But Paris is a place like any, I try to tell myself, and if I were in Rome or Prague I’d be telling myself that same thing. It’s not so much the geography as it is the psychology, my mindset while abroad and the quixotic notions of what life might be like, if a plane ticket in hand, a ratty threadbare bag, and a journal full of preconceived notions under my arm, were the only necessities in taking the plunge of expatriation. 

But somehow Paris is different.

Its tale of adventure is more intoxicating when the words whispered in your ear tinged with a French accent. Paris one of the few places where dreams seem convincingly possible. And really, you have only to look back to others who’ve done them to see that what seems possible is most likely probable if you just dive in and worry about learning how to swim when you’re finally wet.

Taking the plunge, though, taking the chance, risking it all, is a life choice that is buried deep somewhere in all of our minds. The thought is terrifying and exhilarating all in one garbled mess of poor language and cultural faux pas.

It’s not easy to think of pulling over to the side of the road and watching traffic pass you for a while as turn your map upside down, close your eyes and trust a simple point of the finger to get you where you need to go. Paris therefore isn’t really about needing to go somewhere, but being compelled to go everywhere.

As the famous old foreign correspondent saying goes, “it’s time to leave a place when you can’t see the palm trees,” and for me, I’ve not noticed the trees at home in years, much less ones of a particular variety. Yet Paris in autumn is covered with leaves, of every species and every possibility. With a little wind, and a little rain, the paths are covered over, and map in hand, all I must do is pick a direction.

There may be no better place to follow that passion than the City of Light, for it's a beautiful, chestnut-scented reminder of everything we hope to become. 

In this beautiful place our possibility is only a measure of how deep we might dream if given a lifetime within in its walls. 

Now, everyone writes about Paris. Everyone fancies the city enough to imagine living there, and there is plenty of literature out there recounting the lives of people who’ve done so. What’s not missing in all that is the result, what’s absent is the reason. 

Anyone can put pen to paper and tell you how wonderful living in Paris is, what they rarely tell you of are the decisions and sacrifices they made, and the chances they took to reach that point.

So what we’ve been doing, my companion and I, is cooking and eating, enjoying the slow life of food and the company hovering above it.  Whether in long dinner parties, or lounging in Bistros, where, when decent French is used, one may be left to linger at their own pace. In the parks over picnics we discuss the merits of how a slower pace really means a longer life. I’m used to thinking of these things as unattainable, merely a fanciful period of vacation when you live how you think you might if given the chance. This, however, is the reality of life in Paris and it takes a bit of decompression to realize this city is what reality can be if you take the chance to make it so. That doesn’t mean abandoning work and adult responsibility, merely the shackles that cause you to perpetually define your life by them.