27 Rue de Remusat

12/31/22 — A quiet countdown, happening simultaneously all around. A short reflection on the infinite possibilities of places, memories, and new beginnings.

Back home, the countdown begins and some place else, 2022 has passed. Everywhere, something is happening. Multitudes are compressed into a single day and I’m right where I’m trying to focus on the one just right in front of me.

So here I an, in a beaten down brown sofa and a scarf wrapped around to keep my warm from the night time breeze coming in from the French windows. The last few orange leaves cling on to the trees and I hear cars pass by with party horns blaring in the distance — signaling the year end and beginning.

The skies are overcast but surprisingly not gloomy. Maybe it’s because of the warm lights of the quaint chandelier and lamps surround me, countering the pale cold blue outside.

I read somewhere that the beauty of landscapes can’t fully be appreciated when thoughts flutter elsewhere. But places do not exist in a vacuum, we will always cast our own glow to what’s been there for ages.

No wonder there is no such as a static space for me. As I found myself wandering the streets of La Merais and the Latin quarters, I also picture split screens of where I am, where I’ve been and what I feel. The journey continuously overlaps and intersects. Saint Chapelle and Sistine merged into one solemn still as soon as I saw the stained glass windows and painted ceilings.

Like a river, everywhere I’ve gone to finds it’s way back into me, where I am. So when I say no place ever starts the same, no person does as well. And when I come back to these places, I wonder who I’ll be then — taking with me, where I’ve gone and who I’ve become. So happy new year, it will be all so new and yet so familiar.