Paris in December
I savor one last bite of my chewy croissant noisette (hazelnut), not caring that the flaky pieces land in my lap on the train home from Paris. We hurl 180 mph through the dark. The ride is surprisingly smooth. Cool. Effortless.
I miss you already City of Love.
My daughter Kaye and I took an impromptu trip to give my son & family a little break from my month-long Christmas visit to Landstuhl, Germany. With meager planning, we found the capital of France a welcoming host. Language did not prevent us from communicating with the league of locals & tourists alike. “Friendly“ was the last word I was expecting to find on my 40-year return, but that’s what we enjoyed at every cafe, brassiere and shop we entered.
The well-dressed city did not look down on us as I had remembered. Admittedly, I had a run-in with a motorcycle on the first night of my last visit which soured my trip and still limits my “running career “ lol
And so, as we walked through the doors of our boutique Hotel du Temps, up the narrow winding staircase into our street-facing room, I experience a slight shiver. I had to crawl to the tiny toilette with a stitched-up gash in my calf in 1986 - 3 weeks before my wedding. This time, however, a friendly cat met us on the well-worn steps and let us pet behind his ears. The room was cozy. The price was right. The neighborhood was walking distance to all we wanted to do (albeit we walked a lot - the second day, after walking to the second platform of the Eiffel Tower we figured out the metro). And, yes, you still need to keep a look-out for the many 2-wheeled vehicles traversing the city in a hurry.
But she welcomes you with street upon tiny street, window upon flower-boxed window, park upon statued park, cafe upon cozy cafe, shop upon lovely shop. Her churches and palaces have stood for centuries. The sparkling Tower built to last 20 years in 1889 an iconic emblem of craftsmanship. Not well-received as it “blighted” their beautiful Haussmann/French Gothic architecture, the brainchild of Gustave Eiffel receives more than 7,00,000 visitors a year; 2 million the very first year. It is a marvel.
And it was there, on the windy platform, that we caught the first glimpse of the sun in a week. We had taken this trip admittedly because the gloom and damp of Germany was getting to be too much. My one prayer as we headed east on the Ice Train was that we would see the blue sky and feel the warm sun and so when the clouds broke, it was my little version of a Christmas miracle.
I’m sure you’ve felt it– that beam of God‘s love that reminds us what we truly celebrate this season. It doesn’t come wrapped and bought in a store, though gifts certainly cheer the heart. It cannot be baked and consumed in a moment, though there are flavors so sentimental to the season. No, the true present is to feel God with us - “Emmanuel.”
It never ceases to surprise me how intentional God is with us.
Do you have a Christmas story to share? I’d love to hear it.
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