The day began not with urgency but with indulgence. The kind of indulgence that lets you linger over a fried egg and cheese on baguette, contemplating whether breakfast might be the most poetic meal of the day. It was quiet luxury—warm yolk, crusty bread, and the promise of Paris unfolding itself, one unpredictable moment at a time. Khanjar was my companion, oud curling around me like a secret whispered into silk. Out the door and into the streets, where everything was waiting.
The Eiffel Tower was my destination, or so I told myself. But can a destination be anything more than a suggestion in a city like this? First, I stumbled into Perrotin. A curvy stroke of paint on canvas stopped me cold. Texture like milk solidified into luxury, color like fruit loops that remembered being fruit. Outside again, side streets called to me with their empty charm. Locals pushed against the cold, their arms heavy with fresh produce, flowers, and a baguette tucked under every elbow like a punctuation mark.
Luxury. What is it? Not the heavy definition they teach you but the light one you feel when the details line up just so. Peeling café signs, glossy typography, the sway of a cigarette. Luxe is a bouquet bought for a few euros and dropped into a handmade vase. It’s the unrepeatable ceremony of this moment, right here, right now.
Then, Arc de Triomphe. Its enormity loomed, and suddenly I was home at Washington Square Park, under its younger sibling, the Washington Square Arch. The arches held hands across time, and I walked through their shadow, on to Musée Yves Saint Laurent. Inside, an explosion of florals: sketches, textiles, silk gazar flowers pinned into couture gowns. Yves’ love of flowers mirrored the bouquets tucked under Parisian arms, and I thought, luxury can bloom anywhere, in anything.
Out the door, into Marché Avenue du Président Wilson. Fresh-cut flowers, glistening produce, the crackle of market life. It was a palette of textures and colors, a living still-life. And then, as if summoned, Parfums Henry Jacques. My favorite house, my secret altar. I won’t spoil the magic—it’s not ready to be told—but I walked out cloaked in N° 81 and Paccino, their sillage weaving an invisible path back to the Seine.
At last, the Eiffel Tower. Rising from the end of Rue Saint-Dominique, it was a chalky mirage, a dusty white painting come to life. The juxtaposition was surreal: the opulent sillage of my fragrance against the powdery street. A circle colliding with a square. And when I arrived? It was just the Eiffel Tower. A giant underbelly of steel, a moment as underwhelming as it was iconic. But from Palais de Tokyo, the tower became a background, a symbol redefined by the people photographing it, sketching it, dreaming it.
The walk home was a carousel of choices: roundabouts spinning me like a needle on a record. Dead or Alive played in my head—“You spin me right round, baby, right round.” I followed circles into circles, then stopped for a bottle of wine. Every door I passed had a round, intricate knob in its center, a portal in disguise. Circles within circles, a motif pulling the day into a spiral.
Back at my apartment, wine in hand, I thought about the luxury of this randomness. A journey that chose me. A fragrance that lingered like a ghost. A circle pretending to be a square. Or is it the other way around? It’s whatever you say it is, until you don’t say it, and then it’s nothing.
Tomorrow will be another riddle, another scent trail, another puzzle for us to unravel. Until then, let this linger. Let it turn round and round in your mind.