Today is also our last day here, and we spent part of the day packing and cleaning up and meeting with our landlady, but we made time for a special dinner at one of our favorite nearby brasseries, L'Etoile 1903. One last confit de canard, one last carafe of wine before we head back to reality.
I was going to title this entry "Goodbye, Paris," but I realized that although it's time to go, this is not goodbye, it's just au revoir―till we see each other again. We'll surely be back soon.
We joked that that may have been the best year of our lives, but if it wasn't, it certainly was one of the best. The kids enjoyed it too, and even thanked us for bringing them here ("making us come to Paris" was someone's exact words).
A year ago we were dreaming of Paris. Now we’ve lived out our dream, and besides the sadness of leaving is a feeling of joy and happiness, a sense of accomplishment for having taken the chance to make our dream come true and deep gratitude for having been able to live such a wonderful experience.
As Hemingway said in his memoir A Moveable Feast, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." I was not as young as Hemingway was when he lived in Paris, but I knew Paris would stay with me all the same.
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
― Dr. Seuss
― Dr. Seuss
