Dans tout Paris

…Je m'abandonne et je m'envole.

I’ve decided that in two years, if I am still alive, my life doesn’t shape up how I hope, or I am just coasting, I’m going to move to France. Right now though, my artistic life has presented opportunities I feel I need to stay (in America) and keep refining. Some might call it escapism or impulsive, but this is no new idea. Packing my life in a few bags is also nothing new. Just months after returning from my cultural exchange in Russia and Turkey, I almost moved to Paris. I hadn’t even visited yet, but I felt a romanticized pull to this foreign place of love, art, and beauty. I interviewed, had a second lined up, and mere paperwork to fill out before securing a placement. But that still, small voice in my head suggested,

“Maybe wait. Maybe pursue what’s right in front of you. Maybe don’t run away yet.”

France was one of those places I longed to visit, a farsickness (or “Fernweh”) that seemed to call with no words at all. 2020 happened, the world shut down, and my heart felt bleaker than the leafless trees and grey, winter skies. One day, I wandered into a New York & Company going out of business. I’ll never forget the moment I spied a glorious dress in its clearance section. I picked it up. I had nothing of importance or real use for this abstract dress, yet I tried it on.

“One day, I will wear this in Paris.”

I tucked it away in my closet. With it, I tucked away my dreams, my farsickness, my visions of a country I’d never met. When life leaves my heart broken, I find that clinging to a romanticized idea - something of beauty to long for - gives the leafless boughs of my heart room to anticipate something lovelier. It’s like a silent trajectory of finding hope for something beautiful, even when it feels so far away.

Often times, I’ll idealize a situation or place and it will fall painfully short of my expectations. My mind will create something of grandeur, and I will vividly picture how it will look, what will happen, and most of all, how I will feel. Most of the time, the fantasy world in my head falls short of reality.

France surpassed my expectations.

I spent the first week with my beloved Argentine Tango teachers in Tours. I was introduced to authentic, french cuisine, walking streets, trains to old castles, Argentine Tango workshops, and a slow pace of life that encouraged the art of savoring, rather than rushing. I will never forget practicing in their living room floor in socks before my first Milonga, or hopping in a car with their french friends - strangers to me - and taking off to the middle of nowheresville, countryside of France for dancing. The second week, I trained to Paris and spent it with a long lost friend from a decade ago. We urban hiked, stayed out until 1am almost every night because sunset isn’t until 11pm, found West Coast Swing in an underground social dancing club, cried taking portraits of each other, wore black dresses for the occasion, and spent a day with a distant cousin I’d only known as a digital penpal…who of course happened to also be an artist and photographer, also related to my great-grandmother, who is the face of my business card.

I decided the beautiful Frenchmen and waiters in button down shirts were definitely my type. A year and a half later, it is still hard to find words to encompass such a vibrant place. I love how art and music is integrated into society. In America, the arts have adopted an elitist mentality. It’s designated to Hollywood and stages and screens and museums and expensive tickets. It is all about the ego and self gains.

In Europe, it is an integral part of society. Music floods the cobblestone streets, the corners, the alleyways. One moment, teenagers read books and play games on the grass, and one street over, there’s a crowd social dancing. History and architecture is preserved and beauty is celebrated. Musicians traipse the metros and city streets. Cafe chairs face the streets, suggesting that you look out, admire, and appreciate. An opera singer locks eyes with you at the Louvre and sings to you, as if it’s a sacred gift.

I will never forget how I felt in France.

It was as if it breathed life into my soul and traded scraggly clothes for a ballgown. If a European city could tell you that you are beautiful with a bare face, au natural is normal, Amazon prime evening gloves “just because” is acceptable, and no man is required to feel really, truly, deeply loved…that is Paris.

Makeup is not required, bodies and BMI are not overly glorified, bras are optional, baguettes are not just a cliche, and beauty goes beyond surface level.

Parisians handle the ebb and flow of life like champs. One minute, there’s a gas explosion, and an hour later there’s a music festival. One night, there’s riots and protests, and the next morning, there’s a roller derby parade on one street and social dancing on another.

In Paris, you’ll actually sit to drink your coffee because to go cups do not exist. You’ll have pre-cocktail cocktails, eat dinner at 10pm, followed by more cocktails. You’ll go by foot everywhere, convince yourself you can step no further, only to suddenly be in the arms of strangers for three hours of Argentine Tango or West Coast Swing.

There’s something about walking into a ballroom, hundreds of sweaty Europeans of all ages, no air conditioning, a foreign language, the strongest body odor imaginable, that makes you feel so beautifully human.

You’ll be thousands of miles from home, and you will feel so “at home” with the way of the Parisians.