I had never been there on such an ugly day. In fact, I had never been anywhere else on such an ugly day.
Yes, once in Miami, when I was interviewing Green Day, I was trapped in the hotel with the band to protect us from a hurricane. And a tropical storm also hit during a visit to Bali.
But I’m talking about one of those days where it rains almost intermittently, a level of drizzle, and when it breaks, all you see in the sky are leaden tones. Not gray, contains lead.
Unfortunately, the umbrella is not just an option and I had to enjoy my day off in the city, which I must say I know very well, in the company of this unwanted object. Yes, it projects us, but it is not welcome anywhere.
In museums (and I had planned to visit two of them) it doesn’t go beyond the door. In stores there is always the risk of bumping into something and breaking it. And even in times of drought, the umbrella is an inconspicuous appendage.
I went for an early walk and began window shopping given the limited visibility of my portable dome. They were still closed, but already decorated for Christmas, providing a visual comfort on this cloudy morning.
I crossed one of the most beautiful squares in the world, the oldest in the city, looking not at its beautiful harmonious 18thcentury facades, but at its flowerbeds. On the banks of the city’s main river, I saw the water from the sky meet the current.
There was a respite from the humidity in the first museum, although my soaked socks didn’t let me forget that I would get wet again after viewing these works of art. At least until the next museum.
I was eating at a neighborhood restaurant, Chez Nenesse, where I always go, and I noticed that the owner had disappeared. I thought about asking her son if she was okay, but I suspected the rain had kept her from leaving the house. However, the steak and fries were not perfect.
Afterwards I had an hour to shop. Two books and two perfumes that I wanted, plus a gift for my mother (actually two) that resulted in small bags, but not waterproof.
I walked with them, splashing and carrying the umbrellas, to a point on one of the avenues that lead out of a large arch. From there, a cramped van took me to a historical retrospective of an important 20th century painter: Mark Rothko.
Everything I was holding was, as you can imagine, in the locker right at the front desk, and then I felt like I was floating for almost an hour the vibrating colors on the screens no doubt contributed to this.
I went outside and it was already dark. I took the subway, line 1, my umbrella colliding with others in the controversial carriage. I got off at the train station, where the ghost of a prison from centuries ago is now chased away by a golden angel at the top of a very tall pillar.
Everything is illuminated, its light amplified by the huge LED screen advertising Puccini’s opera Turandot, directed by Robert Wilson, which I will see the next day. Is there still time for a bookstore on Rue Bretagne?
I decide to walk unhurriedly towards it, balancing the cheese crepe I bought there on the street, balancing the food in the hand of the same arm that carries the umbrella completely useless at this point.
I turn my back to the angel, but suddenly I see his reflection in a puddle of water and I am overwhelmed by such a feeling of beauty that I finally realize that I am in a city that is, let’s say, rainproof.
Nothing, not even a day as ugly as this, can stop you from loving Paris.