Nostalgia

I love Paris.

The first day I got here I walked down the Champs-Elysees to Concorde and through the Tuileries, crossing a bridge to the left bank and strolling to Shakespeare and Company. That day will always shine like a beacon in my memory for its perfection, for the way my heart flipped over itself and for the tears of such a concentrated happiness swelling inside of me. 

And I still have moments like this, on a weekly basis, moments where I pause on a bridge or at a cafe or in the middle of an anonymous street, and I fall head over heels like I did on August 28th. Moments where I feel as if I have plunged headfirst into a Van Gogh painting. Holding the hand of my jeune fille, her little pink cartable slung over her bright red coat, looking up at me with those huge brown eyes shielded by oversized rectangular glasses, her hair shining in the rare moments of winter sunshine, I realize that I am living the dream I have dreamed of for years. 

I know you can feel a 'but' coming.

But there really isn't any but. I think I have identified why I sometimes feel so sad, so alone, so transient. It is not because I am disappointed, or tired of it all, or frustrated, or homesick. Well, sometimes I am homesick. But overall, the majority of my melancholy comes from my love. Because I know none of this is permanent. I am simply a long-term visitor. And yes, if this bothers me so much, then why don't I stay? It is because I am torn. I am torn between this idealistic life, this removed-from-reality life, this on-hold life, frolicking from cafe to cafe and from park to park, and I find myself craving the realness of home. The realness of the people I know, the places I've gown up with. And I know I'll probably be sick of it in a year's time, but right now, home is what I need. And this is my paradox. Because sometimes I really don't want to leave. 

And I feel a smothering nostalgia for the present.

Because I know these are the glory days, the ones my mind will wander to when I'm doodling in class or bored at work or in the early minutes of morning or the late hours of night. And it will all shrink back to a dream, one that will seem to have happened to somebody else.

 I know this apartment will become a sacred and distant memory, one that gathers dust in the back corners of my mind that I tell my children about.

And I will hate myself for craving home when all I will crave is to be back here. And this is the eternal struggle, because nothing will ever be real and perfect all at once. 

This probably isn't making any sense.

But I guess sometimes my mind is a minefield.

And I'm just trying to sort it out into little boxes I can identify and label.

And sometimes it even gets dark in Paris. Sometimes I am sad in Paris. Sometimes I miss home in Paris.

But it doesn't mean I love it any less.