my mind is foggy. it has been letting the most commonplace sensations take me traveling, taking me for the briefest moment to another place in my memory. and i simply find myself there, standing in it and letting it rush around me. i've been going to paris lately. maybe it's the mild winter weather we've been having. damp and not too cold. the other day, my deodorant, a crisp, fresh, sporty sort of scent flung me to paris. and the diesel exhaust of a bus passing has been filling my lungs with paris the last few weeks. it isn't unpleasant. it carries youth into me, briefly, and a little tremble in my heart. i love carrying those years with me, so close to my skin. the joy of walking streets with camera and pen, of wandering with little purpose and loving everything i find. all the dreams without the disappointment.

i love baths. maybe it comes first from loving bathtubs, the smooth curves, the claw feet, the heavy substantial iron smoothed over with porcelain. i was always drawn to them. but i didn't know i loved baths until i found my first apartment. it was the upstairs half of an old turn of the century house that never quite smelled right no matter how much i cleaned. and there wasn't really a shower. it had a hand held thing in the tub that had broken after a few weeks. so i started to take baths. and started to love them. maybe it was the only time i could escape the odd smell in the rest of the place.....i don't know, but my love of baths was born and will always be. when i lived in paris i had the tiniest closet of a bathroom with a miniscule bathtub that was basically the same area as a shower stall, but it was a bathtub. i would curl myself into this tiny little basin and be so glad for the luxury of it. any place i lived was always chosen for the tub.

and this is my favorite corner of our bedroom. my bathtub, tucked under a slight slope and surrounded by little shelves with essential oils and soaps and candles. i always dreamed of a bathtub in my bedroom, the perfect way to begin and end my day.

i think it was paris that taught me all the big lessons of my life. paris taught me how to be still in my soul and find happiness in the quiet. to find the simple vignettes that create a personal aesthetic. fueling and calming. it was in paris that i began to notice and appreciate the moments that brought a new layer of meaning and, dare i say, 'je ne sais quoi' to my frazzled youthful existence. i was content to wander unknown streets for hours upon hours. blindly allow the metro to deposit me in strange and unknown parts of the city just to explore. find churches and graves that were attached to my artistic and intellectual idols. sit and drink espresso and scribble in my journal, all without the restless american buzz i'd felt up to that point. recognizing that i didn't always need somewhere to go or someone to be with or something to do. i think i was programmed early to enjoy the internally layered and nuanced life, but paris spread it before me. we met at just the right moment, paris and i.

this evening i started my winter journey. since the time i was searching for my own direction in my mid-twenties i've wanted to read proust. i was intrigued with him. and i knew that the people who's lives i read about and obsessed on had also been intrigued with him. i outgrew many of those personalities, but not my distant interest in marcel proust. he is pointedly french. and his work circles in and around the parisian and provincial life. gallic. and since my life in france, so many years ago, i feel that connection profoundly. i've started reading swann's way many times. but a few weeks ago for my birthday, tom gave me the entire set of volumes.....everything together waiting for me to become part of them. the past weeks have been so busy with the house, i've wanted to settle in during the rainy evenings and start reading....but i waited until tonight. the house is listed, and i now feel free to start this new project. i'm hoping to read 25 pages a day and while the winter away with proust. i'll let you know how it goes. À la recherche du temps perdu.

there are few intimacies in life that can be shared the way a book can be. words on paper in beautiful worn editions, smelling of damp dust and appealing to my need for a few moments of quiet and solitude. i am drawn into book stores, mostly used book stores. or any place i can find a little treasure for my shelves. paris has my favorite books. little shops that are collapsing under the piles of volumes. sellers along the seine. old paper markets that set up in the square at certain metro stops. boxes of books and paper under tables at the marche aux puces at montreuil or saint-ouen. a book that has been held by many hands, that has absorbed the energy and emotions of people from different generations, is a special gift. it's enough to hold one of my favorite books for a few minutes, opened randomly, gulping a few sentences or swallowing several pages. with my favorites, that i have read and re-read for decades, i rarely need to read the entire book. it's a visit with the characters, the language, the images, the places. when i read the entire book i inhabit it all, but a little visit is sometimes better. there is no simpler pleasure than a brilliant book plucked from my own collection.