I wrote
"Cythera" when I was back in the States after having lived in Paris.
I had been looking
forward to living in Paris, a city I'd always loved. But
my time there was
darkened by illness, and Watteau's magical and sad painting
haunted me as an
image of my own (now remembered, and thus painting-like)
experience in
France, of a happiness that I either did or did not have--I
could never be quite
sure which.