I have an obsolete affair with Paris, the consequences of this mindless proliferation is a devious shapeshifter, too soft on some days, like baby’s skin yet is one that exudes an elementary modern edge. This city is fashionable in its receptacle of vogue art and metro stations; and I am huddled between the seams of Quarter Latin, their tiny sleeves open up to even newer surprises which existed long before me.
I will describe everything as crème coloured and milky, in which I will dissolve slowly into the tedious rush of amnesia, memory and time. Again and again, a repeating cycle that never ends because this is what we call forever, the peak hour and barricades of train stations, the multitude lines to take – are we on the right train? – the endless shuffle of feet, put one foot in front of the other and walk and walk and walk. Walking doesn’t seem to make much sense, and in every corner I find histories before me which carry lullabies of sorrow, love and contentment and they are finally cradled in the ripples of the Seine.
We walk Champs-Elysées basked in pre-dusk twilight, flocks of Asians on tour groups, tourists, the wet-market of the prestigious and elegant 101 Avenue des Champs-Elysées – or the luxurious Louis Vuitton – hot and steamy with upbeat, crispy translators in languid motion *whip* here’s the design you wanted to see madame or yes you can get tax return at so and so amount in the airport certainly, the airy and humid surrounds everyone’s credit cards (Visa, Masters or Amex?) and off you swipe.
Then off to previous day’s quiet events of navigating through rues to get to the Louvre, getting lost on the way to visit Mona Lisa only to find that she’s miniscule and protected beneath a bulletproof glass case, where we start to doubt if this is the real painting. Leonardo certainly has his eye for art, mystery woman and her sexuality.
Tour de Champs (the Eiffel Tower!) was surreal. Revisiting it after twelve and a half years, this sturdy metal stands still, transcends far into time, the queues long; photographers’ take famous pictures, and I travelled for the second time, 13 hours to see this monumental piece of art, almost avant-garde and muses for inspiration, temperate and near to denim skies, for a second all the important things in life: jealousy or confidence doesn’t matter. The scene under those Parisian skies have an immediate effect, they instill euphoric inducing adrenaline, every single heartfelt emotion welded into one single entity. You hear the sounds of accordion, colliding into a serene orchestra.
C’est magnifique! It really is, more so when dipped in chic à la mode and your whole raison d’être here might even be a trompe l'œil like a René Magritte artwork. Momentarily, I find myself transposed into lala-land tranquility.
Nighttime in Paris is the peak of everything else, the freezing weather draws in on us as gloomy and dull but the shops are plastered with Soldes signs everywhere, which brightens everything up again. I drink café au lait breakfast, lunch and evening; caffeine is the source of energy as we tread through streets and slopes, every wicked postcard image. The coffee gets cold after a while, and I don’t have warm hands to hold, but we walk and find a restaurant to eat. The white wine mussels inebriates fatigued jet-lag, and with all the warm moisture, we are drunk and happy.
Versailles was equally bold, in all its grandeur with its previous tenants: Marie Antoinette! – let them eat cake! And oh the glorious interior; hall of mirrors, the chambers of the royal family, the famous bird eye view of the gardens, slowly diminishing into the vanishing point of vertical perspective and the horizon, the glamour and the glitz in the renaissance, everything and everyone. I walked grounds all these people who died before me walked, but now their lives exposed to us; private, little news and personal lives. Some tragic, some heroic but stemmed out from sheer amazement.
This city is full of different forms, a primitive joy or an amorous feat; people weaving their way in and through each other, everyone inevitably connected to one another, open ended stories with swanky furnishings, montages of life and death in merry-go-round circles, but it’s because of that exists the joie de vivre excelled with recherché ambitions and rapture. And tis what we say, c’est la vie.
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