Why Paris?

Jul 12

I LOVE cities!

I think it’s because I’m a country girl.

Growing up on the backroads in Sebastopol, CA I barely knew anything about cities. I was very familiar with horses, haunted houses, berries and apples, and reading by candlelight during power outages. The cities I became familiar with as a young girl were San Francisco, Los Angeles, and NYC. All for very different reasons.

San Francisco was a place that was relatively close by where there would be trips to the aquarium, the zoo, Fisherman’s wharf, and later, raves. I remember going to the Castro once with Damon and her mom and being very impressed by the narrow streets, the colorful houses, and the sweeping view of the city and the distant bay. It was divine.

Los Angeles was where my dad lived and it was vast. We were always driving, which I didn’t bother me at all because my dad would regale me with stories and his enthusiasm for everything, and especially Jazz. The tall buildings on Wilshire Boulevard, where my dad worked, were like giants. One time my step-mother, Pat, took me to an open house for real estate brokers. The house was palatial. It took up the corner of two city blocks. The master bedroom was huge. The king-size bed was on a platform and there were two walk-in closets, and each were the size of my bedroom at home. There were gardens and a tennis court in the back. I was in heaven.

New York City was in the books I loved, like Stuart Little and the Cricket in Times Square. There was the lake in a magical place called Central Park, magazine and newspaper stands outside of subway stations, shops in Chinatown that sold wooden cages for crickets. I was enamored.