I first saw Paris more than 35 years ago. Specifically, around
2100 of an October night, I tumbled out of a motor coach from Calais, boxed
bicycle, panniers and a knapsack all my worldly goods. It was a rough arrival—figuring
out how to stash my bike at the Consigné at the Gare du Nord, use a pay phone
to call a down-market hotel in the Let’s
Go France guide book, and managing to make it to the place.
I was so tired that I actually thought I’d forgotten how
to speak French—I made the concierge spell out the directions and still I was
convinced she was just making things up.
But that city still managed to grab my heart and hold on
to it all this time. That first trip was an official pilgrimage—the starting
point on the journey to Santiago de Compostela. Every visit since has been an
unofficial one. I fell in love with the place, but with a love that sees the
flaws and still forgives them.
I spent the next four nights at a student foyer and
explored the city as much as you could without any money. I retrieved my
bicycle (which later came to be known as l’Escargot Rouge) and some perfect
stranger passing by at the Gare helped me set the handlebars straight. Somehow
I came across the Tour Saint Jacques, all that remains of the church that was the
embarkation place for medieval pilgrims headed to Santiago, so that’s where I
officially set out on the 1100-mile trek.
On my return swing, six weeks later, I spent an…interesting
night, completely unexpected. Paris has a way of doing that to you.
Months later I had a conversation with a very
well-traveled woman who assured me that everyone has two “favorite” cities:
whatever the other one is and Paris. As far as I’m concerned, she was right.
Yeah, I know—it’s not paradise, and it’s not for
everyone. Parisians practically invented the term “attitude”; they certainly
give it better than anyone else, including New Yorkers. I don’t care. I love
the layers of history going all the way back to Lutetia, interwoven and
expressed in a thousand ways. I love the medieval rabbit warren streets and the
expansive boulevards (which were purpose-built to prevent the people from
building barricades; sadly—or gloriously, depending on your point of view—this intent
turned out to be unsuccessful). I love the grands
magasins and hole-in-the-wall shops, the parks, the skyline, the sounds and
the smells.
To this day, the scent of wet pavement mixed with diesel
exhaust fumes sends me back to that first trip as fast as a madeleine evoked
childhood for Proust.
The murders
at Charlie Hebdo and the kosher
grocery store in Paris last January broke my heart. I don’t know why I
thought that was as bad as it would get, and yesterday showed me how pig
ignorant I was in this regard. Synchronized attacks with explosives and assault
weapons on restaurants, a concert, a soccer game; scores dead and hundreds
wounded.
Sophisticated planning, ruthless execution; this is
military-grade terror. It’s war, with my beloved Paris as the battlefield.
Le coeur est brisé.
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