A Writer's Paris

This is a book that's almost constantly laid open on my table top. 

Photo by Capturing Paris.  

Written by psychologist and creativity coach, Eric Maisel, A Writer's Paris is as much a meditation on living life and being alive as it is about coming to Paris to write. And also about not being in Paris to write.

As I type this, it's been about six weeks since I left Paris and I'm only beginning to shake off my post holiday blues.  This is what Maisel says about writing about Paris when one is NOT in Paris:

“…access the Paris already inside of you…There is a Paris-of-the-mind made up of a thousand stories, a million images communicated in books and movies.  It is available to you right now…I have Paris even when I’m not there.  But when I’m there, it’s hard to leave her”.

Dear Paris:

Dear Paris,

When my heart broke, it was your beauty and your endurance that helped me to find my own hope. 

Spring flowers in front of the Hotel Biron, Musee Rodin.  Photo (c) Capturing Paris.

I came back to see you and you gathered me close.

For precious days, you left me to idle on your bridges, to wander the rooms of your museums and to gaze at your golden domes.  

I gently touched your spring-time flowers as I walked your streets.  It had been a long time since I had felt so safe and free.    

You helped me to start to dream again, Paris.

I don’t know what magic you possess - but I’m grateful to have been touched by it.

Here I go, out to sea again
The sunshine fills my hair
And dreams hang in the air
...there's magic everywhere

Look at me standing 
Here on my own again 
Up straight in the sunshine 

No need to run and hide 
It's a wonderful, wonderful life 
No need to lie or cry 
It's a wonderful, wonderful life.

Wonderful Life - Black 

Welcome to Capturing Paris

Welcome to Capturing Paris 

View toward the Eiffel Tower and dome of the Invalides at sunset from near Place Saint Michel, Paris.  Photo (c) Capturing Paris

Were this a status update on Facebook, I’d disclose to you that my relationship with Paris is ’complicated’.  

I’ve spent my adult life living, working, dreaming, photographing and writing about Venice.  She and I go back a long way.    

I’ve been cold in Venice.   
I’ve been homesick and alone there.  
I’ve celebrated birthdays in Venice in almost every decade that I’ve been alive.  
I’ve overcome some of my greatest professional challenges in Venice.  

I know her language, I’m familiar with her curves and her corners, with her moods and her sometimes frighteningly deserted darkness.  

We’ve been part of each for so long that I feel a little bit like I’m cheating on a long-time love, on an ageing but still beautiful muse.  

I’m literally at the beginning of my love affair with Paris, the part of the story when Paris is so shiny and so new.…and just so pretty.

…But I'm beginning to realise that the heart is expansive and that love can be infinite.  

…So maybe I can fall for Paris and remain faithful to my first beloved.  

Welcome to Capturing Paris.  Thank you for keeping me company as I wander and write.   


A moment of love 
A dream 
A laugh 
A kiss 
A cry 
Our rights 
Our wrongs
A moment of love 
A dream 
A laugh 
A moment of love 
Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap