Romance sang through the streets and beckoned around every corner , each remote cafe terrace , and underpass . Echoes of countless past lovers hid under every bridge and thousands of lives and stories untold , whispered by the riverside . I was love struck . Overwhelmed and in awe .
Give me a summer in Paris and I ’ d need a thousand more . There was something magical about this city , something in the air . Turning down random corners for no reason at all but the look and feel of that street , stopping under a remote bridge just because that particular spot called your name . To be completely disconnected from your previous world and get lost alone in a new city where no one knows your name and no one speaks your language , no wifi , no contacts and no one to answer to . It was breath taking and yet , like finally being able to breathe for the first time . The world was my playground .
French chatter danced around me , bouncing off buildings or floating past , wafting in on the smell of fresh bread . Affectionate Parisian lovers splashed along gardens , steps and fountains , as if painted onto the city ’ s canvas . Laying in each other ’ s laps and stroking one another ’ s hair , silently reading , or engaged in conversation over a glass of Rose , soaking up the the spring sunshine . Their laughter chasing one another ’ s , tumbling out onto the streets and flirting about each passerby . I couldn ’ t understand anyone and I didn ’ t need to .
The excitement of the busy Parisian streets was electrifying and contagious . I was consumed . But a small turn down by the Seine river , just below , was another world to lose myself in , as silent and still as an old abandoned city . The rumbling city life above faded into a distant echo and I was alone . Right here , neither the past nor my undetermined future mattered . Right here , all that existed was this remote stone cove hallowed out under the ancient bridge that seemed to have been waiting all these years just for me , the feel of the cool stone against my back as I sat beneath it , the creeping peak of the Eiffel Tower somewhere in the distance , the birds wooing me with their love songs , the river lapping against the stone wall tickling my naked dangling feet , and the scratching of ink against the first of a thousand blank pages this journal was begging me to fill .
I could stay here forever .
The occasional tour boat chugged through the muddy waters under the bridge , casting light on my solitude . Hundreds of tourists waved as I came into view , snapping pictures as my hiding place was revealed . And I wondered what these people would talk about years from now reminiscing over photo albums of their trip to Paris when they came across the photo of the mysterious girl with the long black dress and colorful scarf secluded below the sights and street chaos writing by the water . Would they make up stories about who I was and why I was there ? Would time fabricate me into a fanciful , romantic , Parisian character in their memories ? And would I somehow live on in this moment , in this place , because of it ? This exact version of me . A snap shot forever more standing still , caught in time .
187