12.10 // 6:04pm
My last evening in Paris, and I sit alone on the grassy lawns beside the Eiffel Tower. Kids are playing basketball on the courts nearby, every so often knocking the ball out of the court so that a passerby, usually a bundled-up young man walking an over-exhuberant labrador, picks up the ball and tosses it back into the game. A father and son toss a football behind me --or I suppose it's a rugby ball here, which makes more sense, especially seeing as the Rugby World Cup is taking place right here in Paris. Two large screens have been erected on opposite sides of the Eiffel Tower, a giant blow up rugby ball is in the very belly of the tower. Speakers are being set up for the game, and a few other people lounging on the lawn around me may be waiting to watch the game from here. I have a train to catch in a few hours, but for now the breeze is just cool enough to make necessary the pashmina scarves and pea coats that every French girl in the vicinity apparently owns. The weather is lovely, though. Foggy and grey and thick in the morning so that the top of the Eiffel Tower is stabbed into the clouds, hidden from view until later in the day when the clouds roll back to showcase blue skies and light clouds. Aside from that, Paris in autumn is perhaps the best Paris of all. The rain has made the tree trunks darker, and the golds, reds, and oranges drifting from the black branches that rest on still-green grass has the effect of making every turning of a corner like stepping into a painting.
Now the setting sun dusts the clouds with pink; the breeze is picking up and the air is cooling down. My coffee is cold but it wasn't very good to begin with. Two girls near me, both perhaps in their early twenties, are pulling out their purchases from a half dozen shopping bags: high heeled shoes, denim jackets, warm-toned scarves, a pair of black gloves. On the far side of them, a young couple, younger than I, are stretched out beside each other, every few minutes puckering their lips and delivering a kiss on the other's forehead. They attract the occasional glance, but overall people seem unmoved by such a subtle, unoffensive act of affection. A cop car drives along the dirt path through the park but no one is causing trouble. Laughter and yells and idle conversation are an incoherent hum; I wish I could understand French better. Speaking it only does so good if you are incapable of comprehending the response, but it's such a fluid language. My ears aren't used to it yet.
I have a train to catch and walking to do still. I should leave. But it is such a comfort, an oddly reassuring pat on the back, to see the Eiffel Tower looming up over my shoulder every morning. I hate to leave it behind. I wish I could have watched it built, watched the sparks fly and the wrenches crank and the steel grate against steel; it's a marvel.
I'll back back.
(Just an ironic side note: five days later I was stranded in Paris for a day and night on my way to Monaco because of the French National Railway Strikes; be careful what you wish for!)
