Other People's Ghosts

I love being up here.

Okay, so maybe I'm beating this "going-to-Europe-to-find-myself"thing over the head, but bear with me. Plus it's my blog.

 I don't know if I've mentioned that I'm kind of crazy? I won't go into detail, but I am. A little.
Not the cute, eccentric, "just-a-little-batty" (think Aunt Clara from "Bewitched") type,  nor the exciting Gothic romance broody-dark-eyebrows-and-chiseled-jaw-he-has-a-past-ooo-I-wonder-what-it-is type. I'm just a little crazy, and I'll leave it at that.

But just as I was reaching the apex of my craziness, it was time to come to France. Finally! The distant dream always somewhere in the mid-section of my brain, nagging to be realized, begging to be fulfilled!!!!! (!!!!!) It was time.
So I told my demons to hold still for a minute (these aren't the freaky type that need to be exorcised or anything. They're just metaphorical and pretty mild, but follow me everywhere.) and wriggled them into my backpack. I reminded my ghosts to be quiet, and brought them along in my faithful Target messanger bag.

And I walked right up to my new Parisian apartment in the Seizième, demons and ghosts in tow. Nervous smile on face. Dear friend Gracie at my side, blissfully unaware of any supernatural danger lurking in my luggage.

As soon as I unpacked them they convinced me that coming here to learn about other people's ghosts wouldn't get rid of mine. Those other, deeper ghosts would merely give my young, less experienced ones more material to work with: Oh! Foreign culture? Alienation. Check. Masterpieces and glamorous, happy people and ridiculous amounts of public displays of affection between unbelievably hot twenty-somethings? Inferiority complex back in black. Loneliness. Constant reminder of tragic love life. Check check check.
They took me off guard and found it much easier to plague and haunt me than I expected them to.

So sometimes I let them stay in bed with me half the day and ache, and sometimes I kicked them in the face and ran to the Musee D'Orsay to lose myself among the ghosts of others. But even when they weren't with me I thought about them and looked for them between every gargoyle, along each tree-lined boulevard. So they haunted me all the same.

I, however, have an interesting paranormal discovery to announce. With only a few official nights in Paris left, I've noticed a certain vacant space behind my shoulder that's prime lurking real estate. Maybe my ghosts liked the chilly atmosphere of the Bayeux cathedral's crypt or the stinky one of the Miromesnil metro station on Line 9 (always like rotting fish. always). Perhaps my demons have become as fond of inimitabile gelato as I have and now spend all their time at one of Paris' twenty Amarino's locations.
But whatever their sight-seeing and dining schedules as of late, I'm definitely seeing the little guys around a lot less often.
And I'm just here to say...

Hey. That's totally cool with me.

Love, baguettes, and it's almost time to take over the world with a backpack,

Banana