Paris

One year ago today, I moved to Paris.  I got on a plane in Boston by myself, waltzed through Heathrow the next morning, and ended up at Charles de Gaulle, and, from there, to my lovely flat at Denfert-Rochereau.
The first couple days in Paris were scary - all on my own, with the wrong kind of visa and a sun that didn't come out until eight-thirty, an iffy-at-best grasp on the language.  But I loved it - I loved the bare branches of the square-cut trees in the Jardin du Luxembourg and my quiet cafés and walks down the river - especially in February and March, when the tourists hadn't yet arrived in droves, where some streets were still my streets and didn't belong to the millions of other people making Paris theirs.
Some streets still are my streets - Rue Daguerre with Thévenin's buttery croissants, or Rue de Sevres or Boulevard Raspail - those will always be mine.  And I know the code to get into a complex with a courtyard and gardens and a beautiful room with a piano that I visited to hear jazz concerts.  I know the code to get into the ancient building where I lived the last month of my Paris experience in the third, and I know the cool dark stairwell of the Denfert-Rochereau flat.
I miss Paris, but it will always be mine, and I'll come back to it soon.  That's a promise.
(rooftops from my window, by me)