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Spring is here, Paris!

It’s hardly April and I haven’t seen you for almost three weeks now, but the ducks and the Egyptian geese have been coming to rest on my pier at night and the recent agony has completely been erased from my nights. Almost all my nights. And as the new season has started on the Thames, so has the new games – joyful ones, and the new gaze as hopeful as them. Oh, Paris – amidst all this chaos in the world, do lovers have a chance but for their own requiem?

The sun still arrives with crispy, rarely still, air. My chest is less constricted, my breathing slow and effortlessly controlled: the heart is engorged. My smile arises from that engorgement as my mind touches everything that feels warm, that feels fresh, that feels budding.

In a couple of days, Paris, our body will entwine once again, allowing my soul to expand yet again. in a couple of days, all the songs you’ve blessed me with will find their new meaning as I walk your grounds with newly-inhaled joy and contentment. Romance is possible once again – if only for a season, if only for an era, if only for the nights that put to rest the air of sadness and closes the gap between my body and my ideas of freedom.

Like our inevitable occasional separation, Paris, our constant entanglement opens for me new paths – new windows for my mind to gaze through, and new doors for my heart to walk through. Oh, how bloody exhilarating! My nonchalantly rebellious daughter slash bestie is coming with me on free return Eurostar voucher – perks of being in ‘star’ level – I meant ‘Étoile – and stay with us for just under a week, and this alone brings extra joy to my reaching for your embrace.

There will be an art exhibition opening to prepare and get involved in, and there will possibly be an artist interview to film. There will be suppers among friends, and café rendezvous in between. There will be conversations my senses are ready to indulge in immoderately, and, perhaps, a picnic not far from Pont Neuf. There will be a new layout and a book cover by my designer to discuss. If I’m really lucky, there will also be walking along your river Seine, solemnly, undividedly, perhaps even on my own, consuming your embrace, almost greedily.

Almost greedily, Paris, I am consuming everything that is beautiful and temporary this morning has to offer for me – everything that is music, everything that is light, everything that is warm, everything that is carnal, and in the process, I feel your embrace embodied. Who knew love isn’t in anything eternal? Who knew, that as the objects come and pass, love travels so that it has a chance to evolve.

I’m embracing my evolving love, Paris, for you and for everything and everyone that come between us, in spite of us! I’m infusing everything that belongs within me back from my surroundings – from everything that touches my skin, from every scent that comes about my way, from every view that encounters my eyes, from every sound that enters my ears. I am with love; therefore, I am myself.

Time to let the guards down, Paris; it’s time to open all the locks and let the river flows freely along with every boat that has managed to take their place in the middle. At least for a while. Amidst the chaos beyond the television we no longer own, let my thinking halt. If only for a moment, if only for a gleaming spot. In the distance between the carnal and the eternal, let me possess your embrace.

londres, le 29 mars 2026

je t’embrasse !

d.o.