a week in Paris

Paris again? I think I'm in Paris. I've been here before. I didn't make it up. It wasn't a dream. I lived here, near Gobelins. I'm remembering it now. Morning walks the same as in Brooklyn, but it was through tended gardens– how people can care so much, even for the fruit on the trees. Sometimes it surprises me. That people can care so much and so little at once makes my head spin.

Visiting my childhood bedroom was also visiting Paris, staying with a friend of a friend and a fellow academic because we're boycotting that other thing and who can afford hotels anymore? If I'm in Paris, I'll play the game of not speaking the language, pretending I don't understand and it's culture shock. It isn't, none of this is shocking and I do understand, much more than I let on.

Learning French wasn't as challenging as learning Luxembourgish and nothing like learning the light languages. Are they languages or are they codes? Are they just intentions? Transmissions? People saying to me that light language is just gibberish the same as no one believing Luxembourg is a country with its own language. When I tell them I'm learning Luxembourgish, they respond oh, you mean German? / Nee, Lëtzebuergesch.