In ten days, I’ll be moving from Seattle to Paris with two suitcases and a cat.

Paris is a city that, perhaps more than other places, has woven a mystique about itself. And I can’t say that I’m immune to its myth, even after visiting it a dozen or so times over the last thirty years.

But the Paris of glamour, opulence, sophistication isn’t the one I want to focus on, at least not mostly.

I will confess to having bought a bunch of contemporary dance tickets for the 2023-24 season at the Palais Garnier. Which can’t NOT be described as glamorous, opulent, and, perhaps, sophisticated. And also, breathtaking, spectacular, fabulous, mind-blowing.

But that said, some of the things I am most looking forward to are the very everyday pleasures. The simple things.

The coffee and croissant at a neighborhood café, the waiter having just run down the block to the bakery to fetch the croissants and baguettes they will serve for breakfast that day.

The hustle bustle of the twice weekly open-air food market along the boulevard Richard-Lenoir with its greengrocers, fishmongers, cheese sellers, butchers, charcutiers, bakers, and all the rest.

The blue storefront of the queer bookstore on the rue Saint-Ambroise in the 11th, after having moved from the rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie in the 4th (I’ve gone there on every single visit to Paris).

The little restaurant with the horseshoe bar right by where the bookstore used to be, delicious food and wine for a reasonable price, the epitome of old-school Paris.

A simple picnic in a park or along the river or the canal.

The late-night jazz jams under the stone arches of the subterranean club.

The classical concerts in a gothic church or in the courtyard of what was once a noble’s mansion.

The conversations with the butcher or the cheesemonger or the charcutier about what’s good today and how to serve or prepare it.

I mean, I’m sure I’m idealizing it all a bit. And yet I’m also not. In fact I’m not doing it justice.

But in any case, that’s what I’m looking for. A simple life in Paris.