Field Notes from France: The Art of Arrival

— Paris —

I see Paris as a giant art gallery. Everywhere you look, there’s something worth framing — a sculpture tucked into a courtyard, the curve of a balcony, a shadow across limestone. Every visit, I half expect to get whiplash from trying to take it all in.

The more you look, the more you notice. The more you notice, the more you feel time — as if each minute stretches open. Time expands when we pay attention. Minutes feel fuller.

We had fourteen days in France, and five of them were spent getting from one city to the next. Even so, three nights in one place felt like a week. Maybe time didn’t slow down. Maybe I did.

Straight off the red-eye from Toronto — four hours of broken sleep, woken by a crying baby and the rhythmic kick of the seat behind me. There’s a strange determination that comes at the start of a trip; otherwise, I’d never have had that much patience. I thought the flight would be the hardest part. I was wrong.

We caught an Uber to our home for the next four nights in the Marais. If only it could be that easy.

Paris, of course, isn’t just a city of art — it’s a city of protest. And there were a few underway. Our driver hit every dead end of blocked streets before finally giving up. With the subway also shut down, we’d have to walk.

“Five minutes,” he said.
It wasn’t.

Backpack on my front and back, baby pink carry-on trailing behind me over cobblestones, I met my first obstacle: a wall of military guards. “Seriously?” I muttered as they checked my bags. One look at the overstuffed zippers, a brief search, and the guard waved me through — probably out of mercy.

You have to do uncomfortable things to reach good places — that’s what I kept telling myself while weaving through crowds who had zero interest in making space for a jet-lagged traveler hauling her life in two backpacks. Twenty minutes later, sweaty and stubborn, we looked left — just in time to see the protest, fifty meters away.

“RUN!” my husband yelled.
“F••k-idy, F••k, F**k, F**k!” I gasped, instantly fluent in “French.”

I’ve never been more grateful for cardio. Travel isn’t supposed to be easy.

Anthony Bourdain once said, “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts… but the journey changes you.”

That morning, it did. Paris greeted us not with croissants and café music, but with chaos — and somehow, it made arriving even more real. You can’t truly arrive somewhere without being shaken awake first.

When we finally dropped our luggage and sat at a nearby café, that first sip of beer tasted like arrival itself — earned, not given.

Travel reminds you that comfort isn’t the goal. Presence is.
The city slowed me down long enough to notice the art in its unrest — the rhythm in its noise, the patience it demanded.

Maybe that’s the gift of Paris: it teaches you to pay attention, whether you want to or not.

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This story is part of my travel series, Field Notes from France, where I share moments and impressions that inspire my paintings. Next up: another note from Paris, before the journey continues south.