I can still feel his hand grip my elbow in a grateful squeeze. The sweet French man who waited on me for dinner. I think we bonded after I stumbled over the few French words I could muster, pointed awkwardly at the menu to indicate what I'd like, and giggled relentlessly at how foolish I felt in my ill attempts to translate English thoughts into beautiful French sounds. While perched on a petite sidewalk chair, I feasted on croque monsieur and reveled in storybook French atmosphere. When it was time to leave, my friend and I laid our tips on the table and slipped between tightly-packed tables to the sidewalk. The gentle waiter gripped my arm as we left and sang his French thanks, "Merci!"
I can still see the curly dark hair swirling round to crown his young and attentive French eyes. The alluring boy-man who pointed out his favorite chocolates and named rich delicacies with his heavily-accented English. Tucked away in a quaint, small Paris street, the sweets shop where he worked was impeccable and decorated in deep purple and black. When I stepped inside, I clasped my hands and lavished words of praise and exclamation over the dainty chocolates and cookies that rested under the glass counter. Each moment seemed enchanted as his life and mine intersected over the purchasing of Paris-landed chocolate.
I can still see the lines crisscrossing up the marble mass, etching out the muscle details that artist Auguste Rodin meticulously crafted a century ago. Sculpture after sculpture rested in frozen action, displaying a wide array of emotion. Lifeless forms posed amidst beautiful greenery on the grounds outside as well as in spacious old rooms within the museum building. How a slab of marble can move one's soul is a mystery. I can almost feel the artist's breath, aired warm and heavy onto the masterpiece before me. The breath that exhaled while the soul crafted intangible qualities into the tangible mass. It reminds me of Creator God, the ultimate Artist, sculpting uniqueness out of dust. It speaks to me.
I can still taste it. Wonder. The wonder I feel ooze through my being as I stroll the streets of a place so intoxicating, I can barely describe it to those who haven't been. Am I too dramatic? No. Not really. My mind reels to put into words what captures my heart when I am in the city of Paris, France. When there, I feel entranced. History seems to groan and stretch in that place. I can almost touch it, taste it, see it, hear it. I see stone that those hundreds of years before saw too. I strain to experience their lives. Human pain, fear, excitement, toil, joy, heartache, love, laughter, and every possible thought and feeling that we know today wrapped in the facade of a different era. I want to know what it was like then. I find times long ago tantalizingly close. The past mingled with now.
Is that why it is unspeakably rich to Wyoming-girl me? To a kid who grew up in an area with hardly any old history tangibly intact? I am really not sure. What I do know is that I want to go back. I can't seem to get enough. I pray that Paris and I can once again greet each other and that I can walk her magical streets once again.
