Still Here — Sort Of

Jardin des Plantes, September 4, 2010

Unlike these sunflowers, I have not died. But this blog sure seems to have gone the way of dodos, 8-track tapes, and leisure suits, hasn’t it?

I thought I would take a quick minute (although this is me here, so take the word “minute” with a grain of gros sel de cuisine and go grab your cup of coffee, or glass of wine, or whatever) to let you know what has been up and why my corner of the bloghood has been so quiet of late.

Craziness in the ‘Hood

Sunset at 9:45 pm, Saturday, June 19, 2010

Greetings, Readers, and welcome, July. Wow. June flew. With its flight, warmth finally has reached the City of Light. We might as well call it the City of Heat at this point, for summer is definitely here! Can you believe the sky up there in that photo? One of the things that blows my mind about Paris is that we are so far north in latitude, sunset around the solstice does not happen until 10 pm (that’s 22.00 in French Time).

What with all the warm weather and late sunsets, the past couple of weeks have been full of pique-niques and musique. And some interesting happenings on the plaza in front of our apartment.

The End of May, Part Two

The Tour Eiffel – June 7, 2010

With the best of intentions, I hoped to post this at the beginning of last week, but it turns out that it is happening now, just as we are about a week and a half from the end of  June. On the good side of that, I have been busy this past week, and have even more about which to write, and that means this blog is working to the ends for which I started it: to find a deeper, broader life for myself here in Paris. What it also means is that I have less and less time to write and post. Thus is the never-ending blogger’s dilemma: when you have time to write, there is not much to write about, but when you have a lot about which to write, there is less time to do so. It’s a pickle, ain’t it. 🙂

At any rate, without further ado, here is Part Two of The End of May.

I realized, of course, as I was writing this post that it should really be called The Beginning of June (and is now, with situational irony, being posted at the end of June). Ah well, May ended on a Monday and then the rest of the week was June. It all blends and blurs, doesn’t it. To catch you up, if you don’t have time to read the previous post, I wrote about the various adventures I’d had with some of my friends here in Paris. I wrote about my friends with much gratitude. I am sincerely grateful for the friends I have made here so far. I realized as I was writing about the things I had done in those final days of May (and the beginning of June, too) that friendship has really been the best thing about living in a city like Paris. I realize this is pretty much true of all cities and places where we live and breathe and have our being. It is often (and so it should be) the people who are with us and share our lives that have more meaning than any famous museum, pastry, or monument.

Did any of you ever see the movie or read the book Into the Wild? I saw and loved the movie. I remember the ending of the film, for which I will just give the barest details here in case you have not seen it and don’t want the ending spoiled. The protagonist, “Alexander Supertramp” aka Christopher McCandless, writes in a journal of sorts (in the margins of Dr. Zhivago, a little research turns out), “Happiness only real when shared.”

Photo found at mykdh’s tmblr page: Things I Love – January 15, 2010

It is the grand lesson he learns in the story — the moral, if you will.  I find that in my life this is absolutely true. I think one of the reasons I had so much trouble the first year I lived here in Paris was that I really did not have many people with whom I could experience Paris. It’s really not as much fun for me to visit museums and cafés and monuments by myself. It’s just a lot more fun when you have someone to hold your hand, really or metaphorically, while you see and do things. Sure, I have had to “man up” and find my own Paris cojones and get out there to see and do things on my own. I just like it a lot better when there is someone else to do things with.