Visiting Every Cafe in Paris?

Some days, I do not feel like exploring and, on these days, I do not walk any new streets in Paris. I walk where I know, along familiarity, past parks and architecture I love and business I have frequented over my time here, restaurants and boulangeries and cafes. 

Some of the cafes I have come to love I have never been to, but I am attached to nonetheless. From the street, I admire the colored awnings, the neatly lined tables, and the soft lights, always inviting beneath the gray skies, streets slick from the rain. 

I have thought about trying to visit every cafe in Paris — some 3,000 cafes — but then I have also thought, what is the point? So many of the cafes I enjoy perfectly from the street, walking by, sometimes once and never again, sometimes often, daily. 

The cafes are magical and I like to imagine what they are like inside, and I imagine the people who work there and what the rhythms of their lives are like, and the comings and goings of the patrons, both the regulars and everyone else. How many see the same faces everyday?

I have not yet become a regular at a Parisian cafe. There are many cafes I frequent often, but not every day. This is how I am defining a regular, someone who goes to the same place every day or almost everyday, a place before all others. Someday, I will become a regular at a cafe in Paris and I look forward very much to that day, but, for now, I am content exploring or rather drifting to and from a dozen or so cafes, those I love and those that are convenient and close to home. 

I have also thought to keep a list of all the cafes I have been to in Paris, but to do so, seems almost like consumption, as if I am trying to impress myself or to prove a point and, though I am keeping track of every street I walk in Paris, this is fundamentally different than counting cafes. 

I am not certain I know all of why this is, but walking every street in Paris is moreso an exercise in exploration. I want to know, to understand, the construction of this city, the layout, the neighborhoods, the design and details, details as small as a building’s cornices, freizes—

I want to know the history of Paris and it’s habitants, dating back before my imagination can understand, to the present day. It is a place where many periods in time interest me, it captivates something larger within myself. In Paris, I am enamored by human creation and by the reflection I see of my own existence and of the potential within.