We'll always have Paris...

I just woke from a strange and terrifying dream.
This dream was not based in any sort of fantasy though, it was a different version of something that occurred many years ago. Something I had forgotten about Let me take you back with me....

I was 17 when I was invited along with my classmates to journey to Italy and France for two weeks. I had never been so excited. I had just returned a year prior from The Soviet Union and here I was...off on another adventure. Its funny what you remember about such monumental events. I cannot tell you with any accuracy what the view from atop the Eifel Tower is like, but I can tell you that my friend Becky Ventuurelle ran out of film while we were up there and she cried. I remember Rome not for the Collosseum but because I had a moment with my French teacher/chaperone Mrs. Schreck. I was thrilled to discover that I was not alone in my smoking vice when she bummed a cigarette on a narrow side street. I recall my first day in Monaco being a disaster because my Vidal Sassoon shampoo exploded in my suitcase and spilled its contents over all of my clothes. I can still smell it...honey-almond vanilla, odd that I cannot recall the scents wafting from the patisserie I was staying above. My point is that our minds capture the most random things and they are usually small and insignificant.

So when my nightmare jerked me from sleep 25 minutes ago, I was amazed that it revealed the larger memories of that trip that I thought I had forgotten. In my dream I was terrified to go near the Eifel Tower but I desperately wanted a picture of it so I sent Ian to get one. I coached him from behind a city wall on how to get the perfect picture. "Stand beneath the structure and point the camera up." So he did but something went terribly wrong. He became very sick and began to vomit. I dashed across the quad and under the tower, ever careful not to look up, and carried him out of there. I carried him through the streets of Paris and up a huge muddy hill to the outskirts where the city lights faded to stars. There was a lone taxi cab at the opposite side bottom the hill and it took all my strength to get us to it. When I finally felt the door handle in my hand, I looked up and I could see the massive base of the tower stretched out in front of me and the quad beneath my feet....oh no I'm back where I started. I heard the sound of metal grinding metal and even though I didn't look up, I knew the tower was collapsing. I ripped the taxi door open and pushed Ian inside. I handed the driver all of my money and told him to take us to DeGauille airport. he looked back at me a screamed, "LOOK UP!!!"
The roof of the taxi ripped off and the tower came crashing down on me.

I woke up in a hurry this morning. I was terrified yes, but the terror unlocked a forgotten experience: me at 17 alone on the quad beneath the Eifel Towerctaking a picture. It really happened. I told myself not to forget that day, but like many things from my youth all that remains are scattered fragments. But thank heavens they are scattered only by the light of day.