To butter or not to butter, that is the question. The croissant on Air France may be small compared to what will come but they are buttery enough that my childhood farmland belief that everything is “better with butter” is in conflict with my waistline and my belief that the French know best when it comes to food.
I will be in the heart of Paris in two hours, most likely having tea at Laduree on the corner of rue Jacob and rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement, a block from where I once owned a duplex apartment. Said apartment was a casualty of my divorce. Non non non, said apartment was a gift from the cosmos I had for ten years until the man to whom I was once married got beyond his guilt for having a secret second life complete with apartments in Beijing and San Francisco and a woman twenty years younger and he found an arcane Virginia law where he could claim the entire apartment because his money paid for it, despite my name being on the deed for half. Zut alors!
(Ladies, when your husband cheats, massively, do not expect remorse to last, though it will most likely return with old age, as though it mattered then. Remorse in old men is as common as corn in Iowa. If an old man doesn’t have remorse, he is a rare and precious being, or too stupid to know his mistakes, or too scared to acknowledge them.)
Is it my imagination or are the heterosexual stewards on this plane flirting with me? God, I adore European men. Their radar hones right into the energy of your being rather than a wrinkle here or there.
The plane is descending, my ears are starting to plug. Paris, I am coming home. The kicker is I will be staying at my old apartment. The new owners (yes, after a couple years he sold it) needed the combination to the safe and my former soul mate, or whatever, was forced to connect us. Praise email!
Last month the new owners stayed in my apartment in New York. This month, after years of loss, I’m in theirs/”mine” on rue Jacob. The furniture and art is still there, the silver, the linens, the plates, and the espresso machine. Oui oui oui, I understand I no longer own it, but the goods, the beauties, are there on their own to be savored.
The real question is: to forgive or not forgive. Except it was always irrelevant to me, beside the point, even if it wraps this up before I turn off electronic devices.
Forgiveness is less a virtue than a tool. A handy one that raises you, use it as a crowbar, a lever, a rope ladder, and most importantly as an eraser. And eat croissant as though it were the heart of the universe.
“All electronic devices need to be turned off and your seat returned to upright position.” Landing.
The hermit side of me is being dragged here kicking and screaming. She wants to sit cross-legged at the entry to a cave, Paleolithic paintings at her back and wildflowers spread across the distance in front.