Paris once

Once in Paris I woke up at 3 a.m., couldn't get back to sleep. I think I was staying somewhere in the 20th, since I have a slight memory of the walls of Pere Lachaise.

I got out of bed, dressed, and wandered around the city. Bakeries were baking bread but the patisseries weren't open, that's how early it was.

I walked along the Seine for miles, so peaceful that it was a different river. I felt so alone walking beside the Seine, in the good way you feel when you feel like you belong right where you are and you're neither happy or sad, and have no desire in being anywhere else.

About the time I became hungry, the morning light was starting to shine from the top of the trees down, falling from above the rooftops of the buildings along the boulevards Baron Haussmann re-designed down to the street.

The lights of a corner cafe came on. I entered the cafe, ordered a coffee and some bread and sat inside, the first customer of the day.

Very soon, a trash truck pulled to the curb and two trashmen hopped off the back of the truck, coming inside the cafe for coffee and croissants. Nothing was said, not a word, we all just sat there watching the sun rise.

I used to think certain places were spiritual.

I don't think places are spirtual anymore, I think we make them spiritual by being in them.