Greetings from Paris

A couple of towns over from Durham North Carolina is the mill village of Carrboro. (It may not be called that in the not-too-distant future, but that is a whole ‘nother story.) Sometime in the past few decades, Carrboro acquired the nickname The Paris of the Piedmont. I’ve only lived here for 27 years, so i have no idea how or why that should be the case. Maybe this story is even true.

I’ve spent quite a few days and nights in Carrboro, but i haven’t been out of the house other than to walk in the woods since we returned from Ireland and went more or less immediately into self-isolation. So this story isn’t about that Paris, although i expect to get there before i get to Paris, Texas.

In my early 20s, I read a description of the absinthe ritual as practiced in Paris in the 1800s. Might have been a Poe story. Might have been a biography of Rimbaud. But I thought that celebrating my 30th birthday by drinking absinthe on the Rive Gauche would be a pretty cool thing to do.

That opportunity passed, as did my 40th and 50th birthdays. By the time I turned 60, exorcising the demons of New Orleans seemed a better idea.

As we were planning our spring in Cork, I looked into a side trip to Paris, and it was surprisingly affordable. As it turns out, absinthe was illegal in France for much of that time, anyway. So yesterday I had plans to sit in a bar (not on the Seine, but near enough, and across the street from the Moulin Rouge) and celebrate another year by drinking absinthe.

We’re confined to our home in the woods in north Durham County for the next week, and i do not own an absinthe fountain, so I jury-rigged one. Absinthe fountain is somewhat of a misnomer. You pour the absinthe into the glass. What comes out of the fountain is ice water, and the purpose of the fountain is to precisely control the rate at which the water drips through the sugar cube into the glass.

On the left is the birthday card that Claire made for me.

The absinthe turned out all right, though I can only imagine it would have been better on the Boulevard de Clichy.

Best part of the day, though, was the reassurance i received from my granddaughter about getting to Paris some day. Maybe i’ll be able to bring her along, and we can visit the Washington Monument together.