Sunday, April 25, 2010


Watering Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on panel 10.75 x 16 inches
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I made it back to Paris just as the volcanic cloud lifted. My direct flight from Washington, DC, flew straight across the Atlantic to the Azores and Portugal, rather than along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Scotland like it usually does. It took a bit longer, but it was glorious to see Paris and the Seine, a rare opportunity from the plane. The approach was more prolonged than usual and took a route directly over the city.

Blair and I go back a ways with volcanoes: our marriage was heralded in with the eruption of Mount Saint Helen the week before. I don’t remember such disruption of the world that time, but I probably had stars in my eyes.

On this trip I was hauling 100 pounds of baggage, for which I paid $50.00 extra: this was a bargain, based on the postal rates. There is no more international parcel post, the method used in our former relocations.

Blair had been decorating the house in my absence: an apple green bedroom with new yellow curtains and an oriental rug; a goose yellow living room. With so much light, the colors glow, and we look beautiful eating dinner at the table together.

We shared our dinner last night with a friend, S, impromptu. I’d purchased a coquelet (the unfortunate chicken that turned out to be a rooster), too small for three, but I cooked it up with a risotto and salad. Voila! Our first dinner with a guest in the new house.

The trees burst into bloom during my near one-month absence. The chestnuts are in full blossom and the canopy on the boulevard Raspail is thick and verdant. My balcony begs for decoration: I’ve been cruising the web for roses and olive trees, kitchen herbs and planter boxes. How could an olive tree cost so much?

The weather is super-good: cool mornings and nights, with warm, sunny days. I’ve been on the balcony a lot, and the windows are open nearly all the time. The world passed below my balcony yesterday, and I studied various moves and gestures.

I was sorry to leave my friends in North Carolina and Washington, DC. But I needed to come back to Paris to live. The joys and difficulties here enrich my life, making the simple seem marvelous and the horrible less so. On the way home from Harika’s walk this morning, I found a hula hoop and gave it a spin around my middle, just for the heck of it.

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