Looking Back, Moving Forward, My Sunday Review

Since last Sunday’s birthday post, my first full day back after a week in Paris with my sister, I’ve written what feels like quite a bit, yet feel I’ve scarcely shared a fraction of what I want to tell you about that trip and the ways it’s helping me transition into retirement.

While we were still in Vancouver, I wrote a post that transitioned from Paris to the Pacific Northwest via our wildflowers.

I wrote one that celebrated the glory of my own garden hereon the island, chaotic beauty that welcomed me home . . . and I still managed to include some Paris flowers, albeit artificial ones made from shirt cuff simulacra, decorating a shop window on St. Germain.

And I finally managed to write an all-Paris post in the form of a Five Things Friday meme.

I even managed, after months and months of neglect, to write a new post over at my reading blog, with recommendations of two books I enjoyed immensely.

But I’ve still got so much to say about the ways this last trip added to my understanding and appreciation and sheer enjoyment of Paris. Where we ate, for example, and ran, and how much we shopped, and what I thought most important to show my sister, and what had to get dropped from the wishlist and why and What I Wore and how the trip tweaked the way I move about the city and how it changed my perception of myself as traveller. Oh, it goes on and on, and although I’ve already written one of those posts and am working on a second, I despair of ever expressing all that I want to. Which, I guess, is a good problem to have — I’ll certainly never run out of material.

If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you won’t have seen this little video of the Printemps Department Store, all gussied up for its 150th anniversary, as seen on one of my morning runs with my sister. If you do follow me and have already seen it, well really, can one ever have too much sparkle?

#printemps sparkles for its anniversary. Our morning run, not too shabby! #Paris #sistersinparis #runninginparis #running

A video posted by Frances (@frances_sprout) on May 13, 2015 at 11:14pm PDT

Meanwhile, of course, my life here is proceeding apace and the Paris trip recedes somewhat in the flurry of retirement preparation. Friday’s department meeting (our annual “retreat”) included a very moving tribute made to me by a friend and colleague, a complete surprise that left me teary and, for a moment, speechless. Since then, I’ve been invited to be Macebearer at Convocation, so my last time in my robes will be particularly significant (and I hope I can get someone to snap a photo or two). And I’ve been adding to my lists, but also just sitting with a book or puttering in the garden. . . .

If you want to read more about recent trips to Paris, check out Hostess, who flew back the day after I did, or High Heels in the Wilderness, still in France touring about after a first visit to Paris. It’s great fun to get those first impressions from different perspectives. Une Femme will be heading out next week — she’s a very experienced Paris traveller with all kinds of good advice, and she’s promised to lay out her carry-on wardrobe for our perusal early next week.  Duchesse doesn’t say too much about her travels through that City of Light, but she’s been visiting it for decades with her francophone husband and her discerning eye. Recently she posted on what women really wear in Paris— the range is so much broader than generally represented on lifestyle/fashion-y blogs. My friend Alison was there in March and posted sketches, photos, and words about her visit with her daughter in anticipation of teaching a sketching course in Paris this coming fall. Her visit to the Sennelier atelier for a workshop on mixing pigments is a special treat!

If any of you have recently posted on your visits to Paris and would like me to link to them, let me know in the comments below.

Stay tuned. . . more Paris coming your way soon. . .