je t'aimais, je t'aime, et je t'aimerai

So today it happened: the cliché.  I have fallen for it... love in the city of love in the season of love. I had just left a sort of dinner party, when after descending the most charming old staircase and exiting onto a street bustling with charming people, I too felt the charm.  I turned to face the sun, surprised to find that it was just then setting, and my breath was swept away.  It was perfect, like all those paintings by little old men in berets  that seat themselves on the banks of the Seine hoping to impress a tourist or two into buying their life's work.  Some Gothic tower framed the colors between its ornate structural beams attempting to create its own stained glass equal to that of Notre Dame or St. Chapelle.  I felt myself begin to swagger, as if to show the world that those windows were for me alone, and that I am worthy of such an expression of love.  I had only one thought.... head towards the Seine.  It was almost a kind of dance I was performing with the others in the street,  my pace quick, but not rushed.  I reached Notre Dame just as the bells were sounding the setting of my sun.  I stopped and turned to watch them, unseen, singing to the tourists at their feet, and all fell into place.  A little boy dispensed his energy in the square, ending his sprint just as the bells fell silent.   I took a breath of the city air, intoxicated by its strangely sweet and refreshing redolence.   I felt as though someone had just whispered something, meant for only me to hear, a secret between us two.  Yes, indeed, my love is Paris---not the Greek personage, though I hear he was quite the lady-killer---it is the city.  It is indeed the city of love because you need not fall in love with someone else while in its presence, only the city itself.