One day in the city of light
It’s too early in the morning for conversation, and the only sounds on the Métro are the screeching and rattling of the cars as they hurtle through the tunnel between stations and the loud metallic snap of the doors opening and shutting behind crowd after crowd of commuters. The passengers form a dense, constantly shifting mass of black coats and shiny shoes, briefcases and handbags – everyone looks perfectly coordinated and impeccably groomed in a way that seems almost out of place with the frenzied nature of morning Métro ridership. Passengers lucky enough to find a seat flip open newspapers or pull out books, and a girl in the corner takes a paper-wrapped croissant out of her bag and surreptitiously tears off a corner, popping it into her mouth only after she’s scanned the faces of the people around her to make sure nobody is watching. And nobody is watching, of course, except for me. Because for me, the Métro is still something of a novelty, and watching the flow of commuters onto and off of the train is an opportunity to wonder about the lives of each perfectly coiffed person; to make up stories about where they are going, how they spend their day, and what they’ll be returning home to at the end of the day.
It’s late Friday afternoon, and the city is coming alive as Parisians leave work behind and pour out of their offices in a cheerful jumble. The sound of laughter and conversation floats in through my apartment’s open window, and in the distance, a church bell chimes five times: the weekend has officially arrived. There is only one thing to do at this point, so I shut my laptop with a satisfying snap, twist a long scarf around my neck, and head to one of my favourite cafés. The waiters here have begun to recognize me as a regular, and I, being the café addict that I am, take this as high praise. I grab the last free table on the terrace – sandwiched between a lovestruck couple and a solitary girl smoking cigarette after cigarette as she murmurs into her phone – and within minutes a kir – white wine with a splash of cassis – has been whisked onto my table. I take a long, slow sip, pull a book out of my handbag, and settle in for a relaxing hour of reading during which the tapping of high heels on the sidewalk in front of the café, the swirl of dramatic conversation, and the clinking of glasses are my only interruptions.
The sunsets in Paris are, without fail, spectacular. From my solitary perch on a park bench at the very top of the Montmartre hill, I watch as the sky turns a flaming orange, each wisp of cloud perfectly highlighted and reflected back in the windows of nearby buildings before slowly fading into a million different shades of dusty pink and purple. This is when the Parisian skyline is at its most alluring and romantic; it is impossible not to fall in love with the city over and over again when you’re watching a sea of ancient buildings become enveloped in a soft, hazy glow as the sun sinks behind the horizon. Whoever first described Paris as the City of Light was clearly sitting on this bench and staring out at this exact view when they coined the term, because the lights of the grand boulevards and of the elegant buildings lining the Seine could never come close to matching the beauty of these moments. And as cliché as it may sound, it’s in these moments – when I’m sitting here gazing out over thousands of rooftops and watching as the Eiffel tower becomes a silhouette against the sky – that I feel the most relaxed, satisfied, and happy.
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