Me, My Heart, and I

by Melinda Gallo

Either you're in or you're out

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

That’s exactly what I feel about Paris. When I first started coming to Paris three and a half years ago for work, I was staying in the city. I had taken a liking to the 7th arrondissement because I was able to run around the Champ de Mars and admire the Eiffel Tower every day. Since I moved in with my beau a year and a half ago, I have been living only two miles out of the city. But those two miles might as well be two hundred miles. Paris’s energy can’t be felt outside the city.

Over this four-day weekend, we spent three out of the four days in Paris. I enjoyed my time hopping on and off the metro, visiting the spots I used to go to, discovering new spots, and just taking in the city. Each time I go to Paris, I realize that I miss living in the city. I truly love waking up and falling asleep in its embrace.

This morning, I took the train to Clichy where my office is. It's only a couple of metro stops out of town, but Paris seems completely out of reach. A few of the buildings around Clichy have a Parisian “air”, but the feel of the city is not that of Paris. Clichy feels more like a city that is not completely itself, but just a fragment of a large suburban area.

Hopefully before the end of the year, something will happen that will nudge me back into Paris. But in the meantime, I try to enjoy the times I am in Paris to visit my old stomping grounds and to discover new quartiers (areas). I am a “city girl” at heart so for me to live out of the city is like a fish existing out of the water.

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