Going Back in Time

Sometimes I run across things on the internet that stop me in my tracks and take me back to a particular time in my life.  This article in The Paris Review was one of those things.

 A Star Turned, by Chris Wallace 

The author talks about his time working at Les Deux Cafes, a restaurant in Los Angeles that had more personality than I have ever experienced in a physical place.

I was lucky enough to have gone to Les Deux Cafes on a few occasion, once as part of a wonderful date with my then boyfriend and another for a birthday party with said boyfriend's mother.  The birthday party was where I truly experienced some of what the writer so vividly describes.  It was here that I was able to meet Michele Lamy, a truly unique woman.  She was very kind and welcomed me into her world with all of the guests, many of whom were regulars.  I cannot do a description of her justice, but the author has been able to put her essence into words:

"Her heavily hennaed hair was capped in a gangster-style do-rag, and little jets of kohl were purposefully drawn down over her face. Her fingers looked as if they’d been dipped in an inkwell. She broke off our conversation intermittently to answer the steadily ringing cordless house phone and write names in looping lettering in her leather-bound agenda. In French, her voice sounded hoarse and distant like a muezzin call. In her thickly accented English, it slowed to the consistency of granular mustard." -- Chris Wallace

The restaurant was unlike any that I had ever been to or have been to since.  It had an aura about it that can hardly be explained, though this article is able to pull some of it onto the page.  As I read it, my mind immediately took me back to those happy times.

Even if you have never heard of Les Deux Cafes, this article is a very good read.  Thank you Chris Wallace, for making me stop and think of wonderful times gone by.

Until Tomorrow . . .