Since I have gotten married I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to different cities, countries, and continents. Although I have loved them all, I must confess I felt safer on several of our foreign trips as they were taken with my husband’s maternal family and friends in what, to me, comprised a rather large group. As I have previously stated, this was our fourth trip to Paris (actually my fourth, my husband’s fifth, and our daughter’s third) and I have always felt as if Paris were my home. It has never felt “foreign” or different, and I have never felt unsafe. I have gotten pretty much accosted in the dark, dank alleys of Venice and I was ignored as a woman wandering the narrow, winding streets in Tangiers. I have roamed over the ankle-turning, uneven cobblestone streets in Guatemala amidst abject poverty and yet never felt threatened. And I have traveled along the coastal cities of Spain without any qualms. For me being lost could be terrifying, or it could mean becoming happily immersed in a place with no plan or direction. Once on the basin of a glacier in Alaska I felt lost due to “white blindness” and it was absolutely paralyzing. It was like being in a pitch dark room only everything was white — I could not discern the sky from the ground and it made me feel incredibly disoriented as well as claustrophobic. Milling about the streets of London never made me unsettled; it just didn’t feel like home. Ah, but my beloved Paris; I have no words. After the zoo my husband and I decided to spend a leisurely evening revisiting some of our favorite haunts. Despite this being our little girl’s third trip, she was only five and a half years old, and she kept exclaiming with unbridled glee at every turn. I realized THIS was really the first trip for her, and I pray she will always remember some of it. For me, my little picture sums up the simplest and yet most treasured pleasures to be found in Paris. We ascended all three elevators to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Our little one held no fear at the steep climb, nor was she daunted by the throngs of people speaking every language imaginable around her. A sweet young Muslim family shared their little girl’s snacks with her and the French TRULY thought she was one of their own with her deep, brown Gallic eyes, bow, and toile dress. Afterward we rode the carousels, much to all of our delight. She had done so twice in the past, but only her father and I remembered. There are always many African vendors selling their wares underneath the tower. The vast difference on this trip was that the French police had the entire perimeter of the Eiffel Tower gated. So there was no more carefree traversing back and forth. Still, she got this pink Eiffel Tower and we all treated our selves to some glacé au chocolat. And no one, but no one, does chocolate and/or ice cream like the French. My husband and I reminded ourselves how nice it was to have a small serving so we could indulge our taste buds rather than our waist lines. We were never lost, but we did lose ourselves relaxing in the heart of Paris next to the Seine. The famous American essayist Henry David Thoreau once said, “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” I started to understand parts of myself I had never fully realized until my first trip to my beloved France. I saw my husband starting to really lose himself on this trip in her language, history, art, and culture. And our little one — the greatest joy of our lives — well, she was truly lost in Paris.
