Dahlinks, this may distress most of you. Yes, as I sit here in my grand salon right in Paris Centre (which is now the Golden Triangle) of the city of Lights that includes the arrondisements from Concorde, Champs Elysées and Bastille area as the beating heart of this megapolis, when actually, it’s juste the metropolitan area that I’m talking about, I ponder on President Macron’s warning, “Goodbye to abundance!”
God’s endless mercies have given me this blessing of living in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. But I can’t be just stuck up dreaming of my next pose at the Tour Eiffel or prancing down the cobblestones rues to do my daily shopping.
I’ve realized I must eat so I can survive. And it can’t be restaurants on end offering the world’s best gastronomy, a word invented just for the French because it has taught me how to whip up an omelette by myself perfectly. Life should be simple, simple and fun.
So, I made fun of conjuring up menus of Alsatian buttered noodles and scrumptious Nordic shrimp. Things become chores to do in order to survive, to live. And when you’ve lived, then you appreciate everything that you’ve survived.
Chronicling my existence in my mistress homeland makes me hang on to my Pinoy identity. I’m still Bacolod Center Downtown. Missing the human contact. The sudden urge of a matrix style presence on a beach in a couple of minutes can lull this beating heart that fears for the worst to come, the disappearance of abundance-as our French President E. Macron-would predict for the coming winter.
No, it’s quite different if we talk of winter because Pinoys can’t imagine the pain of the cold wind slapping into one’s bones I would feel while walking out into the street, even though how much money you have to afford a restaurant meal, would still tremble at the hint of such a cold slap. Man has to survive and thank God, I’m surviving, well!
Falling down the stairs seem to be á la mode nowadays since la Ivana and I’ve survived that. I’m walking very well, pa diwal to those who wish me bad. Even foremost Jetsetter Minnie Osmeña fell in her luxury pad in super posh Avenue Montaigne, suffering a sprained wrist but flew next day to St. Tropez for fun with BFF Carol Asscher. Chic clotheshorse Kathy de Guzman also fell in her tony London address and is now nursing a “cute” black eye that makes her look so animé.
But as Mamá would always emphasize that living well is the best revenge, I lift my fist to that! Now, to prepare for the coming autumn… it’s in the cool air suddenly, of summer.
MY PRAYER
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you. 1 Peter 1:3–4, NIV*
