This is a place where I feel I must have spent at least a few past lives. A place where I could easily spend a few future lives as well. Here, poetry feels at home. And so do I. Joy is evident in every step, especially on the faces and within the souls of the people. Paris, je t’aime. Today, with love, I bring you stories from the City of Light.
Over the years, artists, painters, poets, and writers have come here to find inspiration and share their art with the world. Generous Paris has welcomed them all, becoming a host to Enlightenment thinkers, the French Revolution, La Belle Époque, Fauvism, Dadaism, Picasso, the Mona Lisa, macarons, croissants, bohemian lifestyles, and joie de vivre. Books have been written about it, paintings dedicated to it, songs and films created in its honor. Despite the tragic events that have occasionally shaken it, Paris remains the same place of love for life that it has been for centuries.
I arrived in Paris not as a tourist coming to visit, but as someone returning to a beloved place, full of memories. And memories flowed with every step, intertwining with new, fresh memories, flavored with café crème and buttery croissants.
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Every corner evokes a refrain from old French songs, and I find myself humming Piaf, Greco, Joe Dassin, and Yves Montand without even realizing it. It seems as if each building holds a story, each window has its tale beyond the flower boxes and curtains. While in our culture, as the poet says, eternity is born in the countryside, in Paris, the music suggests that eternity resides in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. “Voici l’éternité de Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” sings Juliette Greco in a piece dedicated to the district in the 6th arrondissement. I need no other encouragement to cross the bridge over the Seine from Marais, to explore St. Germain, and to brush off my rusty French. Les Deux Magots and its rival Café de Flore, harmoniously flanked by the church of Saint Germain, offer, in a cup of coffee, all the charm of the times when intellectuals, artists, and literati met here, and the emotions swell as I think that I might be sitting in the very chair once occupied by Picasso, Sartre, or Camus. Even now, the cafés don’t have many free seats: people are out, reconnecting, embracing, sharing moments, coffees, and glasses of wine, all in a sublime, contagious effervescence.
I immerse myself in the atmosphere and begin to live my moments. Intense, fervent, frenetic. Pierre Hermé’s macarons in the splendid Place Saint Sulpice. Christophe Adam’s éclairs on the grass in Place des Vosges. Passion fruit sorbet in the Jardin du Luxembourg under a blazing sun. And the famous "Sous le ciel de Paris" echoes in my mind with each of them. Streets that take my breath away, bookstores filled with books at the price of a coffee, charming bistros where every table is a celebration of small pleasures. The scent of perfume, the drawling accent, and the famous rue de Rivoli, which I return to every evening, thinking that it was named after one of Napoleon’s early victories. And the music plays in my head again, with Jacqueline François’s voice: “On l’appelle Mademoiselle de Paris / Son royaume c’est la rue d’Rivoli.”
But in Paris, your feet can't stay still, and every day, the poetry starts all over again. Mornings with open windows and the Parisian sun that seems to smile "bonjour." On the ground floor, the boulangerie with its aristocratic name and awards for the best traditional baguette. Walks to l'Hôtel, the place where Oscar Wilde lived and where he took his life. The memorial house of Serge Gainsbourg, with its ever-changing graffiti-covered walls, drawn by the fans who still worship him. The old Rue Mouffetard, narrow and lively, described by Hemingway in “A Moveable Feast.” The artistic Montmartre, where Aznavour serenades me with "La Bohème," with the steps leading to Sacré-Cœur and Le Lapin Agile, the cabaret frequented by Picasso, Modigliani, and Utrillo. The legendary Moulin Rouge, where the rhythms of the French can-can seem to echo. Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris. Éric Kayser’s bread. Escargots, grenouilles, foie gras, the best tartare, confit de canard, chateaubriand, moules-frites. Glasses of wine and late dinners with a view of the Seine. The madness of La Grande Épicerie de Paris, dubbed “the world’s best supermarket” by Vogue and renamed by me “heaven on earth.” The voice in the metro and – without exception – the same giggle at the Tuileries station, which always reminds me of the Cohen brothers' film "Paris, je t’aime": Steve Buscemi as a foreign tourist with a phrasebook and postcards of the Mona Lisa, bewildered and flustered, dropping in like a fly in the milk amid the passionate quarrel of a couple out of sorts. And, beyond all, the Eiffel Tower, the mad determination to walk halfway across the city to reach it, without the metro, and the fortunate coincidence that brought me to its front just in time to exclaim with a grin: Midnight in Paris.
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An old French song by Charles Trenet, "L’Ame Des Poètes," suggests that the verses of poets linger on the streets long after they have disappeared, delighting or saddening girls and boys, bourgeois, artists, and vagabonds alike. But in Paris, no matter how the times change, poets can never truly disappear. As long as Paris exists, poetry will continue to exist.
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