Bonjour, Paris !

I just turned on my Imagined Paris playlist. Out of impulse. On shuffle. La chanson de Prèvert[i] is playing now. I didn’t mean to write to you this morning, I meant to deal with clients and invoices from my bed (no, I’m not a pornstar). I didn’t mean to write to you, I meant to keep playing on Instagram, expanding my network of friends. I didn’t mean to write to you, but I’m trembling. Is this what we call multidimensional living? We can train our brain to choose an object or an entity as a key into another dimension no matter where we are? In my case with Paris, my playlist is my key. It is perhaps not a complete transportation, not physically anyway, but if I close my eyes now I know I will be there, with you, just like that – I can feel it on my skin.

C’est un jour comme un autre[ii], but I do. I do miss you, Paris. I long for you from where I am now, but no longer in a desperate way as I was 9 months ago, before I started living you for the first time. From where I am now, I feel more secure about our relationship. We did it, Paris! Four months of self-discovery (yes it is still possible after thirty) – we fucking did it! I discovered you – your streets and your rain, your music and your arts, your charms and your hunger, your lights and your dark alleyways, your language and your silence, your parties and your loneliness. I discovered you, therefore I discovered myself. I couldn’t have done it without you, Paris, I couldn’t have done it without you.

Constamment je brûle[iii], let me grab my cigarette. It’s taken me some time to evaluate our life together and to feel this secure about not being with you, about not being there, about being back with my family since last Christmas. I get it now, Paris. I think I get it now. All my troubles, all my problems – they seem to have evolved naturally, or have I? Nothing can take my contentment away, and if I am not content, it is only my responsibility to change my point of view.

I have to admit I was rather frustrated when I first set my foot back in blighty, and then I tried to treat it as if it were you. I started wandering to town regularly to have espresso at local cafés despite my sophisticated coffee machine at home. I made it my mission to go out more often and do things together with my family. Prenons le large[iv] indeed! That’s how I gathered myself together and started to see that the children have got bigger and better, the understanding between their father and I have gone to another level – I can finally enjoy my life and it doesn’t matter where I am anymore. Paris, I can finally think of you as part of my life instead of an escape. Who cares if I say je t’aime and you say moi non plus[v], because that is not the point of love, because there is probably no point in our life anyway.

At this point, I long for you to discover more about Dina. And I know she’s half crazy, like Suzanne[vi], but that’s why I want to be there. I know now that all those misunderstandings were because I didn’t understand myself. Now if you still misunderstand me, it’s your loss – I can only do so much. It’s true. I’ve become more selfish and it’s such a breakthrough. I respect myself more and in turn I respect others better – their opinion, their feelings, their individuality. If you haven’t redefined selfishness for yourself, let me redefine it for you—nah, I’m joking, it’s your job. Moi, j’ai deux amours: mon pays et Paris[vii]. I just want to tell you that yes, you can have it all – family life, your dream, instagram followers! You just have to go and get it.

Looking back, I can now smile at how some people convinced me to postpone my dream, my Paris dream, due to my responsibilities. I knew then, and I know now, there will never be the perfect timing for anything because you will always find excuses or seemingly valid reasons not to discover your higher potentials. You just have to breakthrough and every breakthrough will cause chaos. Persevere; balance is coming your way. It’s like when a child who has been learning to swim and one day leaves the float at home by mistake. You can either go back home to get the aid or you can make do with what you’ve got and perhaps you’ll go a step further in your learning. It’s a true-story analogy: my daughter went from kicking with a float to swimming the whole 10 meter length unaided in a day because we left the float at home and chose to go further.

I guess life is like learning to swim and then swimming across the ocean, you should die in the middle of trying to go further, and further.

And further.

And whoever thought it was about pursuing freedom, including myself, I can tell you that it was not it. It was about making the best out of all the inevitable limitations, about being in touch with, and not about overcoming, your strongest feelings – missing your loved ones, fear of being alone, missing your comfort zone, fear of new things and of the parts of yourself that you haven’t seen before. Oui-filles[viii]? It’s your decision.

I would like to thank Isabelle Corre for prepping me to be a true Parisian and for always making sure I was alright from the beginning of Paris idea and through it all; Greg June for being the most honest, most reliable Parisian neighbour, brother, and artistic partner I could ever hope for; Oz (yes, she’s a wizard) for our late night brainstorming sessions that made my genius come out every time I blurred out; Steven Bino Basira  for always being there from far away to support me no matter what; lastly but mostly PNHB, ASHB and KMHB for your immense love and your ability and willingness to learn to understand me and what I do – always.

je t’embrasse,
d.o., le 21 février 2017

———————————————————–

These are some of the songs from my Imagined Paris playlist on Spotify:

[i] La Chanson de Prèvert by Serge Gainsbourg

[ii] Un jour comme un autre by Brigitte Bardot

[iii] Constamment je brûle by Arman Méliès

[iv] Prenons le large by Benjamin Biolay

[v] Je t’aime moi non plus by Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot

[vi] Suzanne (French version) by Alain Bashung

[vii] J’Ai Deux Amours by Madeleine Peyroux

[viii] Oui-filles by Zazie

• Instagram