My Moveable Feast

Fin

This is where this ends, where it begins…

Start here, at the beginning: http://mymoveablefeast.tumblr.com/page/32 and work your way back, chronologically. Or don’t. Jump around. Take a slice. Enjoy.

This is the end of this chapter. I hope another one will be written. When, I don’t know.

I once dreamt of Paris, and having tasted her charms, I now have memories of Paris. My own memories, not ones that I have adopted from Hemingway, from Dumas, from Sartre; not memories of celluloid heroes and heroines, of images that dance and bend on movie screens, but of real memories that live within me.

I went to Paris a little broken, a little damaged, a cracked egg. As with all things that are cracked and need mending, there are not many things that one can do. Time heals, but time takes time. One can put distance between you and the damage that was done and hope that the distance alters your perception. Or at least clouds it. Covers it with new sounds, images, and chatter so that the damage is minimized.

There are some cracks that don’t go away.

The photo above, the one that leads this little photo blog, captures my sense of Paris. Perhaps because I went to the city at the beginning of December during the time when the last vestiges of autumn were still clinging to the trees, before the chilly winds of winter came barreling through the streets. This was not tourist season. I was not a tourist. I was on a journey to visit myself, to help find myself. Or maybe a part of myself that I’d never known.

I have within my my moveable feast. I nibble at it in the corners of my memories, in half-seen dreams, in the images that I’ve captured. For now the hunger is partially sated.

I will visit you again, Paris. I hope you are well until my return.