Oh Paris, France the city that started it all. Eloise in Paris is the book that began our journey of daydreaming and inspired our love for travel. To put it bluntly, with no exaggeration at all, this city has brought me to life in ways that were kept dormant internally. Parts of it that felt better left dormant, only for a special city to awaken then. Locked deep within me only to be opened and experienced with my mother and sister by my side. Life has a way of allowing the cyclical patterns to run their course, only when the time is ready. Which through a human mind, often does not reflect readiness since change is so hard to fathom and surrender to most of the time. 

This trip was supposed to happen at a few different points in life, after I graduated high school then when COVID came, and THEN at the end of May. The end of May got changed due to many reasons, but disappointing. When I say supposed to, I mean lightly discussed with not much action behind it. Sometimes we all wondered when this was going to happen, when life might slow down to help us may this happen. As we learn over and over again as people, life does not slow down. Life and the stories we wish to have in our lives are to some extent created. The very essence of why I think living a creative life is so important. There are of course things in our lives that we do not have much say over, but I think the other half of it is where we get to create. To take chances, to alchemize experiences, and to in general, have agency over our lives. 

I hope by now you have figured out that this blog is not going to be your “classic” travel blog. I have no desire to tell you step by step what I have done each day, there are plenty of other blogs out there that do such a thing. In a lot of ways, I am here for my sanity, for my desires. Writing to me is alchemizing my experiences and emotions into something physical that is purifying and makes parts of me awaken that are a necessity to my life. I am an extremely spiritual person naturally, it’s the way my heart, mind, and soul work. It is my purpose here, to watch my life and experience it. I feel it so deeply, every pair of eyes I make contact with. Every person I love. Everything that I love, I feel it so deeply. I experience the grief of it all paired with the joy of it all. 

This trip has a lot of grief and joy paired with it. I consciously know I will never be the same again. There will never be another me who is presently experiencing Europe with my mom and sister after years of hope. I am changing every day because of it, which I will do my best to explain. For the most part, they are being felt, and as much as I sometimes wish I could explain, I have come to the heart-wrenching conclusion that some things truly are only meant to be felt. My greatest hope is that through my words, things are felt that may not be explained because if I can do that, then I will be accurately depicting this trip. Thus the reason for this blog. 

We got here early in the morning on Wednesday Paris time. This was wonderful because we got to watch Paris wake up, it took about an hour to get to our Airbnb and through this time, we progressively got to see more and more people. More life. It went from quite and calm, to people setting up stores, people going to work and people getting morning coffee as life progressed. It would be hard to describe to you everything I saw and probably unproductive too. One of the first things that got my attention about this city is the essence of connection that is emitted here. 

Yes, Paris is considered the city of love and there are many songs, poems, stories, and movies about this. But only once you’ve stepped foot in the city can you truly understand. There are brasseries on every street corner filled with couples and friends and family who are participating in deep connection and conversation. I could see it in their eyes as I drove quickly past them in my Uber. I saw a couple with hands together in between the table, in discussion, drinking espresso. It looked as if nothing could break them, that there was nothing more important than that moment, with each other. You may be thinking, that’s how it should be and to that, I nod my head in agreement. But, at least in America, I rarely see it. 

On a regular day back in America I see phones everywhere, people with headphones in with better things to do than sit back and exist. I get it, I am one of them to some extent. When I saw the way people connected here, so casually too, I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. I wanted to have time in my life on a Wednesday to sit down with a friend or my boyfriend at a brasserie and sit with depth. I believe most people would, but when it is not practiced right in front of you it can be hard to actualize it. In America everyone is running to the next thing, chasing and chasing and chasing. It’s our culture and in a lot of ways our survival. None of this is to say that I didn’t see people on phones or with better things to do than sit and connect in Paris. I saw a lot of it, but overall I also saw a lot more connection. I wonder how you could not be connected here though, with the components that make up this city. 

The history, the art, the architecture, the ethos of the city. It is vibrant and strong-hearted. It is wise and full of longevity. It is artistic and full of poetry, but instead, words are displayed with a way of life. Exploring a city like this has made me feel like living a creative life is possible. I didn’t believe it wasn’t, but often at home, I have to fight a crushing weight that it is even worth it. I have to fight back against a culture of hustle and suppression and remind myself of the importance of living a creative life, one where it is felt deeply and intentionally. Reminding myself to make time for it and to embody it daily. During my time here, it has felt natural and a natural part of me that doesn’t need reminders or any fighting to awaken. It is exciting to see myself like this, but it makes me sad to know one day I will go back. Maybe when I do I won’t feel a need to fight off what I am told or felt back in the States, but I have an inkling I will. It’s culture and one thing we all know for sure is that it shapes us. It can be changed and morphed, but your environment impacts who you are. 

I went to the Palace of Versailles on our second day. A prime example of excessive extravagance and wealth, yet also a display of how much inspiration and art have a role in culture here. Louis the XIV of France built it because he wanted his own place. I guess royalty whenever they go anywhere, bring all of their furniture and belongings with them. He wanted a place that would stay the same and not move, I got this entirely. Louis XIV has an interesting history, when he began to rule he claimed the sun as his symbol. It is the sign of the god Apollo, who was the god of “The Sun and Light. But he is also the god of poetry, healing, music, plagues, knowledge, order, prophecy, beauty, agriculture, and archery! Apollo was designed to be the perfect blend of superiority, moral virtue, harmony, moderation, and reason personified” (Twinkle). He believed France revolved around him and therefore he was the Sun God. He took this to an extreme with his style and design. The Palace was so extreme. Any room you walked into was genuinely a piece of art. There was art on the walls and in frames everywhere. It was the kind of rooms you walked into that stimulated all of your senses. I felt tingling and my mouth wide open at times. I felt my eyes blinking slowly trying to make sense of all the intricate details of what I was experiencing. I tried to think but came up empty every time. It was so naturally a museum. The art was breathtaking and had me feeling utterly inspired. It took a whole day to explore this place, it was exhausting yet exhilarating. The gardens behind it were mesmerizing and a nice break from the excessiveness of the palace. We ended up wandering to try and find Queen Mary Antoinette’s Hamlet. We got very lost which caused a lot of frustration to be brought to the surface. After so much travel exhaustion and learning it was hard to keep moving. Yet once we got there, it was well worth it. Antoinette was famous because she was beheaded during the French Revolution and her reign was looked at as a bit strange. It was looked at as strange because she enjoyed the “peasant” life. 

Her Hamlet was a series of cottages, gardens, homes for animals, and man-made ponds. It was set up as a sustainable lifestyle in which she spent most of her time teaching her kids to make butter and among other things. I love this concept of self reliance and sustainability, but people thought she was so strange for it considering she has hundreds of servants to do things for her. This Hamlet felt like my greatest dream, just out of a fairytale. My sister, mother, and I all marveled at this place after our long venture to arrive there.

To be continued…

https://www.twinkl.fr/teaching-wiki/apollo-the-greek-god#:~:text=Apollo%20is%20mostly%20known%20for,%2C%20moderation%2C%20and%20reason%20personified.