Rushing through Paris

Having completed a three-and-a-half hour walking tour of the entire city, followed by a quick jaunt to opera house, the recovery of a lost beret, a brief stop for cheese and wine, and then three-and-a-half more hours in the Louvre, I was surprisingly awake as I rode the metro Tuesday morning. I reached my stop, scurried along the platform, down the street and off toward my next stop, eating breakfast as I did. It was my last day in Paris, and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to cram everything I could into it.

I ran through my mental checklist: Eiffel Tower – check, Arc de Triumph – check, Notre Dame – check, Sainte Chapelle – check, Sacre Couer – check, river cruise – check, the colonnade of the Palais Royale – check, eat crepes – check, consume baguette – check, devour croissant – check,. And then I heard the train – my train – the train headed for Versaille - approaching from the other side of the platform. I was off toward the stairs, my feet picking up pace until they were moving as quickly as the thoughts in my head. Just as I was trying to decide whether I should spend the evening admiring the names on the graves in the Pantheon or touring the grounds of the Luxembourg Gardens my foot missed a step. And then another step. And then a whole flight of steps. For a brief moment I was airborne before landing on the smooth gray pavement of the metro.

I didn’t get up. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t pick up my thoughts or the loose change that had dislodged during my trip down the steps. I just sat there, rather dumbfounded by what had just happened. The train took off without me.

A few moments later I picked myself up, checked for bruises, and headed in the direction of the platform. Another train would be by in less than ten minutes. As I waited for it to arrive I reflected on what I was doing in Paris. It was a dream really. A dream that started forming around the age of ten, the first time I saw Audrey Hepburn in the movie Sabrina. That dream was fueled by other movies, and by books and photos and stories. I wanted Paris, and I wanted all of it. But in my attempt to fill every minute of my day with every inch of the city I lost sight of what it takes to really enjoy something. I forgot how to stop.

That afternoon as I ate my lunch in the gardens of Versaille I reflected on the fact that I had become so fixated on doing and seeing Paris, that I wasn’t really experiencing the city. I can come up with plausible reasons for having a “busy week,” or a “busy month,” or a “busy schedule;” but a busy vacation? A busy time in which my schedule is mine to scrap or keep or don whatever I want with? Yes. It sounds ridiculous, but I do this. All the time. I fill my life with as much as possible in my attempts to have the kind of “full and abundant life” that I believe I will get if I have enough "life experiences".

But if you really want a life that is full with the things I wish my life were full of (peace, space, contentment), you can’t create a schedule, spreadsheet or list of objectives that will allow you to go about attaining it. It requires space and time. It requires scheduling absolutely nothing and leaving that space open. I have come to believe that really experiencing people, places, and life in general requires making time to sit and admire a tree in the same way you would watch the ocean or stare at a camp fire. Summer affords many of us more unstructured space than we typically have. The challenge for me is to keep myself from filling it.