Paris - The paper planes I launched
A silhouette against a summer sky,a textbook come to lifethere beyond the car’s window -filling the gaps in the vocabulary of a schoolboy’s French,the reality of a schoolboy’s dreamParis, there in front of me.The waiting ended.Adulthood arrived with my brown suitcase and a choicethe freedom to finally make the step.She was the opportunity,my summer love,the then "love of my life,"and when she asked,there was only one answer.I went - and I stayed,trading the distant view for a typical Parisian apartment.Up past the watchful eye of a concierge,a winding staircase,a simple room tucked under the eaves - a possible location for love to bloom.Living the Parisian dream,fed by the scent of the nearby patisserieand the occasional "two-franc" bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau,the vintage matching our happy, naive age.Happy; with the quiet courtyard belowand the paper planes I made to throw into the park below,taken by the breeze - like the love for the girlfriend who brought me to this place,love now a ghost from a previous chapter.This city stayed inside me,claiming the space she left behind.I stayed - with time enough to walk the streets,to cement the memoriesto which I often returned -returning to stand in the very park beneath that apartment window,looking up to where the paper planes once caught the air.The paper planes I launchedare all long since gone,leaving my heart still up there,hovering over the rooftops,always waiting for the next time.