The sun shone with quiet today.
So bright, so yellow, it smothered so many of the roaring shadow things as I clambered up the stairs at La D�fense.
Sitting on the stairs outside Sephora after a happy few hours in the office, I revelled in warmth.
Just warmth.
Taking the m�tro home, there were no incidents, I was so thrilled, so at ease, stopping at the chocolaterie to feed the sweet tooth of the cousins that I'll be visiting in Antibes tomorrow, I fairly skipped home.
To find out that jazz night was cancelled since the door lady got stabbed.
*sigh*
This city has never known peace.
Last night the bar was discomfort and restlessness, my geeky shoes and leather bracelet and my spirit a mask of un-fashionable rebelliousness, a few of the Chamonix crowd there and me none too happy to see them. The Kilkenny was bitter, the faces more so, S�b trying desperately to be gracious to his ex that had barged in on his routine Thursday evening.
Afterwards, our russian outings cancelled by Paulina's flu, we headed over to my cousine's to big her adieu for her month in Japan.
She left this afternoon.
Her appartment, all warm tones of deep brown, filled with the orphans of the 5i�me, people who've lived their entire lives in the lee of la rue Mouffetard, bricks of gooey brown hash on the table beside jugs of cider piles of figs and dates, surrounded by serene brown faces.
Tanned and wrapped in scarves and smiles, bright like the beautiful girls of a Montreal summer.
I sat on the carpet, sipping this or that golden thing, revelling in the boy with the long hair and soft touch on his battered guitar, and when he began to play "Norwegian Wood" I laughed a laugh so light I surprised myself and the entourage that had followed us there as I sang the words quietly enough to not ruin the tune and just help the boy remember how it went.
Smiles were exchanged, beautiful women tossed their black hair and smiled with their black eyes and I kissed my cousine, white skin and yellow hair and polished jacket against her deep beautiful brown and well-worn corduroy, and wandered home remembering Le Cafe Santropol and Sunday afternoons on Mount-Royal.
And David and his guitar, singing Norwegian Wood so perfectly that I still wake up some mornings desperate to carry the same tune.
Early tomorrow I leave for Antibes where my other cousine Helene will take me to greener mountains, she called to make sure I was bringing hiking shoes.
I return late Monday night, in time to collapse into the bed I will carefully make in the morning, repack my bags and head to Limoges until just as late Thursday evening.
I will enjoy this time away from Paree.