Things you forget about ...

You can visit Paris for her beauty, you can visit Paris for the food and wine, you can visit Paris for her Art, or you can go for the things you forget about until you see them again. In a way you never really forget them, they just sink back in your mind until, after a while, they lie quietly, like misbehaving children trying not to be noticed. Or worse, like a denial that this is the place you want to be and if they stay hidden you can pretend not to notice them. They peek out from their hiding places at the smallest opportunity. When it rains on Saturday morning and I am sitting by the window I can hear them stirring. In an instant I remember, no, not remember, I feel the cobblestones under my feet. I can't understand why rue Mouffetard is so far away. Can it really be? I was just there, it seems. It plays in my head like a movie: the old chairs demonstrating the skill of the weaver who will repair yours; the knife and corkscrew vendor who stayed home today; the older woman who glares at me as if I were a murderer for taking her picture. You won't see her because I smile and shrug and never print that image. To my left, where you can't see it is a book store. It is always warm and crowded with a long line to pay for your book. I never go in there in warmer weather, there are too many other book stores in Paris, but on cold rainy Saturdays this is the next best place to be. The best is the bar at Le Mouffetard just up the street. I know I'll be back, but soon enough? Probably not for me.