A Creative Awakening in Paris

Are you a Creative? If you are, then you’ll know that feeling a lack of inspiration can be crushing. If too, you have been following my writing on my move to Seville, you may also know that this has been a time of getting lost, sinking into the ground, and now a rising in which I was determined to reclaim my days of ‘burning sunlight’ in depression.

In Spanish, they have a word to describe your appetite for doing something, it’s called ‘ganas’, you can have ganas to see someone, for example, to finish work, or to lose yourself in your favourite hobby. I love this word, because it perfectly describes different versions of my state of mind. When I was depressed, I had no ganas to do anything, not even the things I loved or that I feel make me ‘me’, and so, even when the clouds cleared, I struggled reclaiming my ganas. My ganas to write my own book, to travel, to type up my travel blogs that were so overdue it was painful.

I had taken a few weekend trips away from Seville. They were good trips that offered me a needed distance from the city, and little pockets of experiences that made me smile and feel. But still, I found myself clutching at my creativity, feeling far from my dreams, and defeated by the ever-present summer heat.

Paris and I have history. I have an ex that lives there, an eternal love in the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Co, and the bitter taste of racist exchanges that still sit with me in my locker room of ‘baggage’. And so, when I started to get a niggly feeling to go there, I thought, but why? I wasn’t against it, but surprised that my mind felt it was the place I should travel to next.

After this, of course, Shakespeare and Co kept popping up on my social network feeds, Paris was brought up in conversation by others, and finally, one weekend I decided to re-watch the Before trilogy, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy, directed by Richard Linklater.

Before Sunset is the second in the trilogy; it is my favourite in fact, and would you believe it, is set in Paris. When the opening scene consisted of Ethan Hawke’s character having a book reading in Shakespeare and Co, I think I actually smiled and said to myself, okay already, I’ll go!

Midnight in Paris + Paris Syndrome

As many times as I have visited Paris before, I am still somehow unprepared for emerging at Gare du Nord station at night. Fresh from scenes of Before Sunset, and even Midnight in Paris, I realised I had replaced real memories with fantasies of Paris, but as I left the station on a quest for my hostel I didn’t feel like I was in a fantasy at all. In actuality, my senses were attacked by a strong smell of pee, and had a faint warning in my head that I wasn’t very safe walking the streets alone at this hour. Still I powered on through the city, alert, and soothed by the neon lights I had seen in the movies. Red, green, blue – I wondered if they were code for the type of activities that happened inside.

My walk was plagued by an eagerness to reach my hostel, as I kept my eyes away from strangers I encountered many homeless people tucked away into corners of the city. I noted each one as I always do, making sure they are still breathing, it’s a weird habit I picked up years ago. I guess my way, of keeping in touch with my humanness. I thought of ‘Paris Syndrome’ my roommate had told me about it one day when we were making beds in the hostel I used to live in, it sounded like a joke at the time. But it is in fact a real thing:

Paris syndrome is a transient mental disorder exhibited by some individuals when visiting or going on vacation to Paris, as a result of extreme shock derived from their discovery that Paris is not what they had expected it to be. Some of the symptoms include hallucinations, anxiety, and derealisation – just to name a few.

I think about how Paris is marketed and the contrast of my current settings, and I am not surprised. Although on this walk home I have picked up a fondness for seeing the lights reflect on across the jet-black water. I know Paris is not perfect, but I don’t know a person who is either. I keep that thought with me and decide I will wait for my trip to end before I make my final verdict on the famous city.

Falling back in Love with Literature – a literary tour

It was a Wednesday and day 3 of my trip. The tour was called ‘Paris through the Hemingway’s eyes’ and it was the story of Hemmingway’s life while living in Paris and the people who defined it. My guide, Olga, helped me add colour to the previously grey streets of Paris in my mind, and with every anecdote, coloured in the corners of why people – specifically artists – love Paris so much. There may be an element of nicheness to my delight at the tour. I had studied American literature at university, and there she was literally telling me about where Joyce’s Ulysses was published, who Gertrude Stein was friends with, and Hemmingway’s’ relationship with the original owner of the aforementioned bookstore: Shakespeare and Co.

“They were friends? No way!”

“Yes” she told me. “Don’t you remember? Hemmingway says it in A Moveable Feast.”

My blank face gives me away.

“You haven’t read A Moveable Feast?” Her eyes tell me how much of a crime this is, she points to me and says “homework”.

I scramble for the note section on my phone and say I will buy it (I do by the way).

It’s a simple concept, but one that’s easy to miss when traveling or in life, I was missing the context of things, and it was why I was so meh about Paris previously. Suddenly I knew the reason for the importance of this street, the meaning of why a text was significant. I was curious to know more and knew the answers would be in books: old friends of mine who I love to visit. Win.

I’m not great at remembering to take photos of myself when travelling but Olga was the perfect reminder. From time to time she would ask me: would you like a photo here?” It prompted a chat about popular ‘Instagram tours’, Paris Syndrome, and more. The contents of which I won’t disclose, but I’ll just say how delightful it was as a solo traveller, to spend time with such an interesting young woman. She dropped me at a good place to get lunch to finalize our tour. As soon as she was out of sight, I reached for a pen and my notebook. I had so much to say, and the sun was shining hard on Paris this September afternoon.

It had been my favourite day in Paris so far. It was a history lesson on the greats, it was the piquing of curiosity about something I hadn’t cared about before, it was revealing of colour I was missing on the canvas. You can book the tour ‘Paris through the Hemingway’s eyes’ by Olga here. Price: €40.00.

 

Getting the creative juices flowing – a perfume-making class

I am standing in a very white room, and six people are sitting at an L-shaped bar. With bad timing, this is the day I move between the Generator Hostel and my Airbnb, and so I arrive at my destination, five minutes late, flustered because I have my large Osprey backpack strapped to my back and my daypack on my front. I rush to the bathroom to freshen up. When I emerged I am pleasantly surprised. I thought the class would be in someone’s house, but this is her own shop and lots full of whites and pastel pinks and fragrances. It is all very chic.

The name of the session is Become a Perfumer’s Apprentice: Create your own perfume. After an introduction learning some really interesting facts about natural and synthetic scents, and that you have to know 1500 scents to be a perfumer. I am enamoured by a sense of expertise and craftsmanship that it takes to have this title. I ask her if she knows what is inside of my favourite fragrance. Suitably my favourite fragrance is called ‘La Vie est Belle’ by French brand Lancôme. She happily indulges me and starts searching to find the answer for me. It turns out she doesn’t have all of the ingredients I need but I decide to apply what I can to the fragrance I make today.

In my class I make small talk with the other people, and we get cheap thrills by strong-smelling scents and a test where we have to ‘guess the fragrance’ (we’re all collectively quite bad at it). As we near the end of our class it is time to write down our formula. Justine helps review your formula:

“That will be very sweet are you sure?”

And so you change your scribble.

“How’s that?”

“Should be okay”

The container for your fragrance is a classic bottle blue. It pretty large and this in itself seems worth the money spent on the class. My final fragrance is slightly sweeter than I would have liked but I warm to it after my third spray. Before we leave Justine’s class we’re asked to name the perfume. I name mine ‘Serendipity’, one, because I love the word, and two because it sums up trips like this one, where everything seems to work out by chance. I hope my decision to name my new perfume this will be some sort of magic that I can take back to my day-to-day-life in Seville. I’ll let you know how that goes.

You can book Become a Perfumer’s Apprentice: Create your own perfume with Justine, here. Price: €39.00.

 

Adding colour to the canvas – a painting and illustration class

Sitting in Etienne’s studio, half an hour into the class, I smile to myself. He moves around the studio like a bumblebee, and openly admits:

“I didn’t clean this the last time I was here I need to quickly do that”… “Why don’t I have enough cups?” Then segues into stories on Monet, and more characters that I don’t know. I’m struggling to keep up.

The smile is because I realise I have booked a class with an artist, not a professional teacher and I love it. He even admits, mid of his ramblings, “I’m talking too much about this” and I believe my classmates alongside me agree, but nevertheless he continues and I laugh in my head.

Etienne is a good teacher. He teaches us about methods of previous artists and again adds context to Monet’s work – encouraging us to apply it to our task for today.

We’re drawing two apples and I have never drawn or painted before.

But nevertheless I am excited. He guides us through, step by step. I listen to him intently, trying not to let my brain or what I think is right to override. He tells us don’t be perfect here! No detail, that comes later! Things that push against my intuition, but I trust in his expertise.

As some point, nearing the end of class he says to me, you seem to be a little frustrated with yourself, but in a minute I am going to show you your work and I think you will be surprised. It seems ridiculous, as of course I was already looking at my work. But as he grabs everyone’s painting and backs away from us, he reveals each person’s work one by one. One, everyone’s was completely different which was quite beautiful in a way, two they were all really good.

It was a lesson on perspective, patience, and trusting in the experts. You can book ‘Paint in a studio with an artist’ with Etienne here. Price: €24.00.

 

The next chapter

I have to end this creative awakening story on a page titled Shakespeare and Co. I have previously written about this place but I feel revisiting it is a good way to round up my experience tapping into my creativity again.

I am sitting on a stool, on the second floor of the bookstore. Although it is not specified, I understand that this is a silent room. It reminds of the silence of a church, the moment before the priest starts speaking when you are asked to pray. It’s silent but the air is heavy – you can feel it. A cat lives here. And it seems only in this room. There are signs not to pet her. This is additionally fascinating because the door is wide open. I have a sensation that as we are bound to silence in this room, she is magically linked to the room. I sit there and just watch her for what feels like forever.

I let my mind play out like a story, making observations about her movements, envying her. She moves between old books, book of which make the space feel even more chapel-like. They are all a faint yellow colour, and I have the idea that the people who wrote them were all serious writers, who treated their writing with the respect it deserved. How I needed to be. I stay there for 10 minutes, which for a city girl, is a long time to stay still. When I reflect on this in hindsight I think I may have been paying my respects to them in a way. When I decide to leave I get up very slowly, not wanted to contribute any loud noises to the room.

I decide to go to find some books to take home with me. The first is easy: A Moveable Feast. Then, I want something on writing, to help me write my first novel. I get into a conversation with one of the workers that goes beyond formalities. He gets frank with me.

“To be honest, all of these books on writing say the same thing, write every day, read a lot, you know? If you want maybe take this one (How Fictions Works, by James Wood), I really loved reading it. It doesn’t necessarily tell you the rules but it’s an analysis of many classics and why they worked. Through this you may learn what you want”

I explain that I was looking for more of manual on things like, how not to create 2D characters, and he nods “I completely understand what you are looking for. You could also purchase something like this or this, but being honest, you don’t need need it; I don’t think Shakespeare was reading books on how to write.”

The statement instills me with confidence. And I understand that I don’t necessarily need all these tools in order to create a good novel. Skill is skill, and do I believe my writing is a natural talent of mine? I do. I must only practice; and read more in general to get better.

As he is tilling up my three items, A Moveable Feast, How Fiction Works and a notebook, he continues his advice.

“You know what? Just take your favourite book, what is it?”

“Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Shadow of the Wind”

“Re-read it. Because that’s something similar to what you want to create, and you’ll be fine.” It makes so much sense to me. I glance up at the Shakespeare and Co tote bag, “how much is that again?” his colleague says “10 euro” at the same time that he says, “free, because you’re writing a book”.

I experience a rush of emotion from the understanding from him and feel the tears start to coat my eyes. Thank you I say, looking him in the eye. This exchange happened on my final evening in Paris.

I write this blog, two weeks after returning from Paris, and I couldn’t be happier that I decided to take this trip. It’s funny that it came as a random thought to me, and then ended up being a catalyst for creativity that I had been longing for, and the trip that finally made me agree with the rest of rosy-eyed tourists: I love Paris, too.

In the forward for Hemmingway’s A Movable feast, it talks about the title. It comes from a remark made by the man himself, to another man named Aaron Hotchner.

It says “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” I like it because it echoes my sentiments of this trip, and like the book that I clutch when I get a moment of quiet, or the fragrance that I liberally spray on myself in the morning, this gift of a creative awakening in Paris will stay with me despite my departure from this magical city.

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