Hello my friend.
Welcome to your sleep story.
My name is Stephen Doulton.
I'm an Irish storyteller.
And it's my great privilege.
To be the voice that you listen to.
As you go to sleep.
Tonight.
Tonight I continue my cozy coffee shop series.
And tonight.
We will go to a city that you may well know is very close to my heart.
Paris.
A place that I have loved and lived in.
A place that never ceases to amaze me.
And tonight.
You will find yourself wandering its streets.
When it begins to rain.
You will enter a cozy coffee shop.
You will pick up a book and read.
You will observe the locals around you.
And you will listen to a podcast narrated by me.
About the history of Paris.
I really hope you like it.
And I'd love to know where you are in the world tonight.
Let me know in the comments.
And what time it is with you.
Okay,
Let's do the relaxation session now.
Which will take a few minutes before tonight's sleep story.
I'm going to count down from ten to one.
And as I do.
Allow yourself to let go.
More and more.
Feel the support.
Of the bed beneath you.
Or the floor.
Or whatever you lie upon tonight.
Beneath all of that.
Feel the support.
Of the Earth.
Our home.
Constant support.
And as you become aware of that grounding.
Calming support.
See if you can.
Let go a little more now.
Just.
.
.
Ease into this moment.
A little more now.
Nein.
You.
Are safe.
Tonight.
Allow my voice.
To be a friend.
To be an anchor of safety.
Knows this.
My voice will never take you to anywhere unsafe.
It will only ever take you to safety.
Places.
Places of coziness and comfort.
Places where stories are told.
With a spirit of kindness.
And human understanding.
And allow that fact.
To enable you.
To just Be here.
And listen.
And move closer and closer to sleep.
Become aware of your body now.
Feel into your body.
Where are you holding tension?
Where do you perhaps feel pain?
Maybe it's in your feet?
Maybe in your lower legs?
Your size.
Yipps.
Your belly.
Your chest.
Goodbye.
Maybe your neck.
Or shoulders.
Your arms.
Your hands.
Or maybe you're like me.
Do you hold tension in your face?
Or in the top of your head.
Wherever you're holding tension.
Wherever you're feeling pain,
If you are.
See if becoming aware of it.
And help ease it a little.
Seven.
The day.
Is.
Whatever has been.
Has been.
Whatever it will be.
Will be.
Whatever thoughts you might be having.
About the future or the past.
Know this.
Neither of those places exists.
Or that you have.
Is now.
Is this moment.
So choose to be kind to yourself in this moment.
And begin to let go.
If a sword arrives.
Don't face it.
Welcome it.
It is a part of being human.
See it for what it is.
A thought.
Then don't follow it.
Let it flows away.
Like leaves floating away on a moonlit river.
Or a cloud.
Passing by.
Through a starlit sky.
6.
Peace.
Lives within you.
I promise you it does.
It is always there.
It is always just.
Waiting to be found.
Wishing to be felt.
So see if you can find that peace tonight.
Ask yourself.
Where does it live within me?
Sometimes I think I find it in my chest.
Sometimes in my head.
When you find it.
It can have an immedious effect on your whole body.
Sometimes it can be found.
Through a simple,
Deep breath.
Let's take one now together.
Breathe in through your nose.
And out through your mouth.
Maybe you've found your peace.
Or maybe you're on the way to.
Don't force it.
It will come.
If it hasn't already.
Five.
This is your moment.
This is your time.
Allow that fact.
To enable you.
To let go completely.
You have nowhere to be.
Nowhere to go.
Allow yourself to indulge in this moment.
Before.
Perhaps allow a little gratitude now.
Gratitude.
For the simple things.
With the ones who love you.
And do ye love.
For the roof over your head tonight.
With the breath in your body.
With the ability to lie here tonight.
And listen to a sleep story.
Begin to engage with your imagination now.
Begin to see yourself.
In Paris.
On a rainy day.
There is a cozy,
Stormy feel in the air.
And the best thing for you to do.
Is to go inside to a cozy coffee shop.
And watch the world go by.
And indulge yourself in curiosity.
Checking in with your body one more time now.
Your body has worked hard for you today.
It's time to give it rest.
Completely letting go now.
As I tell you.
Tonight.
Sleep Story.
In the heart of Paris.
On a side street just off a wider boulevard.
There is a small cafe.
That you might easily walk past without noticing.
It's fun.
Is narrow.
Painted deep.
Forest Green.
That has faded gently over many years.
And its name is written in gold letters.
That have lost a little of their shine.
From the outside.
It looks like nothing in particular.
But step inside.
And you find one of the coziest rooms.
In all of Paris.
And today.
It is especially cozy.
Because outside.
It is raining.
Not a gentle drizzle.
But a proper.
.
.
Afternoon rain.
Steady and soft.
Endless.
The kind that settles in for hours.
And asks nothing of you.
But that you stay indoors.
And let it go.
You push open the door.
And a little bell above it gives a small bright sound.
Warm air folds around you at once.
Carrying the smell of coffee.
And butter.
End.
Old paper.
The windows are misted from the warmth inside.
So that the street beyond them.
Has become a soft blur of greys and gold.
The passing umbrellas.
No more than dark shapes moving through the rain.
You find a small table near the window.
As a comfortable chair.
Worn smooth by years of use.
And you sit.
End.
For a moment.
You simply arrive.
You let your shoulders come down.
You let the journey here.
And the day behind it.
Fall away.
You breathe in.
The rich,
Dark smell of freshly ground coffee.
And out.
End.
And out.
The cafe is lit,
Just as you would want it to be.
Not too bright.
And not so dim that you couldn't read.
There are small lamps with amber shades on the tables.
And a few candors burning here and there.
Their little flames quite still in the warm air.
The walls are panelled in dark wood.
And along one of them runs a long shelf of books.
Their spines.
Cracked and softened by many hands.
Novels and old travel guides.
And slim volumes with no titles you can read from here.
The waiter comes by.
An older man with a white apron tied neatly at his waist.
And an unhurried way of moving.
As though he has all the time in the world.
And is glad to share it with you.
He doesn't rush you.
He simply asks what you would like.
And you order your favorite warm drink.
Coffee,
Perhaps?
Or tea.
Or a hot chocolate thick enough to stand a spoon in.
Whatever brings you the most comfort tonight.
And while you wait for it.
You let your eyes wander around the room.
There are not many people here this afternoon.
The rain has kept the city indoors.
And those who have found their way to this little cafe.
Of the contented look of people.
Who are exactly where they want to be.
In the far corner.
Beneath the hanging lamp.
There is an old man.
With a great white moustache.
And a newspaper held open before him.
Is not really reading it.
Every so often.
As eyes lift from the page.
And drift.
Towards the window.
And a small private smile crosses his face.
As though the rain has reminded him of something pleasant from long ago.
There is a little glass of something amber at his elbow.
And touch.
You get the feeling he comes here often.
That the waiter knows his name.
And the chair has learned his shape.
He seems entirely at peace.
A man with nowhere else he would rather be.
Nearer the counter.
A young woman sits with a sketchbook open.
And a pencil.
Moving lightly across the page.
She has paint on her fingers.
And a scarf.
Wound twice around her neck.
And she works without hurry.
Glancing up now and then at the room.
At the lamps.
At the rain on the glass.
And then back to her drawing.
She is the sort of person who notices things.
The exact color of the light.
The way a cup.
Sits on a saucer.
You imagine she will carry this rainy afternoon home with her.
Depressed flash inside her book.
And that some quiet evening months from now.
You will turn to it and remember.
By the bookshelf.
A man in a soft grey coat.
Stands with the volume open in his hands.
Reading the first page of something he has not yet decided to take.
Here's the look of a writer.
A little Rumpel.
A little lost in thought.
The kind of person for whom an afternoon can disappear entirely.
Into a single good sentence.
He turns a page.
He is in no hurry to choose.
The rain has given him.
All the time he needs.
And at a table near the back.
Two old friends sit close together over their cups.
Talking in low voices.
You cannot hear the words.
Only the warm music of them.
The rise and fall.
The easy pauses.
The soft laughter that comes now and then between them.
They have clearly known each other a very long time.
There is a kind of comfort in watching them.
The comfort of seeing a friendship that has lasted.
Your drink arrives.
Carry it carefully.
And set down before you with a quiet word from the waiter.
You thank him.
And he gives a small nod and drifts away.
The warmth of the cup.
Rises to meet your hands.
You wrap your fingers around it.
And you feel.
More than ever.
That you have found a small harbour.
Out of the weather.
You turn your gaze to the window.
To the misted glass.
And the soft-edged world beyond it.
Paris in the rain.
Takes on a different character.
The Grand City.
So full of noise and movement on a bright day.
Has grown quiet and inward.
Its colors deepen.
Its edges softened.
Through the fogged glass.
You watch the figures passing by.
Each one a small story.
Hurrying through the wet.
A woman in a long red coat.
Goes by beneath the black umbrella.
Walking quickly.
Her heels clicking on the wet pavement.
In a rhythm you can almost hear.
She has somewhere to be.
And she leans into the rain.
With the brisket purpose of a person who knows these streets by heart.
Than a young couple.
Walking slowly.
Sharing a single umbrella.
That does not quite cover them both.
Neither of them seems to mind the rain at all.
They returned toward one another.
Talking.
Laughing at something.
Entirely lost in their own small world.
The weather for them.
Is only making the afternoon more beautiful.
And then you notice.
Across the street.
Flower seller.
Beneath the striped awning of her little store.
Earlier in the day.
When the sun was still out.
You had seen her arranging her buckets of blooms.
The irises and the roses.
And the great shaggy peonies.
All of them bright and dripping.
And full of colour.
Now she stands beneath her awning.
With her hands tucked into her apron.
Watching the rain come down.
In no apparent distress about the lack of custom.
Perhaps it doesn't trouble her much.
Perhaps she is happy to take the trade when it comes.
And she knows that it always will.
When it doesn't?
She is content simply to stand.
And watch the world go past from beneath her dry.
Little warning.
You wonder how many years she has kept that stool.
How well she knows this corner.
These faces.
The regular shape of these days.
Whether she was born nearby.
A real Parisian.
And grew up.
Turning this street into home.
These are the people who truly fascinate you.
When you visit a place.
The monuments and the famous views.
But the people.
Who are as much a part of the city.
As its stone and its bridges.
The Flower Seller.
The old man with his newspaper.
The wazer in his white apron.
They.
Are the life of the city.
Are at the city.
And then you return to your own little world.
Or your adopted world.
This warm and golden room.
With your drink before you.
And the rain on the glass.
And the lamp-light pooling softly.
On the dark wood tables.
After a while.
You feel the pull of the bookshelf.
You rise and cross the worn floorboards.
And run your eyes along the cracked and faded spines There are novels in several languages.
And guidebooks gone soft at the corners.
And there.
Near the end of the shelf.
A slim volume.
Bound in dark green clusters.
With no title on the spine at all.
You take it down.
The cover is plain.
And insight.
On the first page.
Written by hand in faded ink.
Is it tighter?
The music box.
Below it.
A few words.
A small story of Paris.
You carry it back to your table.
You settle into your chair.
And you wrap your hands once more around your warm cup.
And you open the little green book.
And you.
Again.
To breathe.
The music box.
A small story of Paris.
On a quiet street.
On the Ile Saint-Louis.
The little island that sits in the middle of the river Seine.
There was once a shop.
No wider than a doorway.
And in its window.
There hung a small painted sign.
The dread.
Reyna.
A fee.
Reparation de boîte à musique.
Reynard.
And daughter.
Repairer of music boxes.
The shop had belonged to old Monsieur Raynard.
For 40 years.
And for the last ten of them.
His daughter Sabine.
Had worked at the bench beside him.
He had taught her everything he knew.
How to lift the lid of a music box and listen.
The way a doctor listens to a chest.
Until she could tell from the first few notes.
Exactly what was wrong inside how to take apart the delicate mechanism.
The little brass cylinder.
Studded with its hundreds of tiny pins.
And the steel comb.
Whose teeth those pins plucked as the cylinder turned.
Each tooth a single note.
The whole comb a song.
Waiting to be set free.
Sabine had clever hands and a patient heart.
And by the time she was grown.
She could repair a music box as well as her father could.
And tune one nearly as well.
Which is a far harder thing.
Or to tune a music box.
You must file the teeth of the comb.
A little at a time.
Tiny stroke.
Raising or lowering a note.
And there is no undoing a stroke once it is made.
It is the kind of work that cannot be hurried.
And cannot be forced.
And rewards only those.
Who are willing to go slowly.
And listen well.
Now her father had passed his last winter quietly.
In his sleep.
An old man who had lived a full and gentle life.
And Sabine had taken on the shop alone.
The little bell still rang above the door.
The shelves still held their rows of waiting boxes.
Some plain.
Some inlaid with mother of pearl.
Some with little dancers.
Or singing bird.
That turned and bowed when the music played.
And Sabine kept the bench just as he had left it.
Is tools in their worn leather roll.
The spectacles.
Still folded on the window,
Sir.
Where the morning light came in.
But there was one box that troubled her.
It sat on a high shelf at the back of the shop.
Wrapped in a square of soft blue cloth.
And it had sat there.
For as long as she could remember.
It was a beautiful thing.
Made of dark rosewood.
Its lid inlaid with a pattern of leaves.
And a single small bird.
Work didn't pay a livery.
Her father had never let her open it.
Whenever she had asked about it.
He'd only smiled and said,
In the gentle,
Unhurried way he had.
That one.
Is not ready yet.
And now he was gone.
And the box was still there.
And it had never been ready.
One Gray Afternoon with the rain falling softly on the river outside.
And no customers to keep her.
Sabine climbed the little step bloody.
And lifted the box down from its high shelf.
She set it on the bench in the lamplight.
And unwound the blue cloth.
And she opens the lid.
And the music box was silent.
The cylinder was there.
The comb was there.
The spring was wound and ready.
But the cylinder was bare.
Smooth breaths.
Without a single pin.
There is no song set upon it.
The box had never been finished.
It had been waiting.
All these years.
For someone to give it a tune.
Tucked beneath the mechanism.
On a folded square of paper soft with age.
She found her father's handwriting.
Just.
.
.
One line.
It read.
She will know it.
When she hears it.
Sabine sat for a long while with the paper in her hand.
Listening to the rain.
She didn't know who the box was for.
There was no name on it.
No card.
No record of who had brought it in,
Or when.
She went through her father's old ledgers.
The great cloth-bound books.
In which he had written every repair for forty years.
In a small,
Neat tongue.
She found mention of the box.
Once.
Very near the front of the oldest ledger.
In an entry made before she was even born.
But there is no name beside it.
Only a day.
And a single word in the margin.
Underlined twice.
Patience.
She closed the ledger.
She wrapped the box again in its blue cloth.
But she did not put it back on the high shelf.
She sat it on the bench.
Where she would see it every day.
In the weeks that followed.
A man began to come to the shop.
He was,
Perhaps.
.
.
60.
With grey hair.
And a soft,
Kind face.
And the first time he came in.
He simply stood through her.
Looking around at the shelves.
And the waiting boxes.
And then he said,
He'd only come in out of the rain.
He bought nothing.
But before he left.
Isaiah's went to the bench.
And to the box in its blue cloth.
And something passed over his face.
Some.
Quiet recognition.
And then he sank to.
.
.
And went out into the wet.
He came again the following week.
And again the week after that.
Each time he stood a while.
And spoke a little.
Of the weather.
Of the river.
Of how long the shop had been there.
He told her he had known her father.
Years ago.
Though he did not say how.
And each time.
Before he left.
His gaze would find the box on the bench.
And rest there a moment.
And then he would go.
Sabine did not press him.
She had her father's patience in her.
And she sins.
The way she could sense the trouble inside a music box.
From its first few notes.
That the man was working his way toward something.
And that it could not be hurried.
And all the world.
She thought about the bare cylinder.
And the song that was meant to go upon it.
She will know it.
When she hears it.
She turned the words over and over.
Who was she?
And what was the tune?
One afternoon.
The man came in.
And this time he did not talk of the weather.
He stood at the bench.
And he looked at the box for a long moment.
And then he said,
Very gently.
He told me.
You would have grown into the shop by now.
Your father.
He asked me.
A long time ago.
To wait until you heard.
And sin to come.
Sabine grew very still.
The box.
The man said.
Was never a customer's.
Your father made it himself.
He was making it for you.
For when you were grown and ready.
And working at his bench alone.
He paused.
And his kind face was full of feeling.
He started it the year you were born.
He always meant to finish it.
But there was one thing he wanted you to do yourself.
The churn.
So being said softly.
The man nodded.
He never set the song.
He left the cylinder bare on purpose.
He told me.
She will know it.
When she hears it.
He trusted that when the time came you would know what belonged there.
And he asked me to wait.
And to watch over you from a distance.
And to come.
Only when I judged that you were ready.
An old friend's last commission.
He smiled.
I have been a poor errand runner.
I kept finding reasons not to come.
Because.
.
.
Once I had.
It would be done.
And a part of him would be finished too.
But here I am.
He would not forgive me.
If I waited any longer.
Sabine looked at the pucks.
That's the bare brass cylinder.
Gleaming softly in the lamplight.
And all at once.
She understood.
And her eyes fill For she did knows it,
June.
She'd always known it.
It was a small,
Simple melody.
Only a handful of notes.
That her father used to hum under his breath as he worked.
In the long,
Quiet hours at the bench.
Year after year.
All through her childhood.
He had hummed it so often.
And so absently.
That she never had thought to ask what it was.
Or whether it had a name.
It was simply the sound of him.
The sound of this shop.
The sound of being small.
To save.
And near him.
Where the light came in the wind.
And the river went by outside.
He attempted to her all her life.
And he had left her the means to keep it.
When the man had gone.
Sabine sat down at the bench.
And took up her father's tools.
The worn leather robe.
The fine little instruments shaped exactly to her hand.
And slowly.
Slowly.
Over many quiet evenings.
With the lamp lit.
And the rain on the river.
She began to set the song into the cylinder.
Each pin.
Had to be placed by hand.
In exactly the right spot.
So that as the cylinder turns,
It would pluck exactly the right tooth.
At exactly the right moment.
She worked from memory.
Humming a little tune to herself.
Finding each note.
Setting each pin.
Going as slowly.
As the work demanded.
And not one moment faster.
It took her a long time.
She was in no hurry.
She wanted it to be right.
And sin.
On a surf.
Grey evening.
With the rain falling gently on the sand.
She sets the last pin.
She wound the spring.
She held her breath.
And she let the music box.
Play.
And out into the lamp-lit room.
Came the little tune.
Clear and bright.
And perfect.
No.
Afternoon.
Of dunder.
The song her father had hummed to her all her life.
Alive now in the box he had made for her.
The year she was born.
It was as though he had leaned in close.
And finished.
Very gently.
A sentence he had begun a long time ago.
And never quite had the chance to end.
Sublime.
Sit and listen.
With her hands quiet in her lap.
Until this song wound slowly down.
To its last.
Sweet.
And Zen.
Smiling.
With the lamplight warm around it.
And the rain soft on the window.
She wound the little box again.
And let it.
Play.
Once more.
You close the little green book.
And rest it on the table beside your cup.
And farewell.
You simply sit with the story.
The way you might sit with the last notes of a piece of music.
After it has ended.
Your drink is still warm in your hands.
The rain is still falling outside.
And you let your eyes move once more.
Around the warm room.
The old man with the white moustache.
Has fallen lightly asleep over his newspaper.
His chin dropped to his chest.
The amber glass still untouched at his elbow.
No one disturbs him.
The waiter passes his table.
With a slow and careful step.
As though the whole café has quietly agreed.
To let him rest.
The young woman with the sketchbook has filled another page.
You catch a glimpse of it.
As she holds it up to the light.
Just a few soft lines.
The corner of the room.
The rain on the glass.
She seems pleased with it.
She tucks the pencil behind her ear.
And reaches at last for her own cooling cup.
The man in the grey coat has made his choice.
He sits now in a corner with a book open in his lap.
And a small smile on his face.
Already far away.
Already lost inside it.
Exactly as you were a moment ago.
Inside yours.
And the two old friends are still talking.
Still leaning close.
Their conversation flowing on like the river outside.
Unhurried.
To warn.
And seemingly without end.
There is something heart-warming,
You think.
About the quiet company of strangers in a place like this.
You do not know these people.
You will likely never see them again.
And yet here.
In this small golden room.
Sheltering together from the same grey rain.
There is a kind of gentle kinship between you.
Simple.
And human.
And real.
You are.
All of you.
For this one afternoon.
Part of the same small story.
You take another slow sip of your drink.
And you feel the warmth of it spread through you.
And you settle a little deeper.
Into your worn and comfortable chair.
After a time.
You reach for your headphones.
You have a podcast you've been meaning to listen to.
A gentle programme about the history of cities.
And tonight,
Of course.
The episode is about to begin.
You set all the headphones over your ears.
And you press play.
And a calm.
Warm voice.
Begins to speak.
Just for you.
While the rain falls on.
And the cafe glows softly around you.
Welcome back.
The narrator says.
We're going to wonder.
Slowly.
And without any hurry at all.
Through the long history of one of the most beloved cities in the world.
We're going.
Paris.
Paris began.
As so many great cities did.
On an island in a river.
More than.
2000 years ago.
Tribe.
Called the Parisi.
Settled on a small island in the middle of the river sand.
The very island we now call the Ile de la Cité.
In the heart of the modern city.
It was a good place to live.
The river gave them fish.
And water.
And a road for their boats.
And the island gave them safety.
A little patch of solid ground with the water all around it.
From those few huts.
On that small island.
Everything else would slowly grow.
When the Romans came.
They built a town here and called it Letitia.
They spread out from the island onto the left bank of the river.
And they built the things the Romans always built.
Forum.
Baths.
An amphitheater.
And straight paved roads running off into the countryside.
For a few hundred years it was a quiet provincial town.
Pleasant enough.
Nothing remarkable.
No one then could have guessed what it would one day become.
It was in the centuries that followed.
As the Roman world faded.
That the town on the river slowly grew into something greater.
It took the name of its first people.
The Parisi.
And became Paris.
Kings came to rule from here.
And on that same small island.
Where the Parisi had first settled.
The people of Paris began.
Around 850 years ago.
To build a great city.
Cathedral.
They called it.
Notre Dame.
Our Lady.
It took the better part of 200 years to build.
The work of generations.
Fathers and sons and grandsons.
All labouring on the same.
Vast and patient task.
Raising those great stone towers and arches.
A little at a time.
The people who lay to the first stones.
Never saw it finish.
They built it anyway.
For those who would come after.
Through the long centuries of the Middle Ages.
Paris grew on both banks of the river.
On the left bank.
Students gathered to study.
And a great university grew up among the narrow lanes.
One of the oldest in the world.
So that the quarter became known as a place of books and learning.
As in many ways it still is today.
On the right bank.
The merchants and the markets flourished.
And on the island in between.
Kings and the Church held the heart of it all.
The city spread out to it.
Upon ring.
Like the rings inside a tree.
Leaving its mark.
Before the next began.
Paris saw glory and hardship in equal measure.
New plague and siege and hungry winters.
But is in joy.
The way old cities do.
And it kept on building.
Grand squares were laid out.
Lined with elegant houses of pale stone.
Bridges were thrown across the sand.
Some of them crowded with shops and houses.
So that you could cross the river.
Without ever knowing the water was beneath you.
Gardens were planted for kings.
And later opened to the people.
And slowly.
Century by century.
The city gathered the beauty.
It is so loved for today.
About a hundred and fifty years ago.
Paris was given much of the shape we know now.
A grace rebuilding took place.
When the old tangle of narrow medieval streets was opened up into the way.
Tree-lined boulevards.
That run through the city today.
With their long rows of cream-coloured buildings.
Their tall windows.
And little iron balconies.
Their grey sink rooftops.
All of the hype.
Stretching away as far as the eye can see.
It is those long,
Graceful streets.
More than anything.
That gave Paris its particular face.
The face that people picture.
When they close their eyes and think of it.
And it was around that same time.
That the city built the thing that would come to stand for it.
Above all others.
For a great exhibition.
A celebration of the modern age.
An engineer.
Named Gustave Eiffel.
Raised an enormous tower of iron lattice.
On the bank of the Seine.
Taller than anything.
Anyone had ever built before.
Many Parisians disliked it at first.
They thought it.
Strain.
And ugly.
And some of them quite hoped it would be taken down again.
Once the exhibition was over.
But it stayed.
And the city grew so fond of it.
That now.
It is impossible to imagine Paris.
Without it.
Standing there against the sky.
Lit up.
Go.
Against the dusk.
Through all of this.
Paris became a place that drew people to it.
Dreamers and artists.
And writers.
From every corner of the world.
Who came to walk its streets.
And sit in its cafes.
In rooms.
Perhaps not so very different.
From the one you are sitting in tonight.
They came to paint its light.
Which has a softness to it that painters have chased for centuries.
They came to write in its quiet corners.
Take care.
Simply to be in it.
To be part of the long.
One.
Unhurried life of the city.
And the?
Perhaps.
Is the truest thing about Paris.
For all its grunge.
For all its monuments and its history.
The real heart of the city.
Has always been small and human.
It is a city made for walking.
And for a sitting.
And for watching the world go by.
A city of small streets.
And small cafes.
And small kindnesses.
The city where on a rainy afternoon.
You can step through a green painted door.
Into a warm and golden room.
And feel.
Almost at once.
Entirely at home.
The river still runs through the middle of it all.
As it has for thousands of years.
Slow.
Patient.
And grey-green.
Passing beneath the old bridges.
Slipping past to the island.
Where the very first Parisians built their huts.
So long ago.
Everything in this city.
Has gathered along that river.
Age upon age.
Story upon story.
And it is still gathering.
You are part of it tonight.
But that is enough wandering for now.
The rain is still falling.
And the hour is growing late.
And there is no better place to be.
Than exactly where you are.
So I leave you here.
In your warm corner.
With the river going by.
And the lamps.
Glowing love.
Rest well.
You slip the headphones from your ears.
And set them on the table beside the little green book.
And your cup.
Which is empty now.
My daily serve.
The rain has not stopped.
It drums softly and steadily.
Against the misted windows.
And its sound has become a kind of lullaby.
Gentoo.
And even.
And endless.
Inside.
The cafe has grown quieter still.
The lumps are low.
Dumbo.
The candles burn without a flicker.
The world beyond the glass.
Has dissolved into a soft grey blur.
And in here.
There is only warmth.
And stillness.
And the slow sweet weight of rest.
Settling over you.
In the corner.
The old man sleeps on over his newspaper.
And it seems to you.
The most natural thing in the world.
In a room as warm and safe as this.
To let your own eyes begin to close.
You are so comfortable The chair holds you gently.
The warmth of your drink is still in your hands.
The rain plays its soft song on the glass and the murmur of quiet voices.
Drifts somewhere far away and the smell of coffee.
And old paper.
Wraps around you like a blanket.
The worries of the day are far behind you now.
And so are the cares of tomorrow.
There is only this.
This warm.
Good.
This Gentoo.
Rain.
This small and perfect harbour.
Out of the weather.
And as sleep begins to take you Your mind wanders slowly back through the streets of Paris.
Over the old bridges.
And along the river.
Past the flower cellar,
Beneath her awning.
And the young couple.
Beneath their umbrella.
Through the little shop on the island.
Where a daughter set a song into a music box.
By patient note.
Through the long warm history.
Of the city by the water.
Here.
In this cozy cafe.
With the rain falling softly outside.
You.
Fine.
Rest.
You find peace.
A small and gentle harbour of warmth.
That you.
So very much.
Deserve.
