Attitude

(Scott Schuman of www.thesartorialist.com, in Paris)

Having a good attitude is likely to pay off.  

Just sayin.

But don't take my word for it...

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
- Winston Churchill

"A person who has good thoughts can never be ugly. You can have a crooked nose and a wonky mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
- Roald Dahl

Le Sucre

(heart cake by Lily Vanilli)

Dear Sugar (Eng.)/ Chers Sucre (Fr.): Dear Sugar is an advice column that appears regularly (almost every Thursday afternoon EST) in the online magazine The Rumpus. Sugar’s identity is a secret, but her writing reveals her to be a woman of compassion, wit, precision and wisdom.

Although it is rare that I have gone through or am currently experiencing the same situations that her reader's write to her about, yet there is always something that connects with me on a deep, profound and heart piercing level.

The unifying theme seems to be resilience and faith.

If you have not read Sugar's column before, here is a great introduction:

Tiny Beautiful Things Column #64
Dear Sugar, I read your column religiously. I am 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you're in your early 40's. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?
Love, 
Seeking Wisdom
Click here to see Sugar's response.

So, what would YOU say to your 20-something self about your life in its current form?

Les Essentiels: Août

Ten things that I can't live without right now:

1.New French experiences-- specifically Chinon, Loire Valley, Hôtel Agnes Sorel, Chateau de Coulaine, and dehydrated napkins.

(Hôtel Agnes Sorel)

2. Oversized Rolex watch with a black face. 

3. Converse Chuck Taylors with Bon Marche's black footies.

4. Downloads from iTunes.

(McNulty, The Wire)

5. Catastrophic events that open my eyes to a fresh, vibrant, liberating ways of living. (more on this later)

6. Faux Hermes Birkin picnic bag.

(ThursdayFriday "Together" bag on the Seine at sunset)

7. Uniqlo jeans and Uniqlo's free same day (and better yet--same hour!)  hemming service.

8. Crepe dinners in a rustic, over-grown garden in the backyard of someone's house.

(Dans un Jardin, Chinon, France)

9. Repettos molding perfectly to my feet.

(My favorite Repettos in the Jardin des Plantes)

10. My peeps back home who keep it real for me, encourage me to keep following my dreams, while watching my back and sorting through real world messes on my behalf.

What ten things make your August (Août) a little extra special?

Confiance

Faith (Eng)/ Confiance (Fr.): noun; Confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. Belief that is not based on proof.


I recently read a New York Times article about a Tony award winning playwright/performer , Sarah Jones, who recently received a commission from the Lincoln Center to develop an unspecified show. She has no idea what it will be about or what she will create, yet the clock is ticking to create it. Her specialty is to scour the city streets of New York City in search of people who represent "cultural fault lines that unite and divide the city" and to pluck these characters ripe for her own inspriration.


Although I am not a playwright, a performer, nor a New Yorker, I do have a few things in common with Ms. Jones. 

• I have been given a commission from the universe to create the life of my dreams, and have also been gifted the backdrop of Paris. 
• I search the city for inspiration and find myself eavesdropping on conversations in languages that I don't totally understand, peering in apartment windows at dusk to imagine the life within it, chameleon-ing myself to whomever I am interacting with out of authenticity in the moment.
• I don't know what my story will be, but I go in search of it and trust that it is unfolding exactly as it should. To be doing it in Paris at this moment gives me the peace of mind that I am in the right place for right now.

“I’m practicing a kind of meandering faith, or faithful meandering, I just trust that something is coming. I don’t know what it is. But I’ve been a straphanger all my life; I know what it’s like to not know when the next train is coming, but I trust the subway.”
- Sarah Jones, Unlicensed anthropologist, an explorer of the cultural fault lines that unite and divide the city, Tony award winning performer and playwright


Click here to read the entire NYTimes article--Sarah Jones, Scouting the City for Her Characters.

Situation

Situation (Eng.)/ Situation (Fr.): noun. Condition, case, or plight.

I am in the midst of a catastrophic situation. I am doing everything I can to sort through it, keep my balance and composure, relish in gratitude for the friends and family who have quickly risen to my aid and support, trust in the humanity of large corporations, and believe that everything will eventually be okay.

But it is hard, I am not going to lie.

One of the reasons that I love Paris is because it activates my imagination and provides the perfect environment for me to dream and marinade in life's possibilities. However, when life is serving up a big fat dose of crap back in my homeland it can be hard, no matter where I am, to shift my perspective back to the space of dreams and possibilities. So today I sought out one of the only surefire ways I know to help me revisit this happier perspective. I went to Musee Bourdelle for the Madame Gres exhibition.

For the two hours that I was there, I only thought about my situation a couple of times. But more than that, for the most part I felt inspired and hopeful. That is a huge improvement from the past few days and reminded me that no matter how horrible things may seem at any given moment, there is always something else that can bring us to a happier state if we let it. Our job is to give ourselves permission to feel better and to seek out an opportunity to shift our focus (even if only momentarily).

Here are just a few of today's perspective shifting images: