is here. Life and time. Passing under your feet in the swirling waters of the Seine.

I hope someday you get a chance to see this city. And I hope that when you do, there is a moment like this where you want to do nothing but sit and exist in this place and feel the city whisper around you. It is in experiences like this that Paris concocts its magic. Eventually the moment will pass, even the memory will fade, but the spell is never really broken.

*FYI: I looked it up. Cassis translates to blackcurrant.
**And you should know that I wrote this whole thing spelling “quay” as “quai” and almost got mad at spell-check when it told me it was wrong, and then I said- oh wait, that’s French. Never mind. Thanks spell-check!