Paris

  Paris was where I tasted newness again.

     When I first arrived, it was crowded, full of life and color and familiarity.  But it wasn't new, like I thought it would be.  It rained sometimes, and washed up mistakes would overflow out of the gutters.  The same nightmares, the same lifelessness, the same resistance had followed me.  My resistance, overused memories and monochromatic emotions, still lurked behind the colorful signs and the tourist destination spots. 

   So I decided to step off the beaten path.

   I wandered, turning right sometimes, turning left others, until I reached the end.

   I wouldn't know what else to call it, this place on the outskirts where Paris still somewhat existed.  But it was empty, quiet, blank. 

   I breathed out those old memories.  And began to write.

    It was refreshing.  It was awakening.  There was still resistance, don't misunderstand me, but I could combat it with an energy I didn't know I possessed.  I had access to those old memories that had sucked me in and confined me to the same emotions previously.  But now they were new tools, only used for writing if I felt like it.  And even though it rained every day, it was almost cleansing, washing away the mistakes.

    The place soon developed its own color, its own life, crowded with ideas and inspiration and untouched by tourists who take more than pictures and graffiti their opinions onto the walls.

   Then one day I found the plane ticket I had left in my sweater pockets, along with the crumpled peanut packages and loose change. The date: 1/13/2012.

    I packed my things, locked the door, and found my way back to the airport.  But the key still hangs around my neck. Paris hasn't left me just yet.

   That place--where it is left unwritten and open, waiting for you, where Paris really is--taught me to be original again, to push my mind's boundaries, to write myself where I've never been before.  And I hope that all those who travel there throw away the brochures and walk past the gift shops and find their own Paris.

~effervescent laughter

My Journey

A piano.
A piano and a field.
A piano, a field, and the big open sky.
A piano, a field, the big open sky, and a girl.
A piano, a field, the big open sky, a girl, and sheet music.
A piano, a field, the big open sky, a girl, sheet music, and
Silence.

    Jacqueline is a lawyer for a small company in Florida. She is sent on a business trip to handle case in Wyoming for one of the manager's sons. He was accused of murder.  Jacqueline isn't a fan of traveling so far for so long, but she agrees to go after consulting her friend. She goes to Wyoming, meets the guy, and starts to get to know him. He tells her he is innocent, and she believes him.
   The family of the victim is sueing him, and she is able to win the case. Meanwhile, he shows her the sights and takes her to restaurants and such and she starts to fall in love with  him. However, she visits the scene of the crime and finds evidence linking him to the crime because of what she had been learning about him over the past few days.
   The day before the federal case, he takes her out into the middle of nowhere, where there are just fields and fields and open sky, and a piano. He tells her about the piano, how his dad took it out into the middle of nowhere to play a song for his mom when they were dating. She is torn, but finally confronts him about the evidence, and he drives off without her, leaving her stranded in the dust. She pulls out the number of the taxi from her coin purse he thought she left at the hotel, and calls it.
   The day of the trial arrives, and he had already hired a new lawyer to finish the case. To his surprise, she walks in, proves him guilty, and returns home.