Paris, je t'aime

Et puis, quelquechose est arrivé, quelquechose difficile de décrire. Assise là et être seule dans un pays étrangé, loins de mon travail, et de tous les gens que je connais, un sentiment est venue a moi. C'était comme si je me souvenais de quelquechose que je n'ai jamais connu ou que j'avais attendu toujours. Mais je n'ai savais pas quoi. Peut-être c'était quelquechose que j'avais oublié ou quelquechose qui ma manquais tout ma vie. Seulement je peux vous dire que j'ai senti à même temps la joie et la tristesse. Mais pas trop tristesse. Parce que je me sentais vivante. Oui, vivante. ça c'était le moment que j'ai commencé à aimer Paris et le moment que j'ai senti que Paris m'aimais aussi.

"And then something happened, something that is hard to describe. Sitting there alone in a foreign country, far from my job and all the people I knew, a feeling came over me. As if I recalled something, something that I had never known and for which I had been waiting. But I didn't know what it was. Maybe it was something I had forgotten. Or something I had missed my whole life. I can only tell you that at the same time I felt joy and sadness. But not a great sadness. Because I felt alive. Yes. Alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris and the moment that I felt that Paris had fallen in love with me."

Occasionally there's a film that sticks with you, and this is my most recent. Scenes of Paris, strung together by the unifying theme of love, and not just the typical romance. The quote above was one of my favorites. There's such a beauty and truth in the simultaneous expression of joy and sadness. Life. Opposition. Complexity. Beauty. Hurt. Hope. Experience. Love.

What a beautiful thing it is to actually live. To feel.

~La vie, je t'aime~