I write this from the infamous café Les Deux Magots, which had been frequented by Hemingway, Picasso, James Joyce, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Oscar Wilde, and Julia Child. This Parisian café in Saint-Germaine-des-Pres has been around since 1812. This is the location I am choosing to complete my final edits for my proposal of my next book and send them to my literary agent. I’ve been working on the proposal for one year, and am feeling confident about this. I’m hoping the old artistic spirits of this establishment will send their creative vibes and support with the last touches, as I push send to my agent.
I can’t help but be compelled to live the cliché of an American writer who dreams to live the idealized Parisian life. This is why I’m here in Paris for the year (or at least one year). It’s a city meant for the act of walking (flaneur), daydreaming (reve), and romanticizing (romancer) how life once was and how life can be. My French visa was approved to begin literally 100 years to the day that Ernest Hemingway moved to this city. I plan to walk in the steps of him and those of the Lost Generation.
I had coffee with a French man yesterday, who warned me that Americans have an idealized romantic view of Paris. “It’s not reality.” He reminded me it’s an expensive city, and is just as glamorous as any other city with the same problems of traffic, dog poop, and endless tourists. This is all true, I cannot disagree. But I can’t help but be lured by the Haussmann architecture that pulls my eye towards the skyline, the passages filled with quaint shops, or the intoxicating smells of fresh croissants at the boulangeries that frequent every block. Yes, it’s cliché and still I’m sold to the American dream of Paris. Perhaps my perspective of Paris will change the longer I live here, but for now I’m still under it’s spell.
I push send and wait for the magic to begin.
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”-Ernest Hemingway
It Only Takes A Smile 