paris je t'aime

A friend asked me through Skype if Paris Je T'aime did a segment on my arrondissement so he could get a clearer picture of where I lived.

Yes, it would be the Pigalle segment, which features prostitutes and sex clubs, and no, that's not what the place I live looks like at night.

I started watching a few of the segments. It's been years since I've watched that movie.

I remember in highschool, perhaps in 9th grade, while the film was in post production and no one knew about it, I somehow found out about it and became obsessed with it. I searched for every piece of information I could find, and eventually, after several weeks, I was able to track down a few clips. I was thrilled, the way I get when a stroke of inspiration hits me when I'm watching a film or reading a book and suddenly I relate to it in a different way and develop a concrete analysis.

I saw the movie in theaters after I had already found all the segments individually.

Watching the clips, I entered some sort of time warp, and I felt everything I felt when I had first watched them- when I watched it from my bed in LA, before I had ever travelled alone anywhere, I wanted so badly to go to Paris. Similar to how a song that you haven't heard in a long time can evoke sentiments from a particular time in the past. I remember thinking that I hoped one day I would, but knowing myself, I probably wouldn't because I'd be too scared to do it. Paris seemed like another world, beautiful, delightful, intimidating. I felt all of this while in my bed in Paris, and the next moment I shifted back to my current state- how strange it is to be watching something and feeling your hopes and your wishes to be doing the thing you are doing right now- I'm in Paris. I made it. Despite what I used to think, I did it. It almost all happened almost accidentally too.

I hoped that I would one day be able to understand the french spoken in the segments. And now I can. I felt young and old, both at the same time, and that bridge that manifested became a basis of comparison so I could clearly see how much I've overcome, how much I've changed, and how much progress I've made. Being stuck with yourself all the time- it's easy to lose track of all your changes when you experience them day to day- easy to think you've not gone anywhere when you're not traveling from point A to point D but from point A to B, B to C, and C to D.