Happy

We've had some gorgeous weather lately... LA-like, with cherry blossoms swapped in for the palm trees. April in Paris for once is living up to its billing.

This evening I went for a walk in short sleeves, without any particular destination, which is something I rarely if ever do. It was not because I had nothing else to do, but because I decided that, having cleaned my apartment, I would pretend as though I had nothing else to do.

I went and bought a whole grain half-baguette (did you know, you can buy half baguettes here? They just cut it in half for you!) from Maison Yhuel for 53 cents, and then strolled around the Marais. There were an awful lot of Americans out, not all of them tourists, but yes, a lot of tourists.

Twilight is starting to be quite long at this latitude and this time of year, and there is just enough of a breeze, it reminds me of being on the beach in the summer at twilight when the wind turns.

I nipped into Picard, the frozen food store, just as they were closing and got a bowl of veggies. It's funny, now that I'm eating better, that even though I eat less, I'm surprisingly unhungry. What really amazed me tonight was that walking past the falafel places in the rue des Rosiers, I didn't feel like getting a sandwich, even though I had been toying with the idea of doing so. I did take a free falafel sample, one boule, and that suited me just fine.

I have to confess, I love being just on the edge of a party, and there were parties spilling out into the streets tonight, openings of boutiques or galleries, dinner parties. And in between, just the half-lit apartments, people taking their groceries home, cafés and bistros en plein dîner, and shops closing.

And somewhere along the walk I realized what I was feeling: I'm happy. Happy to be in Paris, happy that it's spring, happy that I'm eating right and taking care of myself, happy about my work, happy about my friends here, happy about JD, happy to be alive.