Peonies in Paris.

Just some messy peonies from Paris, that’s all.

(taken on my trip, 2011)

New York vs. Paris

This. My wonderful friend, Andreea, saw this video and thought of me. A small thing, but big in my world.

I’ve spent too many hours debating between these two cities myself, for many reasons. I won’t spoil the video for you, but notice the part about “tipping”… I swear, the tipping (or lack thereof) in Europe (especially Paris, Lisbon) is something I just can’t get used to.

What do you mean you don’t want 18% of my bill for your tip?!

Damn my North American sensibilities!

-sandy.

The disease of impatience.

Is it curable? I don’t know
but, lately, I get a lot of questions about how to get it
acquire it, as such.

I don’t know why I get asked this question.

I haven’t quite perfected the anecdote for patience myself
but I’m trying.
and I think that counts
like for time served, or something.

it’s not an easy thing to come by,
patience, that is
like a four-leaf clover
or a good best friend
the perfect temperature
or a fair boss.

not easy to find, no
but not impossible to come by either
with the smallest insertion of patience

or at least that’s what I keep telling myself
over and over again
very slowly.

patience, patience, patience
makes perfect.

we’ll see.

~S.

 

 

(photo taken at some point during my stay in Paris last year; wish I had the name of the park)

La vie en rose.

You can get the best version of “La vie en rose” you ever heard played on sax for a couple of euros. That, and other reasons to love it.

A version of happiness.

I took this photo last summer in Paris. It was painted onto a shop door in an alley in the Marais, the neighborhood in which I rented an apartment and tried to “live like Parisian” for a month.

Although I still do not know what it means to “live like a Parisian” I feel as though I do know a bit more about what it means to live according to me:

Because, as I have learned repeatedly in my years as an adult, everyone has a different version of what it means to live. Although very few of us have a version (a real, personal, methodical, tried-true-tested version) of it what it means to live with happiness.

Few of us are willing to rock the boat of What Is over the murky waters of What If, for fear that, if we do, we may fall in and drown; victims of our own ambition and curiosity.

And so we teeter, between What Is and What If, sometimes for years, in a never ending dance with our sanity, which rarely ends with in a glorious bow. We tip between haste and indecision, paralyzed by fear.

This tipping eventually is what drowns us, in a pool of our own regret. Best to just have made a choice – good or bad, wise or foolish – and think about it later. Trust your instincts, it’s okay. At times it’s all we can do to preserve our minds.

I’m glad I made the choice to try my best and “live like a Parisian” when I did. I’m glad I was able to take this picture and remember this feeling right now, when I need it.

Sure feels like some version of happiness to me.

-sandy.

It’s not you, it’s me.

It was a very brief moment in time, but it holds a lot of space in my memory bank right now: the way the street sounded at dawn, alive with Parisians in transit to their next encounter. “How is it any different from what happens at home?” people asked me. “It’s not”, I’d reply. “It’s me that’s different”.

Love in Paris.

Paris, June 2011: I couldn’t take my eyes off this couple…because they couldn’t take their eyes off each other.