Midnight in Paris

I always say that a trip to Paris has to end, for any tourist, with a great kiss, a long walk or a beautiful meal. And if it can be all of the above, then all the better. 

Today I found a little notebook bound in pale gold leather, one that I carried on a trip to Paris sometime in June 2012. It’s been more than three years since that beautiful time, but I remember certain moments like they were just yesterday.

The first page detailed impressions of our first day, “the prettiest doors and windows, soft beige stone, a charming hotel room, perfect scrambled eggs, good bacon.”

Perhaps it was evening when I wrote: “I look down from our bathroom window to see lovers in the night, kissing by a street light, the sound of tinkling laughter, French words that have lots of ‘V’s. Sexy.” “Rosebushes reaching out from black grills with Rococo details, white bread that looks like Tempur mattresses and tastes like a dream. I am soaked in joy.” 

And then some more that made me smile as I reminisced: “A nice drive to the countryside, colors that only God can create, black and white cows wagging their tails… Can I just up and go and plant fruit, nuts and grain and be happy to be such good friends with the earth?”

My last entry about that trip, as I have recorded it in my little gold notebook, is what I want to share with you. For if I were to close my eyes and remember details of it, they would still be so real, and so beautiful, I want to go back and have another such memory to add to it. And so I wrote what I did while in the plane on our way home — black ink, longhand, and in hasty, careless strokes that I know came to be because I was thinking faster than I can write. Here goes:

June 2012: Let me tell you about our last night in Paris.  Where a usual remembrance of things past starts with the first day, mine might as well be about last night. We got back to the hotel happy but cold and sleepy after taking the Bateau-Mouche through the Seine River, under all those historic bridges and structures on either side of the bank. I felt all soaked in history, already wanting very much to go back to France even if I have not left yet. 

There have been many quiet moments during this very pretty trip that have made me look up the heavens just to say “Thank you, God!” It is that kind of happiness that results in thankfulness, the same kind that resonates in so many other ways and days. So. There we were in our room, and the prospect of stepping out again to eat (even if we were not anywhere near hungry, to begin with) seemed far more appealing than all the packing we still had to do. 

I always say that a trip to Paris has to end, for any tourist, with a great kiss, a long walk or a beautiful meal. And if it can be all of the above, then all the better. They say good things come to those who wait, and ask. I would have gone to the first nice restaurant I’d see along the way but Richard, bless him, had the good sense to ask the nice-looking man behind the front desk, who had kind eyes and a smile like Kuya Germs. He directed us to Le Boeuf Sur La Toit, a place only about 50 meters down our hotel which we would never have found on our own. 

There was a very quiet sign, and a narrow and very short hallway that opened up to a world that did not quite match the stillness that had started to settle into the night. It was, after all, almost midnight in Paris then. There was a piano man, the moving and swaying version of a toy Juliana had when she was a little girl. The seating was lounge-like, there were spiffy waiters and waitresses who looked like they could all be top models themselves, all dressed in black. It was all very random, and not, at the same time (if the same is at all possible), and quite magical, all that being so. I felt very blessed to be in the present moment — my husband and his beautiful eyes right before me, and beside him, our 11-year-old bundle of joy. 

Juliana ordered scallops with risotto, I did oysters and foie gras terrine with toast and black cherry, and Richard had fish and some potatoes cooked in a wet way, mashed with what looked like spinach to me. We enjoyed the bread, spread with butter that was so elegantly wrapped it looked like a jewel.  Well, in a manner of speaking, butter anywhere in Paris is a jewel. It is always perfect, in every way. And don’t get me started on the bread. Truth be told, this very moment, I am terrified of stepping on the weighing scale because I know I ate enough of those flaky, butter croissants to last me three trips to Paris. 

A couple walks in. The man is tall and imposing in a smart suit, with blond, wavy hair and sharp features; the lady is beautiful and tall and very chic in that French way. They stay at the table beside us and order oysters and shrimps on a big platter. The man, honestly, looks like an angel, the way angels are described in Bible stories. The piano man goes on playing song after song. My oysters are laid on the table, each one tasting like a vacation by the sea, and I slurp them happily with little else but salt and pepper and lots of lemon. It is just perfect. Dessert was salt butter caramel ice cream and deconstructed lemon tart and by the time we started on the short walk back to the hotel in the chill of the night, life could not be more beautiful. We took our time, my hand in his, Juliana’s in mine, three tiny specks in the universe, blessed to be where we were at that moment in time. 

Everything about that one night cut perfectly what Paris always will be in my mind.