Highland Park High School has reversed its decision and placed the previously banned books back into the English Department's reading lists again.
Whew! I was nervous for a bit there that the cruel irony of 1) banning a whole list of books on Banned Books Week, and 2) including the keynote speaker of their annual Literary Festival, was too much lunacy for the logic of this universe to handle without imploding.
But really. It had me perspiring all right.
This morning, as I walked from my metro stop to our apartment, I was suddenly assaulted by a nostalgia for Paris, as though my time were up here and I'd be returning to Texas within days. I love the blue-bowl sky and the wonk-wonk horns of the passing police cars. The itty-bitty French kids with their gigantic backpacks, walking to school alone because apparently kidnapping is not a thing here in Paris. The pissy stairs of the metro, the noisy upstairs neighbor who scrapes furniture across the floor at 3 in the morning without fail, and even the nasty ashtray odor of the brasseries down my street. I love it all. And I'm so glad that I have many more months to call Paris home.
To make tarte aux pommes with my little chef.
To write.
To play violin when I can't write.
Paris, I love you.
