waiting for the light

Did you ever feel that you just wanted to disappear without telling anyone, go somewhere no one would suspect you'd go and stay for as long as you needed to? Maybe forever. That's the way I'm feeling. Things, medically, should start to improve for Ron soon, and I'm happy for him, but I'm so weary and out of touch with my own small life and desires that I'm not sure I'll find them again. I'm not even taking pictures (a serious turn of events) -- bored with what's around me, lost in reading, knitting, those fine escapes of the mind. I browse through photos, find this one....

Reminder of the night we waited for the lights. It was a few days before summer solstice and it didn't get dark in Paris until nearly 11 o'clock. It was cold, wind from the Seine chilled us. My cocoa cashmere sweater and light jacket were nothing against those night winds. But when 20,000 twinkling lights went on, a collective ahh rose from the crowd below and it was all okay. We sipped a last glass of wine, felt touristy and didn't care -- this was a moment in time we were not likely to forget.  A taxi took us back to our small hotel in an arrondissment we never quite identified the whole time we were there. There were no views out of the one window in our tiny room (except the building across the alley) reached down a long dark hallway whose lights went on for a few seconds as we approached (mostly we reached our room by feel, hands running along the walls), but every morning at around 5 the scent of freshly baking bread wafted up to our opened fourth floor window from the biologique patisserie around the corner. We were only a block away from the metro and with phrase book in hand, managed to get around. I just wish I'd bought one of those French Betty Boop books from that vendeur de livre who had such a grand collection.

As I write, a great windy rainstorm has blown in. The horses are huddled together and it's chilly and lovely, I move laptop and self nearer to windy moisture coming through the open door and maybe I won't leave yet.

summer night's cold rain
banishes oppressive heat
     I reach for a shawl