Paris, je t’aime… That’s right, j’adore Paris… Almost fifteen years after my last visit, I took a dream trip to the city of love earlier this month and, to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m ever able to write or even explain the beauty… I’m not a travel writer and even if I was, there is no way you can go through every single detail of the stunning culture and the rich history that could hardly even be described in the best travel guides… All I know is that spending almost 12 hours every day walking on the cobblestoned streets of Paris was painful yet amazingly pleasurable… It left my mind and my heart full of the most beautiful memories and unforgettable sceneries… And if the word “adorable” could be considered a city, that would be Paris…

My whole adventure was summarized by observing the loveliness of every single moment wandering in the city… cafés, yummy pastries, vin rouge, l’Opera, the Metro, effortlessly charming and stylish people, sexy French accents, Collette, smoking tobacco under the spring blossoms, macarons, crêpes, cathedrals, baguettes and cheese, art and fashion, the “Le Petit Nicolas” exhibit, laughing on the walkways beside the Seine like there was no tomorrow, the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore (better known as where my beloved Ethan Hawke held his book reading in “Before Sunset”), teenage kisses in a park beside the Eiffel tower, the Andy Warhol exhibition, my dear Sara and the lovely new friends… Just a snapshot of all that happened.. All in all, I can’t be more grateful for this trip… I’m refreshed, back on track and happy that I’m back home…

Not even a full 24 hours after my arrival, jet lag and all, I saw myself jumping up and down to Fran’s voice… Yes, Travis had their Toronto concert the day after I arrived home and their gig left me even more so in love with the boys and their tune… now can anyone say, why does it always rain on me? 🙂

S

“Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the Unknowable. But there it sits, nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.”

— H.L. Mencken

When: A Sunny Afternoon
Where: Unknown

So the girl finally picked up the New Yorker from the rack… She felt the urge to own it in desperation… Only because it had what she craved to read for a while… The poem that can’t be written…

is different from the poem
that is not written, or the many

that are never finished—those boats
lost in the fog, adrift

in the windless latitudes,
the charts useless, the water gone.

In the poem that cannot
be written there is no danger,

no ponderous cargo of meaning,
no meaning at all. And this

is its splendor, this is how
it becomes an emblem,

not of failure or loss,
but of the impossible.

So the wind rises. The tattered sails
billow, and the air grows sweeter.

A green island appears.
Everyone is saved.

— by Lawrence Raab

Everyone is saved, she is thinking… While puffing on her never ending tobacco, she read it again and again then wrapped it up in those magical hours that flied as fast as the smoke vanished in to the blue sky… She came back home with an empty mind and a bunch of yellow tulips by her side…

Just before the snow started to seize the sunny ride…

S

“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”

— Leonard Bernstein

How late one can be?!

Right at this moment I would like to wish all my Persian readers (or non-Persian ones) a wonderful year… Let’s hope for a green, a smiley and a healthy 1388…

Happy Nowruz lovelies!

Love and smiles,

S

“Natasha combined the best of Redgrave and Richardson – the enormous depth and emotional force of a great actor on the one hand, and the intelligence and objectivity of a great director on the other. She was one of a kind, a magnificent actress.”

— A tribute paid by Sam Mendes to Natasha Richardson after her tragic death on March 18, 2009

“Four Rules for Life. Show up. Pay attention. Tell the truth. Don’t be attached to the results.”

— Angeles Arrien

Darlings:

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day… Have a *Green* and *Beerful* one!

Much love,

S

I just logged in to nag… so I ask you to bear with me… please?!!

My shoulder is a total mess right now… the pain woke me up just before dawn around 4am and didn’t let me fall asleep anymore… waking up in the below-zero degrees doesn’t really help the situation either… so I’m here now, on medication and thinking yoga is supposed to do good to your body and not leave you like a walking zombie, falling off your office chair!

I ask people frequently what, who and where makes them happy at a particular moment in time… almost without fail, they come up with clichés which bore me to death and make me wonder if they know anything else beside, oh you know, sand and sun, pockets full of $$$ and good friends… But hey, I guess that’s none of my business…

Bubbles – both in a glass and in my bathtub – plus a good rhythm in my ears would make me the happiest right now!

S

P.S. Spring, where the hell are you? please come and save me from this moment!

And this is the final one of the remarkable coffee-on-napkin drawings by Mr. Niemann…

“After a couple of blissful weeks though, things took an unfortunate turn. For some reason he started making the wrong coffee (half and half, two sugars). I knew that if I corrected him, our mystic bond would be forever tarnished. So I swallowed the coffee, instead of my pride.”

— By Christoph Niemann – The New York Times