Just woke up for the first time in a week in my own house. With my little blonde-haired daughter snuggled up next to me, fingers entwined in my hair. Albeit, it was 5:30 and the sun wasn't even up yet....stupid jet-lag. The most amazing part is that my kiddo is still fast asleep, almost two hours later, and had slept all night long, soundly.
I am currently drinking the best cup of coffee I've had in over a week, rubbing bits of dried mascara out of my lashes and am still pretty awed at the fact that in the last 24 hours, I have been in three countries. I hate flying, and I spent the last two hours of our 7 hour flight from Frankfurt to home watching videos of Ricardo's (the dude next to me) daughters' synchronized figure skating competitions....which I suppose I deserved after subjecting him to an onslaught of recent Ellie photos.
I cannot sum up our trip in one blog post, nor am I even going to pretend that I have my wits about me to write anything remotely interesting or funny- I'm still on Paris time. But in a way, this little blog is my home, too, and I wanted to make sure I stepped into it's living room for a moment, if only to let it know that I was back. But, for now, a few little things.
Parisienne Observations
Women in Paris may not have washed their hair in days, removed their eyeliner from the night before, or even, essentially, changed out of their pajama pants, but they will always wear high heels. On those cobblestone streets, I just couldn't grasp how their skinny ankles could navigate stones and stretchy flannel bottoms. Amazing.
I have never been a huge fan of elevators, but I wouldn't say that they made me uncomfortable- until Paris. Parisienne's have no problem squeezing as many folks as humanly possible into an elevator less than half the size of an American elevator. I am not joking. There was a point in which I could not move more than 3 centimeters to the right if I wanted to avoid kissing the guy standing beside me.
People, generally, seem to make pleasure a priority. And not in the way Americans do, by cars and houses and lofty vacations. But, they seem to actually enjoy their day to day life. They don't work as many hours as we do. They're out late every night laughing and carousing with friends (dinner, we found, doesn't actually exist until 8:30- and that's the early bird special). They sit at cafes and do nothing but drink beer (apparently only romantic Americans with false impressions of Paris actually order wine at a cafe) and people watch. Their conversations vary, but they're never about religion or politics. They take hours, and I mean hours, eating once meal with three courses the size of a cassette tape. They stop in the middle of the street to remark how beautiful something is- even if they have lived there their entire lives. It's the little things, the sweet little things that they relish- which served as a beautiful reminder for me to do the same.
And that, my friends, is the gist of how our trip was. It was a sweet time of restoration and renewal- a reminder that the world was created beautifully so that we would enjoy it- that it was made for me to marvel at, to rest in and to take joy. God gently prodded me this trip, telling me to love the people he's given me, to give thanks for the bounty I have, to stop striving for things simply because I never feel "enough". He is enough.
And if he didn't tell me all of that, I would have ascertained it by 5 pain au chocolate I consumed while there.