Abigail à Paris
Le Mur des Je t'aime, Montmartre, Paris, FR
I wasn't able to attend the Print Swap Exhibit because I was in Paris.
Yes. I finally made the trip and it was worth it.
All work and no play affects works. Paris was a gift to myself. The splurge on the ticket was worth the convenience in check-in, going through TSA, and all the legroom in the Premium Cabin. Not to mention the meals on the plane were actually… good. I was paid back with affordable food while on vacation, some freebies and random acts of kindness from Parisians.
There's a charm to the city. Despite how laid back the French are, you can tell there's always something going on. There's an electric energy that even I, as a lifelong New Yorker, was overcome with. I never once felt overwhelmed but there were moments after traversing the winding streets and alleys and emerging on vast plazas and roundabouts that I was stopped in my tracks. The people, the traffic, the motorcycles and scooters, the sirens, the historic architecture housing all this present-day and futuristic activity - it was spellbinding! I stood at Place Charles De Galle and in the middle of the Champs-Élysées a lot longer than is probably healthy watching the organized chaos of the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe. I'll be complete when I'm able to ride around it like Tom Cruise did in Mission Impossible.
Here’s a handful of my favorite photos I took in the City of Lights:
On my first night in Paris, my friend took me to Shakespeare and Company. Almost ten years ago, the first edition of my book, The Darker Side of Lust, was sold at that bookstore. I was finally at the bookstore in Paris where my work had been. We went upstairs to the second floor and sat for a while to warm up and do some people watching.
Who can’t see me sitting by this window writing my latest book?
I will return to Paris in 2019. I took photos of Paris. On my next trip, I will take photos in Paris - photos of couples, photos of artists, photos of men - all the work I'm producing in the US, it's time to do that work and more in Paris too.
