Aging with Grace

What an immense impression Paris has made on me, It’s the most extraordinary place in the world.

Charles Dickens

Walking  along the Seine, wandering into an artist colony behind Sacre -Coeur, stopping at a boulangerie for a pain au chocolate while taking a leisurely stroll through one of the many distinct neighborhoods that make up the city. This is was and still is my Paris. Nothing was ever the same afterwords. After a ten day visit,  I left a piece of my heart. There is seldom a day goes by that I don’t think about that time.

One of my favorite books includes a character who spends three months every spring and three months every fall living in an apartment in Paris, overlooking a small courtyard, not far from the American Church in Paris. I’ve been in the church. I’ve walked through the neighborhood. As I read I imagine, being there, living in that apartment. 

I’m happy with my life as it is and I’m fortunate to live in an area that shares many of the same qualities of those quaint, little Paris neighborhoods. I surround myself with books, artwork, music and small mementos  of that special time in my life. I don’t know if I will every go back, I hope that I will. Whatever happens, “I’ll always have Paris.”