These Empty Rooms

I drift through the hallways here at Cité Universitaire. Doorways are left ajar and I glance sideways to the scenes of melancholy that linger there. People clearing out their belongings opening that sad space. Its not the same space as when we arrived- it is a space filled with a quiet moment of heavy sighs.

When we entered these rooms there were so full of wonder. Brand new world for us to fill with possessions and stories from all the brand new days. These were the rooms we'd rush into after our classes, and they would be the guardians to our late nights of studying and talking. Radiating with all the words shared with friends. Outside, the night would embrace the small touches of light coming from these rooms. They would be there every day we returned from the heights of Arc de Triumph or the sanctity of Notre Dame.

Yes, these were the rooms that held the hard moments too. The passing of a love one would echo in my room. I would lose myself completely- numb and hurting, questioning and weeping. Oh this room was there holding me through the darkest moment I ever felt.

And these rooms filled up with every passing day. And now, some windows are opened as belongings are packed away. The Paris air comes in and it seems to sweep away all the weight that stood there. One by one the inhabitants leave to the wideness of the world and these rooms remain behind with our stories going somewhere else.

Where do our stories go? Where do they live once we've found new places to fill with all our lives? I think that they just sit outside in the trees, or perhaps behind the moon. I think they live somewhere beyond even our own hearts. They find rooms of their own, and we knock upon they're doors as we move through the hallways of our lives. Oh those rooms never empty.

But now, the space is not like when we arrived. The space seems barren and without potential now. Its as if no more stories will be made, and instead they are desolate, 12 by 14 deserts being abandoned.

And I ran through the night. I felt the Paris fog, and I saw the outlines of buildings so old and yet so familiar to me now. Am I really leaving? Am I really clearing out my own room now?

Spinning through the Paris park that I ran through week in and week out, I can't believe that this fog is coming in to swallow me up. And yet, this air is so sweet, so full of the stories still be written.

All the rooms to come. The ones that still beckon stories. And all the rooms that I will revisit.

I looked up and saw the sweeping light from the Eiffel Tower way out in the shimmering city I got so use to living in. It rushed across the open sky and was gone. I paused a moment, breathing heavy, and just felt the profound ways in which I have changed because of this place. And I wonder,


what other shimmering places and memories lie their in the landscape of the heart waiting to find their expression?