Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

  Last night, I had a dream about Markus. This is a very extraordinary happenstance, since I have never before dreamed about him, at all. This isn’t unusual for me in the least. I seldom, if ever, have had any dreams about my boyfriends during the time I was with them. I don’t know what that’s about. No sex dreams, not any kind of dreams, even though with Markus I went through an extraordinarily long period of new relationship lust, and as a unit we have proceeded to go through an even longer tunnel of extremely aggressive fighting. We yell, we throw things, we slam doors. We break things, we know exactly which button to push and hit exactly where it hurts. Once, Markus ripped both his notebook, and his expensive pen, to shreds, because he was just so mad at me. I have slammed a door so vivaciously it almost came off its hinges. I, in a fit of gargantuan rage, upended the kitchen table to make a point, and took devilish delight hearing the roaring crash when it came down on the ...

Eating the juicy, dripping fresh white flesh from the peaches bought from our neighborhood green grocer is such a sensation it almost feels a bit obscene to be doing it in public. Like the plums of yore, French fruits and vegetables make me want to start banging the table in Harry and Sally’s late Eighties New York diner, yelling Yes! Yes! from the top of my lungs. Because of the August heat, it is a good idea to pack not only pastries for our daily walkathons, and, indeed, in addition to the croissants and the pains-au-chocolat and the baguettes, we are always sure to have some fruits in our bags as well. In the beginning, we used to be all obsessed with bringing enough water from our apartment along when we left for the day, but the fresh water fountains found all throughout the city really make for light traveling, and the trick is to just learn to spot them and put them into good use. In the scorching weather, we are constantly refilling our water bottles because dehydrat...

It is a necessity, a rule in life, that an argument is to be followed by tranquility and amends; a short-lived time of clarity and peace, a moment of pure love. How rare and magical these intermissions, bathed in luminosity and translucence! And how badly I need them, require them, to survive this terrible love. I am sleeping a little better already. The weather is breath-taking; windy, sunny, a drop of the season’s end already anticipating in its nooks and corners. Finding the most gorgeous spot, by accident, in our arrondissement yesterday did seem counterintuitive, like sorcery; some insane magic, since right there was where we had the most intense and disturbing portion of the fight. But it had been in the making a while already, and now that it’s over, I am glad. I am glad we had the fight. Here, right now, is the place where I am my best self, where we are our best selves, I muse as we descend the steep slope towards the rest of the city and its arrondissements and La S...

It is past midday, as I make my way through the busy street vendors and clothes racks filled with fire engine red and cobalt blue and soft pink ball gowns and dusty and sandy shelves full of knick-knacks of all sorts and cafés and their outdoors wicker chair and table units, positioned so that every one of the chairs is facing towards the street, to take in the nonexistent view I guess, but this is how they always position their chairs here, whether there was a view to be taken in or not. As I make haste on the narrow street, a fleeting question hovers in the back of my mind, regarding the ball gowns, for there is a similar ball gown boutique district near where I am staying, and now this other one here, and by judging by a quick glance of the items themselves, and the worn-out t-shirt and corduroy jeans -ensemble that seems to be the basic uniform of the salesmen, not entirely high quality merchandise, either. But perhaps there is a growing market for run-of-the-mill ball gowns unbe...