Nous sommes tous Paris

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.