TERESA AND ME. PARIS 2024
I am about to share the last stop on my September journey. Paris. It had been awhile. At least fifteen years? How could that be? My favorite city for so many years. I was Paris enamored, enchanted, enthralled…yeah, all that. And yet in my travels in the 2000s, I only returned a few times, and they were early on. Why? Perhaps, afraid to have the memory diminished, the magic tarnished by the absence of a dance-life, or the loss of desire to consume an appropriate amount of café du lait and vin?
As I write today, preparing to craft a post or two or three about the return…and how, it turned out, my passion remaining undimmed…I do not know where to begin. Why should this travel tale be so much different than the many others I insist on sharing? Well, that would be because I visited a favorite place, just now, as a little old lady who rarely feels passionate about much of anything—and there they were, all those emotions, longings, all that joy and wonder—how silly is that? Silly…it didn’t feel silly while I was there. Just unusual. Maybe a touch discombobulating. Well, honestly, sometimes it seemed an out-of-body interlude–like my aging body was very present in the moment, but my younger heart and mind were way back there….
Wow, I sound like a sixteen-year-old in love for the first time. In fact, I think a multitude of writers have described, over the centuries, exactly these feelings about Paris. Maybe it’s sort of like the idea of “America,” representing the yearnings, possibilities, dreams of so many, knowing that for a whole lot of the people arriving here, it hasn’t been like that at all. I’m just telling you that I know Paris is also full of poverty, racism, disappointment and all the sadnesses inherent to the human condition, but that doesn’t stop the magic from being there…for those who experience it as one of the fine remembrances of life…for any time and reason whatsoever.
My Paris 2024 was of threefold significance: a return jaunt with Teresa, my travel bud extraordinaire; a seriously emotional memory jolt at Théâtre du Châtelet; and the travel-fun of eating at Café de Flore (where existentialist ghosts tweak one’s imagination … as in, once I was a writer ensconced ever-so-cozily in a Parisian garret, hanging out with Beauvoir and Sartre ).
Often during Paris time, I was haunted by the idea that this might be the last time just hanging out for a week with granddaughter Teresa (aka Lace…a name I bestowed upon her years ago…when she was too young to tell me not to…), a last time as who we are now. Teresa, footloose and fancy-free, until this whole marriage business culminates in January, after which time I’m expecting accoutrements like husbands (well, not so many of those) and children and cats and houses to distract her. Me, old but somewhat mentally and physically fit, until I’m not. I felt every moment that this September week was to be doubly cherished.
One of the early Big Trips Lace and I made together was to Paris to celebrate her high school graduation in 2008. A fine time was had by all, even though I did briefly lose her on the Champs-Élysées, and since school wasn’t out yet, she had to study a wee bit. Since then we’ve made many journeys together, but it was special to return to Paris.
A goodly number of the photos that follow are of young Teresa on our 2008 Parisian celebration of her high school graduation. There are also photos of Teresa and/or me hanging out in the fine autumn of 2024. Only 16 years separating the visits; and we’re indeed older and wiser; it looks way better on her than on me, doesn’t it?
I’ve written many accounts of Lace as a traveler over the years. I like to take some credit for her wanderlust, but both her mom and dad are also serious about being out and about in the world. The fact that she represents two distinct cultures Asian (Filipino) and American (with a good dose of Scandinavian) lends itself to making her an explorer as well. Lace is one of those travelers who can happily ramp up or slow down the activity level depending on her companions…with her dad and mom, it’s big and small adventures from getting up to going to bed. With me, it’s more like multiple coffee stops, lots of meandering, and lingering over meals (or rather, over desserts). And what better place for the latter than…PARIS.
I thought a lot about who this granddaughter of mine is on this trip. Now, she’s an adult on equal (actually, superior) footing with me in terms of knowledge, strength, determination, and decision-making skills. So, I want to know her in this way, not simply and solely as my treasured granddaughter. This is true of all my grandchildren, but I don’t puzzle over it so much unless there’s some stretch of alone-time with each of them. Now that I’ve written all of that, I will not share my observations here because, even though they’re positive and positively interesting, it would quite likely annoy her to no end. So, Lace, they’ll be in my next book!
Ah, Paris . . . 2025 may be my first visit. Congrats on a triumphant return! We should never be too old to experience passion. It’s great to see the Lovely Teresa, too!