Friday, June 5, 2009
Highs and lows
Taking life as it comes
The past few months have been busy.
Anxiety filled actually.
With a lack of money and for good measure an equal shortage of confidence for my work and vision for the future, I endured.
Through it all I stayed true to my work of the Danish single father of a son and daughter battling demons far more malevolent than I could ever imagine.
His revelations about himself and his trust in me has meant more to me than he'll ever know.
Much of my experience here has been enriched because of him.
I owe him not only these images, but much more.
An experience like not other
From Paris with love...
It's been several weeks since my trip to the city of lights and the experience remains with me, burned into my mind like asphalt on a summer day.
I can still taste the fresh baguette I ate bit by bit walking along the street, passing Parisians in the midst of morning business rituals who were several tailors, a shoe cobbler, furniture makers, flower stores and eateries on my way to the Montmontre cemetery on my last morning.
To walk through and see the cemetery with its unique structures lined one after the other that commemorate the famous and not so famous, linked by cobble stone pathways, flanked occasionally by a whispering willow, draped by its branches, drew a calm solitude over me.
Earlier, when I arrived I was a flurry of anxiety.
However the 18+ hours of travel from Denmark by a series of trains was an experience made the more enjoyable and, little did I know, a prelude to the rest of my journey away from Aarhus.
It felt as though each successive train stop I came closer to a better understanding of Europe, my experience, and myself.
Spending the longest leg of nearly 12 hours with a French Belgian, an Australian (with Danish relatives), and a Canadian (with Dutch relatives), it was just what the doctor ordered to get me on the fast track to a new experience and a new perspective.
I wasn't disappointed.
The places I saw from the usual tourist destinations such as the Effiel Tower to the unique communities that embraced me like a local and the many people I met on my trip coloured my world that cannot be expressed with words.
This is the value of travel that I forgot when my bank account clouded my judgement.
For all the hype that goes along with a city of destination for the common traveller few things have ever lived up to expectation. This was an exception.
It's no wonder why everyone loves Paris.
From the ornate architecture to the beautiful streets that conjure up feelings of passion for art and life, Paris is pure poetry.
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