There is a spiral tattooed on my upper shoulder to remind me when I become disoriented.
To remind me that I'm following it. That my growth moves in ever-expanding circles. That there are patterns that I should feel comfortable encountering.
That's the short version, at least.
Mapie and Arno arrived an hour late and just in time, by noon when they waltzed in screaming of nothing, I was too tired to feel anything.
We jabbered and chatted and looked at pictures and dodged each other's insults and for the first three hours it was three souls finding each other again, glorying in the brightness of our intelligences.
Then I started to remember why we stopped spending so much time together.
Cristal called just in time, towards three in the afternoon, and we decided to skip billiards lessons and bowling and a handful of other things, and go see one of this year's most horrendous movies - "The Sweetest Thing".
The best part of the movie was when some old song started playing during the credits, and Cristal and I sang loud and long, standing on our seats, while the theatre emptied.
Arno was embarassed to be seen with us, Mapie who used to sing on the metro platforms when we were alone in the world, declined to add to his discomfort.
Herv�, grinned and swayed with us.
We parted ways shortly after, huge hugs but little sadness.
And then Cristal and I were wandering. Up and out of les Halles, into the streets that I spent my first month here agape in, searching for just the right terasse to gorge ourselves upon.
We walked and gloried and grinned and skipped and sauntered and laughed until our bellies were rumbling in protest.
And then we turned right when I usually turn left, and followed some winding cobbled street rife with pride flags, and fell upon this water fountain that I wish I could have shown Princess.
It was filled with Tim Burtonesque wrought iron sculptures. It looked like a live writhing of the tattoo on my back. It had a handful of punks lounging alongside it, their gleaming german shepherds splashing amongst the spindly black metal swirls with unabashed doggie glee.
We passed goths and punks and bohemians, Herv� agape at the outlandish styles, and Paris suddenly felt just a touch more comfortable against my skin.
We sat and ate chicken with cinammon and raisins and drank cider and spoke of a thousand things, and again, like Cedric and Brieuc last night, Herv� slowly let his shoulders loose a bit and we became fast friends. We're going to go see the premiere of Men In Black on Tuesday. We hold similar opinions on users of the bash shell. I want to spend more time with him just as I prepare to leave.
Walking back towards the towering Halles, discovering stores I wish I'd known about before, the Bodum shop and this home decoration shop right out of another Tim Burton scenario.
We paused a moment before the downalators and saw the jugglers that I spent some time with my first August here, when I first met Mapie...
The hat-juggler that I found so charming then waved at me through the window, and in his recognition something flipped a switch in my brain and I realized how much of today resembled almost precisely a year ago. I have learned so many things this cycle. Such large, glorious things.
I spent an afternoon rediscovering what I first fell in love with in Paris. I will remember that fountain and the merry-go-round behind the jugglers and the mazes of les Halles and the market where I bought spices my first months here, over all the trips down the CHamps-Elysees and the designer stores and the terribly parisian things.
Parting ways in the metro, Cristal insisted that I keep her shawl for my walk home, and chased me through the maze of correspondances until she had me mummified in woven silk.
We pledged to see more of each other this week.
I went to bed yesterday wanting time to pass unnoticed. I go to bed today realizing that it never again will for me.
There are too many fountains and too many cobblestones and too many beautiful grins, and since I've learned to see them I am unable to staunch their flow into my central nervous system.
And one more thing
a defition of magic that has also come full circle and fallen in my lap.
Magic is when someone grins and you feel it explode inside you. And then they grin again and again and again...
I will dream great gap-toothed dreams tonight.