From Monte Cristo to Mictlán

Field Notes from the City of Light and Shadow

I don’t know where this is going as I sit down to type. I just have this overwhelming need to write something.

I’ve begun (again) a workout routine that consists of loading books into my backpack and walking a few miles around Paris. I cannot walk around Paris without my mind wandering in a million different directions. I think if you can — if you can be here in this city and not feel something indescribable while finding yourself frustrated at your own inability to articulate how you feel — well, I pity whatever it is that is dead inside of you.

I pick a direction and go and go and, “oh, I know where I am,” and keep going and going and end up at the Turkish Embassy again. I got there a new way though so it’s a new experience of sorts until I realize I am back at the Auteuil apartment rented by Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo. I was so excited the first time I headed to it just to discover it was some 1970s crap apartment set back amongst the beautiful architecture all aro…