London > Paris

I just returned from a beautiful weekend visiting Chris, Dana and the kids in London. It is so crazy and so exciting that, after 15 years, I will be living within a couple hours of my brother again. And now he has an incredible family that is also my family.

On the train ride home, I had strangest sense of comfort and familiarity—mingled with a heightened self-awareness I think you only feel when you travel alone or move somewhere by yourself.

It was so familiar as I have taken so many Sunday night train rides back to the city. It's always so nice: you have your snack and reading material, reflect on the weekend and look forward to the workweek, and have no choice but to relax and enjoy the ride. But at the end of the line, pulling into the station, it was always New York. Now, even if it’s only for six months, Paris is my home. The jostling and schlepping at the end of the ride thrusts me in the middle of a foreign city that is filled with different sounds, patterns, people, habits and light.

Which brings up that unique sense of heightened awareness: about your surroundings and also what’s going through your mind. It’s so liberating and exciting to have no routine and so few obligations right now. Everything is so fresh and new. Anything is possible. I love this feeling that everything is forming around me. It’s like sculpting or painting when it’s only possible to shape or form these impressions at the very beginning. As time goes on, the magic of being so aware and receptive will fade and everything will be ordinary again. I’ll still love Paris, but I’ll never see it with these same eyes.