French la Vie

"Do you believe in love at first sight?

Or better yet, believe it possible to love some one you have never met?

I do. 

Not because I have ever fallen in love 

with an individual after one encounter. 

But because I fell in love with a place I'd never been.

I feel in love with Paris the first time I heard its name.

It had been apart of my soul 

before I had even known of its existence.

Paris is city that has fought to preserve its beautiful culture,
aesthetic not to be compromised by the sterile unattractive efficiency

 that comes with modernity, yet it is as advanced as US. One of the
most efficient subway systems runs under some of the most magnificent
buildings ever built, the perfect juxtaposition of progress and
preservation. Maturation must occur, but only if tenacious roots will
allow for an evolution to flourish.

I was a girl at the age of 12 who still believed "Oz" was real. 

 A girl who believed she would walk the yellow brick road. 

 The more I heard of Paris: 

 The decadence, pomp, the elegance, the gardens, the petite fours, 

 a city that encouraged leisure, cafe culture, 

 the graceful language, the emphasis on fashion, the lights, and the magic. 

 I knew I had found what was over the rainbow, and where dreams come true.

But little girls grow up, naivety dissipates and often you realize that
dreams will remain  just dreams. You realize this quicker when you
start living nightmares. Things you once considered possibilities, now just
taunt you. You loose the right to pursue dreams after deeds done. For
dreams need hope to survive, and some places are inhabitable for
hope....luckily for me I have people who believed in me when I didn't
have hope. I had a family of people to feed my dream when I couldn't.
Time passed, I healed and nourished my dream again. On June 24th I fell
asleep on a plane bound for the city of lights and have yet to wake
up.....

After landing in Charles De Gaulle airport, Mckenzie and I buy our
first metro ticket to our hostel, "Young and Happy",and we are both. We walk
into our hostel at about 10 pm. Its littered with an abundance of
youths drinking "hostel wine" from an assortment of plastic cups. Equally
diverse and copious are the accents in the air.

We settle into our room, look out the three story window, onto the
street, which is lively and bustling. We are in the Latin quarter, essentially 

the youth quarter. On the street there is barely any sidewalk, 

its curb-cobblestone, no cars. 

Both streets are lined with

cafes, restaurants, boulgieries, patisseries, cafes, fromageries, pubs,
did I say cafes?
We're starving. All the apron clad shop owners stand outside, watching passerby's,
intial patrons.

We pick a place.
We sit outside.
There's ashtrays on all the tables.
We eat the best fondue ever.
Morning in Paris is like Disneyland in summer. Buzzing. There is a
palpable urgency in the air. Parisians are out buying their supplies
before the stores close for the day at 2 or 3. I'm not in 24 hour town
anymore. The smell of baguettes wafts through the air as we browse
an outdoor produce market.

We drink cafe au lait and begin our walk to Notre Dame.
Walking in Paris is an activity in itself, I quickly forgot our
destination.
Paris is a city that appeases all the senses.
Ernest Hemingway called Paris a "Movable Feast".
We stop at the "lock bridge".
We buy a pad lock from a street vendor.
We write our names, the date and the words love +life on it.
We lock it to one of the many bridges hovering over the Siene.
There's hundreds of locks.
The lock comes with three keys.
We each throw one key in and make a wish. I keep one key. Just in case.
Just in case I return to this exact place in some different space in my
time, I can open my lock.
I can prove it belongs to me.
We walk on, I wonder why I need this tiny key to remember this moment?
Do I doubt my mind and memory so?  Why the need to posses any "thing", my
memory is mine.  It's the only thing that belongs to only me.
We sit on a bench eating macaroons that look like Easter eggs.

I stare at the towers of Notre Dame. Some of the men who built it
spent a lifetime stacking stone, staining glass, sanding, planning, knowing
they would never live to see the finished product.
What hope. What faith they must have had in those to finish the job
when they no longer could. Why work so hard on something you will never have
the chance to admire, to take pride in presently? For legacy? For God?
The contribution of art?
I wonder if their wildest fantasies even came close to the majesty of
the finished cathedral I was admiring.
I wonder if they even knew the time-transcending magnitude of their
work.
I am suddenly aware that delayed gratification is something I know not
of.
A little girl tugs on her mother and whines about having to walk. Her
mother explains the stroller is for her littler sister.
I wonder what my contribution, my legacy, will be. I take the key out
of my pocket and throw it in the Siene. I wish for faith.
We stop in another cafe.
Bonjour Madame!
Deux cafe au laits, si'l vous plait.
Merci beaucoup.
Drinking from the tiny cups makes me feel like Alice at the Mad Hatter's
tea party...
I am in wonderland.

We stop in a small (for European standards) church.
I pull hard on the heavy wooden doors, I gasp and intake the smell of
my childhood. Churches have a universal smell. What is it? The incense, burning
candles, the damp wood, the basins of days old holy water, the smell of
sin turned to redemption, the smell of grateful tears for answered
prayers seeped between pews, or the smell of decades of lingered
pleading...
It's the prettiest church I've ever seen. It wasn't on our map.
Crystal chandeliers dangle from a ceiling the height of heaven.
I kneel on a weathered wooden beam.
Today I will contribute to the smell of gratitude.
"Thank You. Just thank You."
I hope you are all well, oceans away, under the same stars, our similar
blood pumping us through our different lives."

This is a letter from my sweet younger cousin:

Rachel Ball to her family. 

I am proud of her,

especially honored to post her letter to you.