My "Cold but Sure Friends" & I

Lately I’ve been obsessively contemplating a trip to Paris (just ask my husband, I’m serious when I say obsessively). It’s not that we have the money to spare; it’s not that I have business in France; it’s not even that we have friends we could visit. There’s no good reason for my obsession other than the following two facts, one: some of my family just visited and raved about the city, and two: I’ve been reading Les Misérables. As to the first, I’ve always sensed that I’d thoroughly enjoy Paris. Attribute it to the trendy-romantic-vintage-chic-y feel that has always surrounded the city, or simply (and more probably) to the fact that for decades it has been a hotbed of literary genius. From the victorians to the “lost generation”, Paris has been a spring of inspiration, a watering hole for of some of the world’s most admired authors. It seems the city has acted as a sort of pseudo-reality for the habitually brilliant minded who could not thrive among the blandness of other places, the rest of the world.

Truly, though, I blame Victor Hugo:

“[The author] need not say that he loves Paris; Paris is the native city of his heart. Through demolition and reconstruction, the Paris of his youth, that Paris which he religiously treasures in his memory, has become a Paris of former times… As to himself, the author knows not the new Paris, and writes with the old Paris before his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him. It is a sweet thing for him to imagine that there still remains something of what he saw when he was in his own country, and that all is not vanished. While we are living in our native land, we fancy that these streets are indifferent to us, that these windows, these roofs, and these doors are nothing to us, that these walls are strangers to us, that these trees are no more than other trees, that these houses which we never enter are useless to us, that this pavement on which we walk is nothing but stone. In after times, when we are there no longer, we find that those streets are very dear, that we miss those roofs, those windows, and those doors, that those walls are necessary to us, that those trees are our well-beloved, that those houses which we never entered we entered every day, and that we have left something of our affections, our life, and our heart in those streets. All those places which we see no more, which perhaps we shall never see again, but the image of which we have preserved, assume a mournful charm, return to us with the sadness of a specter, make the holy land visible to us, and are, so to speak, the very form of France; and we love them and call them up such as they are, such as they were, and hold to them, unwilling to change anything, for one clings to the form of his fatherland as to the face of his mother {p.389}.”

Hugo’s passion for Paris compels me to visit this much-beloved place and, in the above passage, reminds me very much of my hometown, the native city of my own heart.

Sometimes we spend an entire day angry at the clouds for concealing the sun, but we forget that there is no beauty like that of a sunset reflecting on a receding bed of clouds. There is no richer collection of colors on earth - tangerine and lavender cast in sepia hues mingle with what appears to be a watery, rippling concentration of gold flakes on the horizon. The brevity of the moment adds to the awe of the beholder, blotting out the frustration of before.