We just returned from Paris after a week in the city of light. I always feel changed after Paris, as though the light has somehow found a way to get inside. Paris is food for the soul.
The last time I visited Paris was with the Left Bank Writers Retreat. It was just as magical this time around. I wonder if one sees Paris for the first time every time one visits. I intend to find out! I hope to go back again one day…
I was recently asked by one of my fave YouTubers (LivDeeper10x–check out their channel here!) what was ONE thing I was going to do this month to LIVE DEEPER. My first response was VISIT PARIS. But visiting a place isn’t enough, is it? That doesn’t bring us deeper. Not in and of itself. It is not going to a place that brings one deeper. It is what we bring back of the place that causes us to live deeper, is it not? And I don’t mean the trinkets and bits and bobs.
I carry with me now such memories!
Michael and I decided early on that we would rely only on our feet to take us to all the places we wanted to see in Paris, to immerse ourselves into the Paris streets and see all the things along the way to those places.
After clocking close to 180km on foot, I think it’s safe to say we accomplished what we set out to do. We did not see it all, we did not do it all. But we found magic in the things we did see and do.
I cannot decide my favourite neighborhood of Paris. They all clamor for attention and adoration. But I do know Montmartre holds a special place in my Bohemian writer/painter/artist heart!
We wandered slowly up to the city’s sacred heart, in order to take in some of the beauty along the way…
Such a unique neighborhood! But then again, they are all unique.
Our first full day in Paris, we booked the Tower and the Louvre. We hadn’t seen the tower yet, so we made our way there by foot.
It is not the going to a place that causes one to live deeper. It’s what you get out of the going. It’s the memories you create and cherish. I will probably be talking about Paris for a while here on the blog. We covered a lot of ground! We carried back a lot of memories with us. We went deep! From the Tower to the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe to the Catacombes to Père Lachaise Cemetery to Les Deux Magots to La Closerie des Lilas to Jules Verne Restaurant to Musée d’Orsay to Musée de l’Orangerie to Versailles to Giverny and Monet’s house and gardens to the Moulin Rouge to Sacré-Cœur to Notre Dame to Shakespeare & Company to Luxembourg Gardens and beyond! We walked the walk. We stood breathless in front of Monets and Picassos and Manets and Renoirs and Van Goghs. We held our breath in front of Rodins and lost our breath on spiral staircases going down below the city and up above it!
Paris will always be a city that inspires all to LIVE DEEPLY. You cannot take it in without being changed by the experience. My one thing that I did in October to live deeper? I carried an entire city across a vast ocean and continue to carry it close to me now.
We each contain multitudes of universes. They are there inside us, waiting always to be pondered and re-experienced. This is why we carry those universes with us. For those quiet moments we need amidst the hectic ones. If we stop the noise and the chaos of our everyday workaday lives for just a moment–just long enough to breathe a little deeper–to sigh alongside a memory of walking the banks of the Seine with the one you love…then you have an oasis inside of you from which to draw your strength. We live deeply in the moments so that we may always revisit them when we need to refill the well.
Going places is the easy part. Bringing places back with you? As long as you remember to do so, you’ll have them with you always. This is the living deeper part…stopping to capture those moments for future ponderance, epiphanies and joy.
Until our next adventures, we’ll always have Paris!
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KEVIN CRAIG 