How I Miss Paris

I miss sit­ting in a cafe, sip­ping my cafe creme and writ­ing, with no one look­ing at me strange­ly for it. I miss walk­ing the streets alone at dawn, but nev­er feel­ing alone because I had all of Paris around me.

I miss lean­ing on the bridge rail­ings and gaz­ing out across the shim­mer­ing Seine and watch­ing the tour boats chug by.

 

 

I miss the grandeur of the Place du Pan­theon, the inti­ma­cy of the Place Con­trescarpe. I miss the sur­pris­ing vis­tas that await­ed me around every street cor­ner, down every unpromis­ing alley­way.

I miss the women bicy­cling to work along­side city bus­es, wear­ing skirts, high heels, and no hel­mets. I miss admir­ing and wor­ry­ing about them.

I miss the inim­itable green of the Seine when the light hits it just right. I miss that French pas­try delicacy—airy and but­tery with only a hint of sweet—pain au choco­lat. I miss the Rodin muse­um cafe, where I had the best one of the two dozen I tried.

I don’t miss the rats, scur­ry­ing around after sun­set in the tiny park out­side Saint Julien Le Pau­vre, nor wor­ry­ing about encoun­ter­ing them on my morn­ing or late night walks.

I do miss watch­ing the chil­dren on pony rides in the Jardin du Lux­em­bourg. I miss the bees they keep in the south­west cor­ner of the park to pol­li­nate all of the flow­ers. I miss the rows upon rows of sculpt­ed trees and the canopies of shade.

 

 

I miss the Closerie Des Lilas, where my love and I had the best meal of our lives. I miss the per­fect tem­per­a­ture of that fall after­noon on the ter­race and the crisp­ness of that chablis against the rich­ness of the poached had­dock in a beurre blanc sauce. I miss our wait­er, Yousef, who had two col­lege degrees in food ser­vice and was the best wait­er I’ve ever seen. I even miss the haughty blonde host­ess who sneered at my French and glanced at my shoes before giv­ing us a table.

 

 

I miss Paris.

I miss the cob­ble­stone streets, the scoot­ers rid­ing up on the side­walks. I miss the smell of fresh bread from the boulan­gerie when his door opened in the morn­ing.

I miss being the first cus­tomer at the Cafe St. Reg­is and sit­ting down with my lit­tle red note­book while the floors were still wet and the wait­er sliced the baguettes on the side­board for petit deje­uner. I miss the locals stream­ing in the side door at 7:30 and drink­ing espres­sos while stand­ing at the bar. I miss their jok­ing and rib­bing and fast talk in French, and I miss only under­stand­ing every sixth word. I miss the female manager’s quick wit and the group’s rau­cous laugh­ter.

 

 

I miss the pret­ty young woman in a black dress with a white apron, and I miss the rose tat­too on the inside of her right wrist that I saw as she sprayed and wiped the win­dows, and I miss her lilt­ing accent that broke my heart and made me pine for my youth every time she opened her pouty mouth. (And it was pouty, God bless her.)

 

 

I miss the strange, two-tone police sirens in the mid­dle of the night. I miss announc­ing “Bon­jour” every time I entered an estab­lish­ment. I miss the water trick­ling down the street gut­ters twice a day to keep Paris pris­tine.

I miss the ducks roast­ing on rotis­series on Rue Mon­torgueil as peo­ple on their way to work con­gre­gat­ed in the street for a cig­a­rette. I miss the wait­er who mirac­u­lous­ly de-boned my sole at the table, and I miss strolling down Rue Descartes in the twi­light, past the hotel where Ernest Hem­ing­way once worked, and see­ing the young hip­ster cou­ple kiss­ing pas­sion­ate­ly and unabashed­ly out­side a noisy bar.

 

 

I miss the bread. God, how I miss the bread—the baguettes, the crois­sants, the pain au choco­lat.

I miss the spi­ral­ing mar­ble stairs up to the top of Notre Dame. I miss the glo­ri­ous burst of col­or and the gasp of my own breath when walk­ing into Saint Chapelle for the first time, and I miss those pre­cious few min­utes when my love and I had that holy place to our­selves.

 

 

I miss the sight of the sea of Paris rooftops from the top of Sacre Coeur. I miss that pas­tel sun­rise, that haze in the air, and that woman and her dog star­ing out at the scene togeth­er. I miss the nuns singing in the basil­i­ca at my back as I strug­gled to cap­ture the moment on paper.

I miss Paris.

 

 

I miss the canary yel­low leaves on the stairs lead­ing down to the cob­ble­stone prom­e­nades on the banks of the Seine. I miss the fat and gnarled chest­nuts in the Square du Vert-Galant, that pointy park at the tip of Ile de la Cité, but I don’t miss the annoy­ing gui­tar play­er who played a foot away from me until I relent­ed and dropped a Euro in the hole of his gui­tar.

Then there was the old woman who stopped me on the street my last morn­ing in Paris and asked me for direc­tions in French. I miss her too. I miss her because I under­stood her and was able to reply in French, and she under­stood me in return. I miss her for mak­ing one of my dreams for the trip come true: to learn French well enough that I could give a Parisian direc­tions.

I miss the young woman in a char­coal suit that Alexas and I watched in a cafe across the street from the Musée d’Orsay. I miss her sit­ting down at a table out­doors, cross­ing her legs and adding a tube of sug­ar to her tiny espres­so. I miss her dark hair, her chic glass­es, her fine jaw­line. I miss her light­ing a cig­a­rette and study­ing the world as it went by, and I miss won­der­ing if she was hap­py with her life, if she had romance and work she enjoyed.

 

 

I miss the stairs in our apart­ment build­ing, warped and off-kil­ter like they were undu­lat­ing beneath our feet, like they were out of a Van Gogh paint­ing. I miss the Fran­prix gro­cery store down Rue Galande. I miss engag­ing the cashiers in my charm­ing­ly rudi­men­ta­ry French, and I miss being able to make those weary women smile.

I miss the Metro, the crush of pas­sen­gers at rush hour, and the announce­ments I couldn’t under­stand. I miss see­ing all of those book read­ers on the trains and hop­ing that some­day they would be read­ing my works in French. I miss the poor man whose foot I stepped on when the train slowed sud­den­ly, and I miss say­ing “Par­don” to get out at my stop.

 

 

I miss the Cham­pagne corks in the gut­ter on a Sun­day morn­ing.

I miss the mam­moth falafel sand­wich from L’as du Falafel—the lay­ers of falafel, tahi­ni, cucum­ber, two kinds of cab­bage, toma­to and eggplant—the best falafel in the world, some say. I miss the exquis­ite soft­ness of that pita as I tried to take a bite.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, I miss the crowds at the Lou­vre. I miss the stu­pe­fied peo­ple in front of the Mona Lisa, Winged Vic­to­ry, Venus de Milo, and Michelangelo’s Slaves. I miss the end­less maze of rooms and get­ting lost in there and not being sure I’d ever find my way out.

 

 

I miss Paris.

I miss walk­ing on the side­walk beside Notre Dame when the street­lights switched on. I miss the way they con­tin­ued end­less­ly into the dis­tance, and their com­fort­ing amber glow.

 

 

I miss cross­ing Pont Neuf, the old­est bridge in Paris, know­ing it was the same bridge crossed by Descartes and Napoleon, Hem­ing­way and Fitzger­ald. I miss the nar­row barges plow­ing up-riv­er and the pigeons flock­ing to their decks as if going to a par­ty.

I miss gaz­ing up at the Eif­fel Tow­er, that per­fect expres­sion of art and engi­neer­ing. I miss its braces upon braces, its arch­es upon arch­es, and I miss see­ing the peo­ple as tiny dots cir­cling down the stairs. I miss glimps­ing the tow­er through the trees on dead-end side streets. I miss the glint of its rich light after dark.

 

 

And I miss con­vers­ing with the old cafe wait­er my last morn­ing, and his pat­ting me on the shoul­der, and my hold­ing back tears. I miss see­ing Venus glow­ing over the city at dawn, and I miss the pain of tak­ing final glances at my favorite sights and forc­ing myself to turn and walk away, not know­ing when I would be back again.

 

By Chris Orcutt

CHRIS ORCUTT is an American novelist and fiction writer with over 30 years' writing experience and more than a dozen books in his oeuvre. Since 2015, Chris been working exclusively on his magnum opus. Bodaciously True & Totally Awesome: The Legendary Adventures of Avery “Ace” Craig is a 9-episode novel about teens in the 1980s. It’s about ’80s teens, but for adults (in other words, it’s decidedly not YA literature), and he’s applied this epic storytelling approach to the least examined, most misunderstood, most marginalized narrative space in American literature: the lives and inner worlds of teenagers.