Page 40 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #2

aware of my reading glasses as they rest on the bridge of my nose. I can’t fix the situation. Al-
though as long as the glasses stay off the wound itself, I can—as usual—ignore my discomfort.
Yesterday, before we began our photo walk, we made our way to Café Trocadero—on the oppo-
site side of the Seine from the Eiffel Tower—for lunch with Jerome and Olivier of DxO. The goal was
to teach some of the DxO employees how to
do photography. DxO also invited two peo-
ple who had won a photo contest to join us.
JD and I had been the contest judges. Con-
ducting a seminar on the streets of Paris was
interesting; we enjoy teaching. I wasn’t at all
sure we would make it in time, and in the
end, we had to take a cab. We arrived at the
café at 12:30, right on time. “Bonjour!” I said
to Olivier as we got out of the cab. “Jerome,”
said Olivier, “is already inside.”
Sometimes the past catches up with me
in an expected way. In this case, I suppose
I should have known—maybe I wasn’t pay-
ing attention, or wasn’t quite as focused as
I needed to be—but in the end, the reason
doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter.
As I sat in Café Trocadero and looked
looked out at the passing cars and the peo-
ple walking by—everything is open to the
street in Paris—I realized that I was seat-
ed in the same cafe in which I’d had dinner
during that fateful summer of 2002, when I
destroyed my life for the last time. Indeed,
I even recognized the maître d'. Almost a
decade later, his appearance had changed
very little.
For one eternal moment, I wasn’t there.
Every past lunch and dinner engagement
I’d experienced in this place washed over
me like a great wave of time. I remembered
lunch with Peter, dinner with Gabriel, and
countless meals with people whose names
I have regrettably forgotten. I recalled an-
other life: one dotted with five star hotels,
Père Lachaise Cemetary, Paris. private cars, the best restaurants, and so
much more. And, I remembered how I didn’t care. How I didn’t feel anything. I remembered
the dull sameness of everyday. Never once during that life did I feel the exquisite gentle touch of
the breeze that rises from the Seine into the Trocadero. Never. I recalled how in that lifetime I’d
ordered pana cotta countless times, but had never tasted it. I’d never indulged in the Parisian
passion for watching people and cars. I’d never relaxed in the evening of each or any day, simply

40 | the paris chronicles, part 3