It's a New Year!

As I wrote on my Mama Dya's World blog, I'm really glad the year 2007 is almost over. I've had major postpartum depression due to chronic lack of sleep for the past six months and living in Paris hasn't helped matters.

On this blog, I've written mostly about the side of Paris that I love. I've perhaps been remiss in sharing a fuller picture of what it is like for me to live here. This will change.

I love this city, there are no and, buts, or anything else about that. It's not the city I have a hard time with, it's a lot of the people who live in it. Not all of them, and certainly there are many lovely people around me, especially in our building and the shops around us.

But boy, some days are tough. For example, I'm not used to having to apologize when someone else runs into me. My husband is from Normandy, and he doesn't necessarily have an easier time living here than I do.

But Paris is where I live, for now. It's my village and this is what I will write about. Paris: the good, the bad and the Parisians.

Bonne Annee and here's to blogging more frequently in this new year of 2008!

Where am I?

Terminal A at Charles-de-Gaulle airport does not usually inspire my shutterbug finger, but upon a recent trip I discovered...(two beats for dramatic pause)...the parking lot.



I was so taken by these gorgeous "A"s it took me a moment to realize they are an overtly subliminal message to help parking lot attendees remember where they have parked their cars.

Setting Sun

I walk the same Paris city streets regularly. As I do so, I try to let the unexpected catch my attention, as well as enjoy the familiar that still fills my heart with joy.

But I do wonder. Will I stop seeing the beauty around me, in the way that we stop looking at the paintings or posters that hang in our homes? Will I begin to take this beautiful city for granted?

Thankfully it doesn't take much to snap me out of my musings. Just a turn or lifting of the head at just the right moment, and there it is, that connection with the here and now in all its perfection.

Walking home from a stroll along the Seine recently, skirting the Hotel de Ville from the back, I noticed the setting sun catching the yellow of the Metro "M", making it seem partially lit up.

It Takes So Little

Sometimes we feel stuck in our lives and we can't find the way out. We think that the only possibility is to work very hard to get through the quagmire. But sometimes, it takes as little as lifting ones eyes to see it all in a new way.



Waiting at a stop light a few weeks ago, I saw the statue of the Bastille in a whole new light. And the thrill of the discovery has added a perspective to the column so that now when I walk past it, I look up at the statue directly and then turn my head to look for its reflection in the window.