18 October 2007

"There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see and sees it, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more. He is constantly comparing what he sees to what he wants, so he see with his mind, and maybe even with his heart, or tries to. If his peripheral vision gets diminished -- so that he quite literally sometimes can't see what's coming at him from the suburbs of the place he looks at -- his struggle to adjust the country he looks at to the country he has inside him at least keeps him looking. It sometimes blurs, and sometimes sharpens, his eye. my head was filled with pictures of Paris, mostly black and white, and I wanted to be in them." Adam Gopnick in Paris to the Moon

I struggle to find a place in this strange place called Phoenix, and this book has not helped my need to live again overseas. Paris is calling me in some way, tugging at my mind every time I see something that reminds me of anything French. I can literally think myself to tears sometimes thinking about being somewhere else, with a lovely lady on my arm. I have such an over romanticised idea about life, but it is my life, and I can direct and form and shape it into one that isn't mundane and lifeless, but filled with places and things I love -- people in places I love. I look forward to the day I live in Paris. It might be a month, or it might be a year, but I know it is in my path.