2020 will bring me my dream-come-true, bucket-list trip to New York City. Another blogger friend, who lives in the same small town near the Texas Gulf Coast as do is Deb Nance of Readerbuzz. She, too is getting a dream vacation, a trip to her favorite city in the world, Paris, France. In honor of all Deb has done for me, I am quoting a few lines from a book I just finished (which she probably gave me), My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul:
“Victor Hugo, the great romantic historian of a novelist, a French counterpart to Charles Dickens, understood the effects of inevitable change on a place you know and love even as your memory clings to the familiar contours of its past. Writing about himself in the third person, he explains:
‘Since he left it, Paris has been transformed. A new city has grown up, that is as it were, unknown to him. Needless to say, he loves Paris, Paris is his spiritual home…All those places you do not see any more, that you may never see again and that you have kept a picture of in your mind, take on a melancholy charm; they come back to you with the mournfulness of an apparition, make the holy land visible to you, and are, so to speak, the very embodiment of France. And you love them and conjure them up as they are, as they were, and you persist in this.’ ”
I think this is Deb’s third trip to Paris, and the longest time she will stay in that city yet, and I bid her bon voyage and happy traveling.
powerfulwomenreaders 
Oh my! Isn’t this unexpected and lovely?! Thank you for this beautiful quote, which I have just added to my Google Doc file of beautiful quotes. As I was adding it, I ran across this quote, also from Victor Hugo: “Respirer Paris, cela conserve l’âme.” (“Breathe Paris in, it nourishes the soul.”)
I think you could say, “Respirer New York, cela conserve l’âme.”
Thank you for this kind post, Rae.
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A trip to NYC will certainly nourish my spirit–especially with the “four friends” who’re going!
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