We Will Always Have Paris

We will always have Paris Julie Café de Flore, Boulevard Saint-Gerrmain 10 July 2021 Dear Isabella Paris is just as wonderful as when we were here together 10 years ago. Newly graduated students with the world at our feet. Nothing could frighten us. We were invincible and in for the worst. Do you remember that? I wish you could be here now, and together we could experience the pulse of the city, the bustling main streets, the sleepy side streets where shopkeepers have a chat with each other on the pavement while leaning on the broom, but that will have to wait for another time. When I was 18, I couldn't have imagined traveling alone. It was too shy. Now I feel a different peace with myself. Although it would have been great with your company, the experience is so different when I am alone. If you are two, you walk and talk together. Alone, I sense everything. I'm writing to you from the famous Café de Flore, the famous place of famous philosophers and writers. Picasso should have come here. Some people confuse Café de Flore with Les Deux Magots, which is particularly famous because Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus frequented it in the post-war years. If you were sitting across from me, you'd probably ask, "How's your book on contemporary existentialism coming along?" And I would answer: "I'm still researching." Which means I haven't written a word, but I'm soaking up impressions. Do you remember François and his friend Laurent? Of course, you do. He didn't call me Julie, he called me Juliette. What a summer we had, and you couldn't convince me to come home to Denmark with you again. It feels like a completely different time, like a life lived by someone else. Not a fling that turned into a year in Paris before I went home to start my studies. Would I still have been with him if I had stayed? Where is he today? You know I've refrained from finding him on social media, but maybe... I should, now that I'm here. I'll write later. Love Juliette I folded the letter and let my eyes glide over the lunch clientele in the café. It was just after 1 p.m., and my stomach rumbled with hunger. I only had a coffee and a Perrier since I left the hotel a few hours ago. I was staying at a boutique hotel close to Le Jardin du Luxembourg. It was a charming hotel with a great location close to La Sorbonne, the Seine, and Notre Dame. My friend, Isabella, was on maternity leave with her first child and had asked me to write old-fashioned letters to her, which I sent by regular mail. It was so unfamiliar. Everything today was done over text, Snapchat, Messenger, or Facetime, but it was lovely therapy to talk about my experiences this way. I also decided to rediscover the city on foot, like when we were 18. Back then we were poor students on Interrail, staying in hostels. We saved on bus and metro tickets so we could afford a drink and a nicer dinner. We didn't need a fancy hotel and fine dining to have fun. A wave of sadness and loneliness washed over me. "The lost youth," I sighed. "La jeunesse perdue," I repeated in French. It was actually a good title for a book. I opened my notebook and wrote the title in both French and English. I had learned French fluently the year I lived in Paris, but it wasn't until university that I immersed myself in the language and its cultural treasures. François "Bonjour Madame." I lifted an imaginary hat and Madame Yvette greeted me by handing me a huge bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown recycled paper. "Très bonne journée que Dieu te benisse," was her daily reply. I wasn't very religious, but Yvette was, and she always gave me a blessing on my way. For decades she had sold flowers from the family flower shop. "When you're self-employed, there's no such thing as a pension," she would reply when people asked if she wasn't going to enjoy the winter of her life. Today there were no less than four little masterpieces of bouquets in my bunch. We had an agreement that I would get free flower arrangements if I would send customers her way after they had visited my antique shop and seen the beautiful bouquets I had on display. "Que la force soit avec toi," I returned, wishing her strength and accepting the flowers. I could barely greet her with our usual cheek kisses because the large bouquets between us were in the way. "Have you broken any hearts, my dear François? She gave my cheek a good-natured pat. "Not since we last saw each other..." I winked at her and looked at my antique Rolex wristwatch. "Twelve hours ago." Everything I owned was secondhand. My clothes, my furniture, my business where I sold antiques. Today I was wearing a pair of worn jeans from the 80s, a retro polo shirt paired with a burgundy velvet jacket. My shoes were light brown Italian leather, a great 70s find. There was something about giving second-hand items new life, and there were so many treasures to be found that weren't worn enough to be thrown away. It was my passion and I made my living appraising, buying, and selling antique furniture. "Une bonne et belel journée, my friend." A good and beautiful day was her motto. She believed that one day the one and only would come knocking on my door, and my bachelor days would be over. "Who knows, maybe it's today? You'll be the first to know." I flirted and again lifted the hat that wasn't there. "I'll look forward to it." I hadn't lived with a girlfriend since Danish Julie, or Juliette as I had called her. 10 years had passed and I hadn't seen her since. She went back to Denmark to study, or rather, she fled after an argument. She wanted an education and we had lost touch. During those years, I had been floundering around, not knowing what I wanted. I had worked at a McDonald's. That's where we'd met. With my friend, Laurent, I lived from party to party and the future was not something I thought about. Sometimes I stalked her on f*******:. She was a high school teacher with a degree in English and French. Back then I had only spoken broken English, but she knew a little more French and had quickly become fluent. But language had not been our primary form of communication. I smiled at the memory and almost got excited in the open street. Several times I had wanted to contact her, but something had always held me back.