Last week, I decided to book train tickets and go to Lyon on the weekend on a whim. I didn’t really need to go there. My father wasn’t at home at this time, and he had left the dog at the kennel. Yet, I felt the urge to go to Lyon. I wanted to see my city as autumn was spreading along the banks of the Rhône and the Saône.
As usual, I walked a lot while in Lyon. I love waking up before dusk, then walking to Fourvière hill while the city’s still asleep, at the feet of which I most of the time spend a good 15 minutes pondering over whether I should climb up the hill to take pictures of the sunrise, or stay near the Saône river and pray for the stream to calm down so that I can capture some beautiful reflections which I affectionate so much. Most of the time, I can’t really decide, so I run up the hill not to be late for the sunrise, and when the sun appears above the horizon, I rush down the hill to the river to take photos of the buildings surrounding the Saône river while they’re bathing in the golden light of the morning and casting their reflections in the Saône river.
I’ve done this a dozen times, now. And yet, I never get bored. I think I could take the same pictures again and again until the last of my dying days, and you would still see me smiling at the back-screen of my camera whenever I get a shot I consider satisfying.
I guess Lyon definitely is the place where I can feel the happiest. I feel a bit ashamed of it, because it makes me look like a kid who can’t fly with his own wings away from his hometown. And yet, I’ve done it already. But nowhere have I felt as happy as in Lyon. There’s something I love in this city I can’t find anywhere else, even though when in good company, I manage not to miss my hometown too much, and even think of another city as my home (this had started to be the case with Boulogne-Billancourt, before I had to move to Vincennes, and quite funnily, I hate having to say I don’t live in Boulogne-Billancourt).
So I’ve made the choice to go back to Lyon whenever I can find a suitable opportunity. I don’t want to rush this out, though. I don’t want to have any regrets. There may still be some nice experiences left for me here in Paris, and I’ll take the time to take all I can before I move. But I know I don’t want to live here forever. Maybe it’s time for me to accept that though my dreams of living in my hometown are a bit simple and not that fun, they’re mine, and that I’m entitled to follow them. I’ve grown up thinking being an adult was about being realistic and not following wishful dreams. I more and more think I was wrong : being an adult is about being able to take care of oneself first, and this doesn’t mean abandoning your dreams at all : it means you have to realistically assess what you need for your dreams to come true, and when you’ve done it, to do all you know you need to do to go for them. I guess I need to learn how to take care of myself. And I know this will lead to Lyon.
