April in Paris

Here’s another essay I wrote while living in Paris in the 1980’sThe Men of Paris was the first.

April is the cruelest month
Breeding lilacs out of the dead land
Mixing memory and desire
Stirring dull roots with spring rain

So begins The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.   My theory is that he was inspired by an April spent alone in Paris.

For one beautiful, radiant week in an otherwise dreary April I walked the boulevards and strolled through the parks of a city superbly designed for love.  I was alone.

Alan and I drifted off to sleep Sunday night in a city caught in the final throes of winter, with a cold rain pounding against the bricks of our courtyard and a northern wind rattling the wooden shutters closed tight over our windows.  Early the next morning as I waved from the balcony as the taxi took him to the airport I saw that, voila, the amazing yearly miracle had happened over night.

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