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Bonjour Paris,

Here we are – together again, heartache after heartache, though surely that can’t be the bond between us. No – it’s got to be my resilience or, rather, my soft-looking strength, that carries me through your streets with light steps, almost flying, like someone free, and a constant smile, almost chewable, like someone in love; it’s got to be my unconditional love for my current condition, or myself in whatever the current condition is, that makes me feel I’m in the right place at the right time, all of the time. 

My resilience, my unconditional love, allows me to stay in, all by myself, all day – back in Paris to just chill, read and write at home? That’s boujee AF! Oh you haven’t seen the many glasses of coconut water I’ve been drinking – and no cigarettes either! 

Worry not – my resilience, my unconditional love, also allows me to decide at 9 pm to take my showered and well-dressed self to a jazz club I had never been to before, half an hour walk from my nest. It’s supposed to be where dissidents of the world meet, though, seeing how quiet and well-behaved the entire room was when I made my entrance, I kind of doubted it. So, standing amongst strangers, some of whom caught the big smile I cast as I walked through the door, I started dancing in place with my foot, which, apparently, got two wise men, who turned out to be the next band to perform, behind me thinking I was a musician. Yeah, they wish! The only instrument I play is my heart, and a few strings need replacement already!

To cut a long story – it’s not that long; I left before two – short, a few banters – especially with the musicians performing – and genuine compliments later, I ended up calling the bartenders by their names and left with quite a few new friends in my pocket – not literally; not all of their egos were pocket size. Oh, a young man even came up to me with a long thank you for showing him how to enjoy jazz because apparently he wasn’t sure if he could clap louder, make appreciative noises or even move his own shoulders to the rhythm before I arrived.

Well, like Louis Armstrong, I believe jazz is for ordinary people so I’ll always just be myself around it. It’s not the opera, well, where I get to be my ‘other’ self I have come to accept without judgment. Just kidding; there is no other self. I am whole and present myself completely wherever I am and if the conditions do not suit me, I heed Epictetus and leave. 

Like jazz, I am for ordinary people. It’s actually heartbreaking that some treat me like an opera – they pay an expensive ticket, though some got it for next to nothing, and they expect me to perform soprano, which I can’t in the first place, while they sit there, pretty and stiff, and, if I was the main character at all, I end up dead, they clap and, if I am lucky, I might get their standing ovation, and they leave. 

Like jazz, I want people who move – with me and for me; who make noises – with me and for me; who talk to me after the show; who stick with me l’after after l’after ou, bien, laughter after laughter; who share their joint with me in the dimmed alley – these are all metaphors, alright? In love, I want an equal; ‘let the waves sing fitzgerald – nothing brutal’ – sorry, I’m hallucinating again. Where were we?

My resilience, my unconditional love, even allows me to visit one of the best pizza places in the city even though I never care for pizzas, even if it is sourdough pizzas – only because I do not care for sourdough either – I’m a rice person. Well, after finishing two ‘surprise du chef’s, easily – surprise, surprise, I can comfortably say that it was recommended by the chef’s brother, who’s my writer and theatre producer friend in London. The secret’s out: it’s called Oobatz: where the sourdough pizzas are heavenly, and the negronis hellish. I made that shit up.

My resilience, my unconditional love, allows me to stare at the open Parisian window from the desk, hearing the brief morning rain, while a picture walks in like in Vicente Aleixandre’s IT’S RAINING – a tantalising picture, unlike jazz. 

paris, le 16 aout 2026

je t’embrasse !

d.o.