We will always have Paris.

Eloise's Paris Apartment (Watercolor and ink)

I always keep a stack of books on the floor by my bed: a thesaurus, a dictionary, and two or three books I alternate depending on my current predilection. On weekends, even before I rise to wash my face and brush my teeth, and even before I wipe the sleep off my eyes, I would reach for one of them and read. I would read around twenty pages, or more if they're really good, which they usually are. Yesterday it was Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. This morning, it's Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast. Lately, I have been having dreams so terrible they leave day-long impressions on me. I have recently taken up watercolor again in an attempt to sublimate this dark and heavy weight in my heart into something productive, but now I find that nothing cheers me up better than a good account of Paris. And, you know, it is true what they say that no one writes about Paris better than Hemingway. I think I truly understand Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca now-- in the most dire of circumstances, we can always look back at- or in my case, look forward to- sweet, sweet Paris.