(listen to the podcast ici!)

I don’t miss you, Paris. London’s quite alright – we have similar weather some days.

I don’t have to meet an artist for un double espresso at a café table outside in the sun by some charming petit arc for breakfast after midday and discuss how I feel about life currently, today, right this second, or mumble to a friend without shame or guilt, on an impulsive short tram journey to the suburb I do not have a valid ticket for to practice my French and to check out how the art of music is taught to the general public with a subsidy there: “I’m sure I’m in the right place right now”, whatever that means.

There are hundreds of artisanal coffee shops in all shapes and forms all around here, mostly without a seating area – we don’t make a lot of money in this city for a chit-chat, and I can also just make my freshly ground Sumatran coffee, supplied by a family-run company in Dorset, in my Dolce & Gabbana x Bialetti moka pot and delay spending another £5 – oh, oui, we are still more cher than you whatever you dîtes (I’m soutenue like that!) – until the next 10 minutes of my practical, as opposed to my theoretical, existence.

I don’t miss you, Paris. I can walk faster than I talk and I know how to queue or use an elevator – there’s a lot of those here, and why would I miss going out in the evening to an artsy venue – cabaret, open mic, themed house party – mostly within walking distance, performed or hosted by friends or by sure-to-become-friends-after-je-dis-bonjours? We have endless shows in the West End. Yup – endless, like those invites to l’after you throw at me – I’m good at saying ‘no’ to anything these days l’after all, and costly, like the historic steps and cobblestones in Montmartre my designer shoes never get a chance to complain about.

I don’t have to impulsively meet up with a new friend I can instantly connect on a soul level over a walk, a thrift tour, or an apéro by the Louvre or any convenient place within 15 minutes of our current location – I can make an appointment to eventually lunch or brunch with a friend about two months in advance through going back and forth quite a few times in this city, and even travel for over an hour on the tube each way while I’m at it.

What – what is this achy feeling inside between my chest and my belly button anyway – too many days (two!) without going up and down the fifth floor manually? (Manually?) Well, there is a boy – there is a multi-faceted joy, up there, and sometimes it’s downstairs too, on the ground, walking with me anywhere I choose to, with its light heart and vivid jokes designed solely and clumsily to make me forget about things that do not matter – money, calendar, reason!

Can I forget all that? Like forgetting the feeling of not being able to dream when I’m there because I can just live every moment, without even realising that I breathe – I simply breathe and live there? Well, I can dream when I’m here, about anything; I just close my eyes, regulate my breathing, sometimes put on some non-jazz music, and see what I want to achieve and I know I’ll achieve it, like all the things I’ve achieved without you since I left you in 2019 – l can at least try again. Now I visited you five years later, last October, for a quiet, solo birthday walk down the old streets with my new self – because my daughter insisted that ‘I think Paris would make you feel very happy!’ after I told her my New York plan fell through, and even after I insisted that I was done with you – for a week and you think you can make me forget everything I thought I wanted or was required of me?

My recent monthly weekend visit (since November) was extended four times (for free – Eurostar princess here!) so that I ended up staying for two weeks, and I am now back in Wimbledon where (I thought) I belong, steadily shaky, stomping all over reality, dreaming of what could be – because I don’t miss you, Paris: I belong with you.

londres, le 3 mars 2025

je t’embrasse!

d.o.

• Instagram