30 Days

One month to go.  720 hours.  I don't think I will really believe it until I get off the airliner and realize I am there.

I have been asked various questions.

Why Paris?

Do people really have to ask this?  Of me?  I have been an epicurian since the times back in the small house in deep snow country.  I've never been to Europe.  I'd love to run the bulls. Golf in Scotland.  Fish for trout in Ireland. See London.  Go to Budapest.  Italy. Monaco. San Sebastian. Good old Norway.  But I may get only one run at this.  So there was ever only one choice.

I did not become Paris-aware via Hemingway. Rather, through a slender volume by the great New Yorker essayist A.J. Liebling.  Between Meals.  His autobiography of a gourmand's life in Paris between the wars.  I don't even recall how I came to own this marvelous book.  I do recall that I read it through four times right away.  A literary epiphany.  They have places like this?  Where you can live this way? I'm going.  It only took twenty-five years. 

Why Now?

26.49.  This is what the U.S. government says is my odds bet on remaining years.  Not even to 80! 1.49 years longer than I have been married. And I haven't lived what I would call tamely either.  Oh, what do they know? Still...after her two really awful medical years, my Irish Redhead looked at me firmly last November as we returned from seeing Midnight In Paris and said "you know, if you are going to go, you had better go now".  I brought it up a week later.  She said the very same thing. That's why.

Why Alone?

I didn't plan it that way.  The IR cannot go.  No international travel. Ever. I asked a couple of very select pals who could not go along.  I'm not concerned about travelling alone.  It is almost all I do.  Were I to wait for the perfect travel partner to appear, I would probably never go. Anyhow, the return reader will know that I have a highly refined talent for self-amusement.  I'll be fine. 

Why Not Take Your Son, The Future Rock Star?

"Do I HAVE to go?"  Enough said.  If he wants to go when he is twenty, I'll gladly take him.  When my odds bet is down to 21.49.  We'll be even.

You Speak French?  Don't You?

Absolutely.  I'll wager I speak French as well or better than any other fellow who took a three month, entry level, college course thirty-three years ago. Hey, I passed the course. In any event, I am confident in the power of honest effort, humility, a friendly smile,...and ready money.

Food? Wine? Art? Books?

Well, yes.  And Calvados. Cheese. Macarons. Deux Magots. Taillivent. Closerie De Lilas. Chez Benoit. Vin Sur Vin. Le Grand Colbert. Mona Lisa. Vangende. Orangerie. Jardins. Notre Dame. Shakespeare and Company. And Calvados.

Isn't This Going To Be The Great Adventure Of Your Life?

This rather conflicts with my view of life as adventurecontinuum.  Helen Keller said it is either a grand adventure or nothing.  And my G.A. is ongoing as father/husband.

Still, to the point...I hope not.  And I hope so.

Again, why Paris?

Because, if I am nothing else, I am an incurable romantic. 
Because there has to be an epicenter for incurable romantics.
Because they all were there at one time or another.
Because they will all continue to go there.  Forever.
Because people like them are a tribe unto their own.
Because I want to be like them. If only for nine days.
Because of A.J.  Who wrote that book.  For me.