Wandering through Paris in the Rain
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W. B. Yeats
Feb 2026
Today, I am exuberant. I am embracing the moment. UP early for a walkabout. A big part of the walking is to just explore and experience. No goal. No direction. No complaint, no slow or fast, just being and going. Stopping when I want for as long as I want to sip or gorge on experience.
I'm—speechless, and exhilarated by the Orsay. I had just started recording a field report when I walked into the impressionists and was blown away. There for most of 7 hours and still didn't see a third of it...
Back 'home' safe and tired. Making dinner (reheating leftover greek + onions and tomato) Watching ice skating. Chiba (Japan) just dominated to 'Kissing You' by Des Reeves (From '96 Romeo and Juliet). Not sure if she beat out Amber (Americans). But wouldn't be surprised. She was flawless.
Funny to me: American female skaters look like women, Japanese like little girls?
Watched 'I Like Me' about John Candy. Colin Hanks is a good narrator. Too bad Candy didn't take better care of himself. He was the kind of low-key, self-deprecating comedian that we just don't have enough of.
Top Five Candy's:
Uncle Buck Planes, Trains and Automobiles The Great Outdoors Spaceballs Summer Rental
Bonus Candy: Stripes and Home Alone
Cold and beautiful here. Seeing the weather back home is abject misery. :–/ Glad to be here!
Listening to Peter Frampton Comes Alive and I'm in You... All I want to be, Love your Way, In You, Signed Seal, all standouts.
So very alive.
I can see the sun in late December. I wonder if you feel it too.
Taxi ride back to the champs d' Elyse A man his bike with a baguette—almost as French a thing as I can imagine.
Good evening from Montmartre. I often come here at sunset. There's something beautiful about the death of day, something almost elemental. The night is like a warm blanket that veils imperfections and impurities. It is the one time where the dreams of the world sing. I never thought about it that way. Few people do. They would rather bask in the lies of day. It's not how we live, that defines us. It's the stories we tell each other. The night tells us the most splendid of tales. For somnolence nourishes all passions.
Today is a Paris day. They have all been Paris days this last week. It seems I've only just arrived, but it's been 7 days! Wednesday is too soon to leave. Perhaps Friday will salve my loss. It should be two weeks. Not a paltry 7 days. Then time in Ireland. The Emerald Isle. Home of my forefathers and potatoes and rocks.
While my ancestors were struggling, the Parisians were cutting off one another's heads and building monuments that still stand today. An incredible grandeur this. Massive in a way hat is hard to understand. Los Angeles is also geographically large, but visually unimpressive. This place is an organic growth, like a mighty oak that started a thousand years ago as a sapling.
The window is open today in the upper room of the Shakespeare Company where I like to write. I write of love and of loss, longing and of hope.
Hope I long to share. But elsewhere, important work calls while I wander and wonder.
This morning I found myself lingering over an exchange at breakfast—asking not to be forgotten, despite a tendency to live fiercely in the present, to let feelings drift rather than carry them forward. The reply has stayed with me ever since.
'Never again.'
Those are big words. It is just short of a vow, Not quite a promise in stone, but powerful enough to rest a fragile heart.
And this love in me is renewed again, day after day. How can you fight a power like gravity?
Ironic that with all of this historian art splashed out before me, my mind is diluted in the delta of this place. There is just so much and everywhere you look is another story. Another microcosm in which to get lost.
I awoke too early and am sleepy now that I have my desk at Shakespeare and Co.
The Seine is at flood stage. I climbed a barrier this morning and walked down to the rivers edge to draw Notre Dame. It was perfectly fine and no danger, but the guards caught me and evicted me from my spot. Merci, I told them as I smiled.
The gendarmes did not.
Somehow everyone knows I am American. It was suggested it is my glasses and that I smile at people Makes sense to me. Being friendly is not exactly a European trait. And for a certainty, presenting happy is a strength I posses.
A bird out the widow is singing in earnest. It wants the world to know that spring is here, just a little bit early. Cold and wet yes, but not the sort of winter. It is the spring temp today. Bringing life to the birds. Everywhere, silently and without alert, unseen insects are starting to stir. Buds on branches beginning to swell.
The early days of Parisian spring are happening right under my feet. It will be a year from now and I will return to this place and see the fruit's of winter's labor. No longer as a tourist, but as a participant. To roll in the dirt of it, let the color run through my blood and spill up on my pages, my canvas. Pour the lust of want in to art not for glory or for riches (what fool thinks riches come to artists) but simply to be. To exorcise it from my being day after day.
Yes today is a Paris day. My day. Pounding cobblestones and marinating in the idea of place too vast for me to really comprehend.
Go and bask in the glory of Jehovah's people. Where you or I may muster a little Holy Spirit, one thousand plus souls with worry on their mind and love in their heart manage to collect it in massive sums.
The bells of Notre Dame are ringing in earnest, but they do little more than tickle excitement and nothing to draw souls closer to Jah.
Glow, stand erect. Believe that you are enough that you are loved and beloved in beyond your conception.
If you fear being a square peg, do not. The world is made of square pegs (I am a bit of a parallelogram that sometimes morphs to a dodecahedron) and the very best minds are rarely understood in their time (Van Gogh, Tesla, Dickenson— JESUS to name a few). You are lovable and fun and joyful in ways few others are. Let others perception of you be THEIR problem.
As for us and our household, we will serve Jehovah! And He is the one who accepts us beyond our understanding.
Do not fear, only embrace. Stand in the moment and be. Just be. Read Mark 3:1-6 and if it touches one heart, one mind, then we will have achieved more than that all these millions before me walking the cobblestones of Paris.
Dusty day dawning Three hours late Open the curtains And let the rest wait
My mind goes running Three thousand miles east I may miss the harvest But I won't miss the feast
Close your eyes, Listen to the voices around you. Think of all of the choices, the mistakes, the successes that brought us through this life. The good, the bad, the hard and the easy. But here we are knowing the throne of Jehovah. Eight BILLION living souls. Who knows how many billion preceded them, and we were called by the Creator. We heard his voice and came to him. With our boldness, our intelligence, our talent and power, we humbled ourselves before our God.
And I think that is beautiful.
Good wishes and powerful prayers from Shakespeare and Co, Paris.
There is NO wind in Paris!
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“May your seas be wide enough for wonder, your harbor always waiting, and your light never fail when another soul is searching.” – The Lantern Keeper