Ma vie m'appartient

To appreciate freedom, one must have known constraint.

And we all have known constraints. It’s only a matter of degree as to how heavy they are and who imposes them. There are the shackles I place on myself, and there are others that I permit to be attached by society, friends, and obligations. Much of the load I carry is born of an overinflated sense of responsibility. There’s a sense, born largely in fear, that I must do these things—that if I stop, my world would crumble. And it might well fall apart, and it might even be a good thing that it falls apart.

To escape from this prison — and yes, I will use that word, however uncomfortable it sits — I must first admit to being in one. Admittedly this is a wonderfully comfortable prison, nevertheless, I feel terribly confined. I feel as though I am not living fully as I simply execute my daily list of obligations.

What would my life look like if I took a break from it all? What if I stepped away from this life, at least temporarily, to see what another life might look like?

My worries, such as they are, do not have a unique weight of their own. I alone exaggerate or diminish them. And whatever lies nearby touches me more deeply than that which is far away. I know I cannot escape them completely, but I can take a break from them.

I have come to believe that only one thing can save me from the weight of these attachments: distance. An exterior distance that, if well-structured and embraced, could open an interior one. Because this farm does not ask for much. It simply asks for everything. It attaches itself to me with a thousand tiny claws that begin their work before dawn, when the animals stir and the day's first obligations surface like rocks in a receding tide. It asks in the slow inventory of a winter morning, the fence line along the back orchard that did not survive the last frost intact, the barn door whose hinge has been patient with me longer than I deserve, and the fallen trees along the path through the woods that are waiting to be chain sawed and stacked.

I built much of this with my own hands. That is perhaps the deepest claw of all. Many of the trees across the property are ones I planted over the course of several seasons—days I remember as among the happiest on the farm. I carried five-gallon buckets of water from the pond to each newly planted sapling. Each tree carefully chosen some, apple and chestnut, grown from seeds. Each location thoughtfully considered and prepared with a patience I rarely bring to anything else.

Those trees do not need me anymore. Some now stand fifty feet tall. They do perfectly well on their own. Yet I cannot look at them without feeling the weight of something I have helped create and loved. Leaving a place you have built with your own hands carries a faint moral discomfort, as if stepping away from something that once depended on you.

And now, Spring has arrived with its usual urgency bordering on the impolite and with the quiet insistence of something that knows it has you. The ground demands attention with the blind insistence of new life. There is no negotiating with a garden in April. If I intend to reap, I must prepare the ground and sow.

And yet, sometime during the long quiet of this past winter, I realized that tending a life also requires occasionally stepping away from it. It was during the stillness of winter, when the farm was quiet enough for a man to hear himself think, that I first allowed myself to say the word aloud.

Paris.

Not as an escape. Not as an abandonment. But as a question I owe myself the honesty to ask: what would this life look like from a distance?

The claws, I have come to understand, are not cruel. They are evidence of a life fully inhabited, every obligation a record of something I once chose and continue to choose. But a life fully inhabited must also be a life fully examined. And examination, real examination, requires the one thing this place has never been able to give me: distance.

I am not leaving the farm. I am leaving long enough to see it clearly. And when I return — because I will return, the trees will see to that — I hope to arrive as someone who, once again, chooses to be here, rather than someone who simply never left.

I have not mistaken impulse for direction. I have been standing fully in this place, allowing the world to arrive unfiltered, for a long time. My desire for a transition does not arise from habit but rather from an intimacy with this place. I know this place and myself very well, and if I wish to discover more, I feel the need to find a new venue in which to experience life. And that new venue is in Paris.

It is also easy to misinterpret transition as loss. I am not losing anything by leaving. I am adding to my life. And Paris has always known how to make room for those who arrive with open hearts and minds, for the flâneur, the purposeful wanderer.

And when is the best time to take a break from these concerns? The most opportune time is when things are in good order so much of it can look after itself. And that moment is here.

Paris offers a moveable feast with its unique alchemy of anonymity and inspiration. In Paris, a single espresso buys me three hours of residency at a small marble table. It is a city that respects the foreigner and encourages one to observe life without being responsible for it — a perfect antidote to my overinflated sense of responsibility.

I intend to arrive with open hands and an open heart, and to stay long enough to remember what it feels like to choose and to take another chance to enjoy such dancing as I can.

Au revoir.

L'Homme qui Court. Paris., 1953 - Sabine Weiss