newness in mess

tangled musings about summer, artist dates, and ee cummings

im about to have an amazing week. (june 21, 2025 09:41)

we just celebrated the summer solstice.

the sunrise was at the earliest, and the sunset at its latest. i’m hoping it was the hottest it will be this summer, but i doubt it.

i’ve actually been here, in a similar kind of moment, before.

my first time in paris was during a study abroad program in the summer of 2017. we were here for the solstice then, too. i learned facts about french history that i have since forgotten, and read lots of 18th century theater. temperatures hit all-time records. i remember arguing with my host mom about why i couldn’t use the one fan in the apartment even though i was sleeping in a bunk bed with not great air circulation.

it was hot, and i was lonely, and i didn’t feel right in my body, and i was always busy but never fully satisfied. i had a weird time adjusting, and having to be independent in new ways. i was worried about making sure i was doing things “right.” i had loved speaking and reading french for most of my conscious life, but never quite had the romantic dream of living in paris. and yet i found myself immersed in it, trapped in the heat dome.

our trip to the loire valley during the program was a highlight. i think about this dessert often.

i tripped on several “should” traps. the should-ness of needing to have a liberal arts study abroad experience. the should-ness that apparently every little girl dreamed of walking around with baguette in a tote bag through the Jardins de Luxembourg (i was not like the other girls). the should-ness of needing to get back to the US obsessed and totally changed.

instead, i came back confused, and left wanting something more. i didn’t want to come back. but little did i know that it would take me just shy of a decade to get my bearings.

i just found my blog from that summer actually. in looking at it for the first time since 2017, it’s quite charming to read about how i saw myself as a “cautious” person and how the stupidest little things were part of the journey toward soothing the anxiety creature within me.

things that used to make me anxious now just feel like inconveniences, and that feels like growth. (june 20, 2025 07:38)

i have been thinking a lot about why this june feels different from june 2017, or the many junes before it. i have always struggled in summer, and last summer was especially hard. i keep circling around my feelings that summer, and why it has taken me so long to feel the love for paris that other people seemed to find so easily. i think i just felt stuck in a way that im unlearning now. im realizing how much i refused to let myself have fun, both that summer and throughout so much of my life so far.

to date, one of the best photos i have ever taken, from the evening of fete de la musique in 2017.

this summer feels more magical, and special, and beautiful.

most days have felt like artist dates, and that sort happened by accident. i haven’t woken up and said “today is going to be an artist date” before going out and moving through the world to do things like:

• taking a Monday off to visit the Parc Floral, where i wandered around, made crappy doodles in my sketchbook, and dreamed of planting miniature fairy gardens on the mossy bases around the bonsai.

• i spent a saturday gossiping with a friend as we sipped matcha and trawled through independent bookstores.

• i had a solo lunch date after church one sunday simply because i had no plans and wanted veggie lamen and spicy cucumber salad.

• i have been more disciplined about doing my archival trips, and even though i haven’t found exactly what i wanted, i have been showing up for my work, and liz gilbert would be proud of me for telling the universe “I’M HERE AND OPEN TO RECEIVING INSPIRATION AND IDEAS AND VALIDATION PLS SEND THEM MY WAY.”

i’ve just allowed myself to do my work for the day, and to spend the rest of the day being curious. isn’t that what julia cameron wanted for us anyway?

paris is such an easy city for artist dates.

i’m not talking about the city thing of there being so much to do all the time, or about how there is always some new shiny thing to try or see or experience. that helps, but that’s not where the everyday joy is found.

things that would have annoyed the crap out of me in the US — public transit wait times, having to put on real clothes, spending money — simply don’t bother me as much. being “inconvenienced” by those things means that i just accept that things requires investing time and energy and finances, and means i just have more chances to practice moving mindfully throughout my life.

we all crave that sense of connectedness to community, and action is the way we get there. (june 10, 2025 08:53)

i love that you’re not insulting anyone by getting an espresso and sitting for hours to do a crossword puzzle or people-watch or read. and once you get tired of that table, you can get up and walk as long as you want to find another place, and then you can visit with your neighbor or childhood friend somewhere else down the street, and then take a short metro ride home and go to sleep knowing that you were part of the world that day. the flaneur life may be a stereotype, but it is also so real.

being out in the city makes you see that there is an attention to detail that is productive and inspired, rather than being tied to the obsessiveness of hustle culture: antiquarian bookstores everywhere, pops of jewelry donning people’s fingers, small pockets of nature and parks that are safe (and generally clean). it’s about beauty and care, not perfection.

the culture here is such that you can prioritize slowness in the everyday. taking your time also foster the intimacies that lead to creativity, confidence, community, critical thinking. and i have let that magic rub off on me. running the marathon really changed things in that respect.

i have just felt so much more…connected to myself, to community.

hung out in this plant store before the saturday easter vigil at the cathedral. lost track of time. but loved it.

on solstice dat, i celebrated Fete de la Musique for the first time since my study abroad year. in 2017, i went with people who i never felt fully seen by, and we walked aimlessly with no plan and no goal for the evening. the night ended with me arriving home way too late before my early morning alarm to head to the train that would take us to giverny. i was miserably tired, and don’t remember much from that day.

but this year i got to sing my last evensong at the cathedral that has welcomed me in all year, and that has helped me remember that i still love choral singing. afterwards, i went out with a friend who’s navigated graduate school with me from afar and who i’m honored to call a colleague. we wandered around aimlessly with no plan, but with the goal of feeling something, of laughing a little, and finding interesting bits of music that made our musicology brains sparkle a little.

you will be able to have your dream life, and i am here as proof that it may not be the things you expect, and it may not happen when you expect it to. your life will be beautiful BECAUSE it is imperfect, and because it is messy. your life is beautiful, cana…. your life was beautiful because of its mess, and your life will be even more beautiful because you allow yourself to chase that sense of newness in mess. you are perfect because you are growing and because you are here. (may 04, 2025: entry from an Inspired Collective session)

i left my house that night knowing that i am a grown woman who makes her own choices without feeling as “cautious” as she used to.

and when i think about leaving paris in 12 days, i feel quite content, if also not quite ready to leave this piece of me behind. i have done good work here, both dissertation-related and otherwise. so much has happened inside that im only now tasting, touching, seeing, hearing, breathing…

there are many more thoughts to come. but for now, i’m preparing to leave the city with the knowledge that i did something here, that i am becoming someone new and that i love her. :)