L-O-V-E

October 10, 2009

“L- is for the way you look at me”, I started softly, staring out the window, instructing my brain to remember every tree, every building, every wrought iron balcony.
“O- is for the only one I see.” Gaining volume, looking at Mike and the cab driver, to see if they were willing to go along with my serenade. When neither flinched, I continued, now trying to get a reaction,
“V- is very, very extra-ordinary, E- is even more than anyone that you adore and…” as my eyes were again glancing out the window and a smile ran across my face, the words exiting my mouth blurred into a mumbling of lyrics made up to fit the tune.

“You were conceived to this song!” the driver, interrupted in a heavy French accent as he pointed at the radio.
“Hmmm?” I said, tilting my head to hear.
“Nat King Cole! Your mother and father made love to this man and made you! Think of how many children were conceived because of Nat King Cole!” said with a laugh that filled the cab, as if an entire generation should now thank Nat King Cole for the romance that led to their eventual births.

I laughed, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if that was true?”

The philosophical cab driver marked the end of my second trip to Paris and now I was sitting next to the river, 8 months later, with Amy, contemplating “Paris trip number three” and thinking about ghosts. My initial introduction to Paris was during the summer of 2004. I was 28, with only an inkling that I would fall in love with the city on the Seine. I must admit, I had wished for it, but it seems love rarely comes when it is beckoned. At least for me, it has always arrived when I least expected it, was least prepared, and where circumstances were anything but ideal. But Paris was neither forbidden nor stained with complexity or guilt. Paris, with my inkling, would get the love I was able to give and somehow Paris answered. And though no love is ever safe, at that moment, it certainly felt that way then.




Since, I became a world history teacher, I have been intoxicated by the mere thought of Paris. It was a city I had begged students to consider. The sun king dancing the lead part, himself; Rousseau, Voltaire, their ideas posed, debated in the salons and restaurants of Paris; Marie and Louis, and their conspicuous consumption; the fish ladies marching to Versailles; Robespierre and his slippery slope to terror. How could you not love this town!? Yes, the love I had for Paris was academic and juvenile. Like a seven year old, looking at the pyramids, picturing the pharaohs and the gold.

I was a baby and this was a time long before I knew how to love anything besides friends, family, hometowns, and world events. This was not the Rebecca who is now consumed with the idea of great love, looking for evidence of it, in every great leader, writer, artist, movie and friend. This was not the woman who asked the Empire State building to marry her from the rooftop of a West Side apartment, or the one who would twirl in the Piazza del Duomo, with a black dress and matching heels, in an attempt to seduce it as a new lover. I was different and it was a different time.



During my first trip to Paris, I was a child wife away from her husband, fearful of everything, wide-eyed and hesitant. A child wife, whose husband begged her to, “Just relax. It is three weeks in Europe, Rebecca! Just have fun!” I sometimes look back and wonder if he knew, in that moment, as he was hugging a tearful me getting ready to walk through the security line in Newark airport alone, did he know, that he was freeing a caged animal? Him letting me go, PUSHING me to go, wanting me to go, would change me forever and that change would ultimately require me to leave. I would be gone, in two years, out of his life forever.

“Paris…” I had said in a mere whisper as I sat looking out the window of the plane, “Paris, be kind to me, for I want to love you. Don’t be rude, obnoxious, mean or insulting, instead, please let me wander your city in awe and acknowledgment. I promise I will be reverent of the history you hold.” and with those words, Paris wrapped me up and for three days of whirlwind site-seeing with one of the most beautiful women on the planet, Paris welcomed me in and I was in complete adoration.




So here I am, five and a half years later, my legs dangling on the edge of the Seine. My heart no longer feels juvenile. These past years have brought with them, some of the most breathtaking moments of my life. I have seen the pyramids and pictured the golden pharaohs, contemplated Pericles at the acropolis, looked at the colosseum and thought of tigers, seen the Hagia Sophia in the snow. But more importantly I have witnessed the power of unconditional love and I understand what it means to have a village of people who love me despite my human-ness. I also understand the depth of despair. I left a man who started loving me when I was 15 and who continued to do so, until I was 30 and walking out the door. I betrayed people I loved for a person I loved more. I am not sure you should ever say such things out loud. You don’t, you shouldn’t. But I can’t stop myself and I can't seem to shake my obsession on the workings of love, so I suppose I will continue to ponder and write. For me, it is the only way to make sense of it. I suppose in order to love Paris, we must at least accept it all, the terror, the guillotine, the conspicuous consumption and starvation, as well as the debate, discussion, art, and beauty. We must realize that somehow, whether we like it or not, all those things, the injustice, betrayal, selfishness, freedom, rights and love, all live so beautifully and tragically in the same city on the river Seine so, I suppose it is only fair they have to live in my heart too.