Paris - A Door That Doesn't Surprise

 I stood in line at a coffee shop called La Grande Orange. Phoenix. 40th Street, just above Indian School. The air was dry and smelled of roast beans.

The woman in front of me said she had an apartment in Paris.

I asked her about it. I didn’t wait for a pause.

“An apartment in Paris? How do you do that?”

She smiled. Said it wasn’t really hers. She rented the same one each time she went. Same street. Same walls. Same bakery. It made the place feel like home.

I thought about that.

I wanted it. The sameness. The way a street could greet you. A door that doesn’t surprise. I wanted to step off the train at Les Halles, walk past the flower stalls, head down Rue Montmartre. I wanted the corner of Etienne Marcel to mean something.

The bakery. The restaurant. The small things that let your body know you’re in the right place.

It took me three trips. But on the third, I stepped out of the metro doors, turned down the street. My shoulders dropped. The breath came easy.

I was home.

And it was good.