After nine hours on Air France, and another

After nine hours on Air France, and another two getting to our room, we are exhausted but happy. We walk down to eat at E’Claire, Quiche and salad, then take the short walk to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time.  The language pours into my ears and I understand little, but it’s a music I could hear every day, the secret language of my childhood, my mother’s first tongue, the songs she sang us to sleep. 

 

Tout la Monde

Tout le monde est une drôle de personne,
Et tout le monde a l’âme emmêlée,
Tout le monde a de l’enfance qui ronronne,
Au fond d’une poche oubliée,

Everybody is a strange person,
And everybody has a tangled soul,
Everybody has some humming childhood,
At the bottom of a forgotten pocket…