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I’m looking at you, Paris. I’ve been walking with you through your jazz nights and my solitary sleeps, your red sky and your wet streets, and I’ve been running in the dark every single morning except for today. Today I went running around nine for I came back from a DJ set full of gen-Z’s in Pigalle to my wonderfully understanding hosts just before four.

I’m looking at you, Paris. Last Sunday I decided I wanted you and myself too, and the consulate returned my British passport, two days after my document submission, in time for my filming schedule in Paris, which has to be done before Christmas, with my first French long stay visa on it. I’m slightly sorry I had to test everyone like that, but I’m guessing you wanted me too—me and myself, who I cannot lose over anything?

I’m looking at you—are we still seeing each other eye to eye? Can you see that I have grown? I know now that I’m not lost, that I have never been lost. I am one who doesn’t stop seeking, seeking my growth, my expansion; I am one who doesn’t stop becoming, and what a heck of a person have I become!

I’m looking at you—have you grown with me, Paris? Is that you allowing me to relax about not knowing what I’m going to do, or even where I’m going to live, come the new year? I’m here right now and I’m practicing my art; I’m writing and I’m acting again—I’m acting in Paris again! My daughter can hardly cope with how cool her ibu is! Well, maybe she can, but I still ‘eat’.

I’m looking at you, Paris, and I’m satisfied with you the way you are now even though my seeking nature cannot help but imagine a certain version of you, in my vision, from where I am looking at you now. I’ve been asked what happens when I’m finally one with Paris. First of all, I’ve always been one with Paris: I am ‘parisian partout’! Secondly, there will always be Imagined Paris, for there will never be a finished version of you, for there will never be a finished version of me, for as long as I live.

I’m looking at you, Paris. My pains have brought me to you—all the heartbreaks, all the betrayals, all the deceptions, all the losses, my childhood sufferings, that have fuelled my poetry and my immense love for this world have brought me face to face with you. Now as equals; now two free entities who love themselves and want to be with each other because they accept each other’s values and inspire growth in one another.

I’m looking at you, Paris. I’m surrounded by music and by artists, whether here or in London, where I’m going back to tonight. I expect it will be the same wherever I go now. I’m surrounded by the sure knowledge about myself. I’m looking at you looking back at me, and I’m loving what I see.

paris, le 21 decembre 2025

je t’embrasse!

d.o.