Waiting for Sunrise

It's Sunday evening and we're back from Paris. The 12-hour flight took off at noon and got in at 3:00 pm the same day. But since I never stopped being jetlagged the whole time I was in Paris, I can't really complain. Here's hoping I'll get a decent night's sleep tonight. I really loved being in Paris, but the whole sleep/jetlag problem was a real problem. No matter what time I went to bed, I would always wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. and have an energy crash at 4:00 p.m. So I'm really looking forward to a good night's sleep in my own bed.

During the hours between waking, say at 5:00 a.m., and Cris waking up at 8;30 or 9:00, I had a number of things I could do. My first urge was to get up and walk around -- what else am I in Paris for? But it doesn't even get light at this time of year until 7:00 or so, and it was cold and drizzly and actually rather depressing to walk the dark streets of the Marais for two hours. So I tended to lie in bed, trying to go back to sleep and never succeeding. Finally I would give up and get dressed and go out. I would walk to the nearby Place de la Republique (and sorry for leaving out the diacritical marks, I'm just too tired to worry about it) and buy an IHT, that lifeline of the expatriate. Then I'd go to a nearby cafe and have a café
au lait and a croissant.

What could be better, you may ask? To sit in Paris and watch the dawn break over the Place de la Republique, reading the paper, eating crossaints, etc.? Well, it would have been a tad more enjoyable without all the jet lag. But who else but the jet lagged would be up at that hour in the first place.

On the 12-hour flight home, it finally occurred to me that what I saw as an annoyance -- this business of waking before dawn and not being able to go back to sleep -- was actually a huge opportunity to pray and meditate like a monk. And I would have, too, if only it would have been possible to heat the room a little and have a little light. But the dankness and darkness of the room was oppressive, no matter how much like a monk's cell it really was. That's the problem with two-star hotels. So it was off to the cafe.