Ready, Set,

Paris!

I found my passport!

I booked the studio and paid for it.

“Wow!” My friend sent me a message after receiving my e-mail regarding my trip to Wells Fargo and the deposit made to her account.  “That happened so fast, I’m almost in shock.”

Me too.

But the good kind.

The pinch me, I’m dreaming kind.

I also requested and was granted two paid days off for vacation.

I am covered.

I have asked off, my passport showed up, and within twelve hours of having gotten the ticket I’ve got a place to stay in the 7th arrondisement.

I will be at 18 Rue Juge.

Metro stop: La Motte Piquet.

It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Eiffel Tower, the Champs de Mars, the Trocadero.

I know that area fairly well having meandered there every morning, or there about, Felix Faure was typically the stop I got off at, on Sundays around 11 a.m for six months.

I know that there is a great farmers market there on Sundays.

Unfortunately I will be traveling all day Sunday and leaving early Sunday morning for Charles de Gaulle.

I’m flying out 11a.m. on the 20th and arriving around 11 a.m. on the 21st.

There is the time change, but it will feel like traveling for a day.

I don’t really care.

I’m going to Paris.

It’s such an awesome thing.

Such an unexpected surprise.

Such a gift.

Truly.

My life, the things I get to do, how lucky I am.

I am graced.

Sitting here in my cozy in-law, astounded at how much my life has changed since I moved back from Paris.

It was three years ago on November 1st that I moved there.

How far I have come since coming back.

Getting in touch with my friend in East Oakland reminded me of that.

He responded this morning that he’d looked around the room I had stayed in and no passport.

Which was no problem.

As I found it last night.

That was crazy.

It was amazing actually.

And such a surprise to find it where I did.

I was sitting here finishing up my blog last night thinking about how I may have to go to the embassy and what that would look like and when I was going to do it, what the timing was going to have to be, etc, and I kept looking at a stack of books on my bedside table.

I wonder if it’s in my ……

Big blue book with the broken binder, the old one that is well-loved and used, and made “real” like the Velveteen Rabbit, the one I don’t use anymore as the binder is broke and I have another newer version and a little pocket guy, and I thought, “did I stick it in there?”

i kept staring at it.

I finished my blog.

Made a cup of tea, cut up and apple and some persimmon for a snack.

I carried my snack and my mug of tea to my bedside table, set them down, and unearthed the old book from my stack.

I flipped it open.

Nothing there.

Damn it man.

I got my computer and I set it down.

I looked at my book shelf.

The book shelf that has a lot of my notebooks on it and some of my books and I could see that I had made some space yesterday after digging through everything, every notebook I wrote in Paris, every scrap of paper, every envelope, and I didn’t like the way it looked.

Too much unbalanced space.

I looked down at the books next to the chaise lounge that were starting to stack up and I thought, “hmm, maybe I’ll move them on to the book shelf, there’s some space there now.”

So I picked up four and set them on the shelf.

The fit.

I went to sit down and the two that I left on the floor toppled over.

Annoyed I righted one.

It fell over again.

I righted it once more and was about to settle into my spot and have my snack and my tea and sure as shit, the damn book fell again.

I looked at the shelf.

Hmm.

There might be space if I rearrange it just a tiny bit more and put those notebooks there and stack those books there.

I have them stacked horizontally, not vertically, since there’s so many notebooks on the shelves.

I like to write a little you see.

I picked up the two remaining books and settled on the top shelf and the other just squeezed into the last bit of space on the second shelf.

But.

Ugh.

I have to say this, sometimes it is a defect of character and sometimes, well, is it odd or is it God?

Or was it my God box?

Who can tell.

But I have to say.

It was fucking magic.

Magic I say.

The defect, if you will, is perfectionism.

I recall recently getting a message from my person that said, “perfectionism is not an option.”

Well.

Fuck.

I still fall into it often.

And.

Last night I did.

But it also felt like I was being quietly guided.

Just nudged here and there.

So.

I put the book in the space on the shelf, but it was larger, longer than the book underneath it and I didn’t like the way that looked, so I unshelved it, set it on the floor and pulled out the stack of books so I could reshelve the bigger book on the bottom of the stack, thus aligning everything and making my obsessive compulsive sprite inside my brain happy.

And what the fuck do you know?

There it was!

Standing straight up.

On the second shelf of my bookshelf.

(underneath my God box)

Under the shelf below my hot pink magenta bunny rabbit bank that I bought in the Marais of Paris.

A gift I had given myself when a friend sent me 50 Euro and said spend it on something nice.

I wanted that damn rabbit bad.

I carried it through the Louvre later that day and took pictures of it next to works of art.

I know.

I am a weirdo.

But whatever.

I digress.

Underneath the shelf, standing up, looking all sassy and proper and navy blue.

My passport!

Oh my fucking God.

I yelped and grabbed it and laughed.

There it was!

I flipped it open.

Wow.

My hair has grown out so long.

That was my first thought.

Then I looked at my stamps.

Entering and exiting Paris.

The EuroStar train stamp from going to London and back.

Then the last stamp from the airport in Frankfurt where I exchanged my last Euro for a measly $10 American and headed on my last leg back to the United States.

So much there.

So many memories.

Just in seeing those small stamps.

I am so excited to get to add another series of stamps to the book.

I’m over the moon, I keep saying it, but it’s true.

Christmas in Paris.

I am so.

So.

So.

Ready for you.

Tags: acceptance, airplane, all the things, art, Christmas in Paris, defects of character, doing the deal, Frankfurt, god, God box, grace, is it odd or is it God, London, love, Paris, passport, perfectionism, recovery, travel, work