Paris in the Springtime, too.

I learn very slowly sometimes. And yet sometimes I realize I had learnt the lesson and practiced it but did not realize that I had done so until, well, now. It is a good feeling to know that at something in life your head and heart were on the same page and you followed them.

I'm watching a film called 'Dodsworth' on TCM. I do believe it jogged my memory about several trips to Paris with Mark and my dearest daughter, Joy. While in Paris, in fact France (for it was true in Nice and Provence as well) Mark and I never ventured out to the gay nightlife. I never wanted to, and well, I think and hope he felt the same.

I often thought it was simply that with my great love affair with France that I simply never found the time for there was too much else that was so important; the museums and the architecture, the restaurants and shops, the great monuments and the humble baguettes with ham and perfect coffee.

Well it does have to do with a love affair, and a triangle I suppose at that; but it is between a city and me and my dearest Mark. Paris, and France, are our place alone together. We both fell in love with the very air we breathed. All that these palces hold belong to just the two of us and no one else. The dark smoky air of the madeleine with candles falming, the Testoni shoe shop where Mark bought his loafers, the little cafes we huddled in against the winter cold and drank chocolate. The lavender in Provence and the hillside towns we climbed, the butcher where Mark smiled and laughed as he ordered his 'poulet', they are all, each of them, the two of us alone.

So many great cities we've visited or lived within and we enjoyed the clubs and nightlife - sometimes too much - and somehow, in France, our hearts led our heads and we knew that it must always be for just us.

Now, as I see so much that I failed and so much I regret that has caused others pain I know that at least this one magic place is still just ours. So good to know that.

I wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Dodsworth will remember some such place by the end of their story. We shall see.