Paris 2023

I've never been to Paris, but I think I love it. If I could visit anywhere in the world, Paris would be the place. I've had the City of Light on the brain ever since the summer before my freshman year of college when my friend Brooke visited Paris and returned with an album full of beautiful photos, a huge smile on her face, and a print of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" that she purchased for me from a vendor along the Seine.

Lately I've been on a bit of a Paris kick, which was begun by a book called Paris Was Ours, a Christmas present from BJ's parents. The book is a compilation of the reflections of 32 writers who lived as foreigners in Paris for a period of time. In some ways the book is kind of depressing but that's probably because it is an accurate portrayal of a city that is often wildly romanticized. While each of these writers loved Paris for their own unique reasons, the ubiquitous indication from them all is that Paris is wonderful but a tough place to live because the people are so hard and unforgiving. Fortunately for this conversational Oklahoma gal, I never plan to live in Paris!

To continue the Paris theme, a few days before George was born BJ and I rented "Midnight in Paris." I was won over by the theme of the movie and BJ was won over by the critical acclaim and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and neither of us was disappointed. If you haven't seen the film we both highly recommend it, but I'm not giving any insight into the plot because I don't want to give anything away. I will say that the movie was light-hearted while also having philosophical and cultural undertones, and it also had a talented cast.

The title of this post is Paris 2023 because that is the year that I will get to finally see Paris with my own eyes. BJ has promised me that our 20th wedding anniversary, which will be in 2023, will be celebrated in Paris with our boys. It's important to me to include our kids on a trip to a place like Paris because they ought to be able to experience such a place too. We've made quite the habit of taking Silas with us wherever we've gone, and you've seen the state map that he has visited in his 21 months of life.

George won't be far behind since tickets have already been bought to Massachusetts for next month, and we also plan to hit Destin, Florida and Los Angeles again this year (Disneyland, here we come!). I remember that during my college years, one of my closest friends Diana would tell me the tales about the times that her family visited (insert country here...Scotland, England, Italy, etc.), and I was amazed at the places she had seen before she even graduated from high school. I would LOVE for my children to have these same kinds of experiences, which is one reason why I plan to keep working part-time throughout the years, so that we can have the money to do these kinds of things. So, on February 9th we celebrated eight and a half years of marriage...I guess that means we only have 11-1/2 to go before we see the City of Light with our very own eyes.