So many words on social media, an outpouring of emotion.
I will be brief.
Looking at the last Paris posting from this past summer, I can't help but feel fortunate that, during the two weeks that I was there, the only thing I could complain about was the heat.
I know the bombed places well, these are the bobo neighborhoods where we all love to hang out. I was so proud of myself when I biked on a velib' from the 19th arrondissement down to the 10th then along the boulevard Richard Lenoir, which has the nice separate bike lane, to the 11th, to the Bastille neighborhood where I browsed at a very good comics bookstore on rue de Charonne.
Hot damn. I never felt so free and happy in my life as when I was riding that city bike alongside a bald hipster who was on his bike, and we waited for the green light, and I felt so urban and hip and cool. He disappeared in his direction, I went on in mine. Briefly, two strangers sharing the same feeling of freedom.
I don't live in a city, but when I am in one, I make sure to appreciate what the city has to offer. The ability to move around in so many different ways, bike, walk, metro, bus, scooter, roller blades, wheelchair, and to see so many different things, and hear so many conversations, languages, sounds, voices, music, and to eat and smell and drink and to watch people perform, and to luxuriate in clothes, shoes, jewelry, hats, gloves, leather, silk, cotton, wool, old, new.
But, most importantly, to be with other humans, and to share the activity of living.
