At the end of January, we flew from Oaxaca to Austin; visited with our daughter, Taylor; and set off on a roadtrip back to Charlottesville, Virginia. Normally, I execute my standard roadtrip process—select a handful of themes, orient the stops to the themes, and read a pile of related books. Then as we drive, I recount everything I’ve learned to Pat until his eyes glaze over and he says, “Maybe we could listen to music for a bit.”

But not this trip.

This time we set off themelessly. I simply divided the route into equal days of driving. Then a few days before we left, I noticed that Paris, Texas was en route and moved our first night to there. After all, it’s Paris. It has an Eiffel Tower. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, nothing. 

Paris, Texas was both friendly and charming: A downtown built around a central square. A legit Paris-style boulangerie. An ice cream shop called Sundae in Paris. A pub where Pat bought a Paris Brewery T-shirt and promised to send them a picture of him wearing it in Paris, France—aka the real Paris.

And of course, there was the Eiffel Tower. 

When I put a photo of it in our family chat, our son Ryan replied “I believe that Paris, Texas has the 4th tallest Eiffel Tower in the world.” Mentally, I counted them: Paris number one, probably Las Vegas second.

I turned to Pat. “Hmm, I wonder where number three is.” Google immediately found it. “Holy cow. It’s in Tennessee … and not terribly far out of our way.”

We’d had such a great day that Pat replied, “Let’s go!” And just like that, a theme was born.

Within minutes, I booked a hotel in Paris, Tennessee and cancelled our stop outside of Nashville. Two days later, we arrived.

Truth be told, it was a lackluster stop. A drizzly day. A smaller town. Fewer Parisian references. Eventually, back in Charlottesville, I tucked my thoughts of Paris away.

Until last week after chatting with my son Ryan. 

To set the stage … He and some partners have purchased a motel in West Yellowstone, Montana. Consequently, he’s thinking through the experience he hopes to create for visitors. Our conversation meandered and eventually landed on Pat’s mother—aka grandma, aka Sandy Lou.

Ryan said:

I think about going up north and grandma making her caramel pop corn or her pretzel dessert. How she would light up over such small things. She would pick a blackberry in her garden and her reaction to how good it was.

And I’d think ‘what’s the big deal? It’s just a blackberry.’

But as I get older, I realize more and more that all that matters is the blackberry. 

Sandy Lou didn’t always have the easiest life, raising a brood of five children on a modest income. Yet she always found something to delight over. And she loved sharing it, especially with those she loved.

I’ve tossed all of this around in my mind for several days. For better or worse, Paris isn’t my blackberry; Paris is an overflowing vat of blackberries. It’s me rushing home with a piping hot baguette, pausing only long enough to devour the tip. It’s the way the light illuminates the chimneys outside our window differently every single morning. It’s the juice of the perfect apricot, one my vendor meticulously chose just for me, as it dribbles down my chin and sticks to my fingers.

It’s 1000 tiny things that slay me over the course of 100 different days.

An idea began to take form. I need to capture these ephemeral moments and meld them with this thing I’ve called The Paris Project. When we moved, I purged all of my Paris Project notebooks, but I’ll gladly recreate them. I’m at the age where repetition is the only route to memory. Plus I’ll love every second of it. To store all of this, I’ve purchased the URL Parisinbetween.

Perhaps this site becomes a repository where the most rabid Paris enthusiasts convene. Or maybe it will be a means to share what I love best with those I love most. Or perhaps it will be the spark that alights my memories in my dotage. Maybe I’ll flake, and it will become nothing at all. Time will tell.

We arrive in Paris on April first. In preparation, I’m reading about the baguette. In my mind, it’s the most iconically French thing. Plus, the best baguette competition will take place in Paris during our stay. I believe it’s returning to the square at Notre Dame Cathedral, so maybe I’ll poke around. For kicks, I’ve enrolled in a baguette making class.  

In the past weeks, this baguette fixation has taken me down an amazingly deep and fascinating rabbit hole on the history of wheat (trust me, you will not want to sit next to me at a dinner party any time soon).

Let’s put a pin in this for now. The wheat trilogy can wait.

Life, I realize, can be difficult. The imperfections of the world will continually wax and wane. While I won’t trivialize this, I also won’t succumb to it. Not as long as I’m knee deep in blackberries.

Categories: Life in Paris, Ruminations

Tags: Eiffel towers, Life in Paris, nomadic retirement, the Paris project