Find the time for wine: a lessen in time management
I spent the day in bed. I’d like to blame it on jetlag or the rainy day that kept me from venturing out but the truth is that it was the result of last night’s festivities creeping into the early morning. I won’t pretend this was the first (or undoubtedly the last) time I’ve seen the sun peek up over the horizon as I made my way home, but it was definitely the first in a long time. I’ve only been in Paris for a few days but I’ve had the privilege of meeting some amazing people already. Luckily they share my love for cheap wine and my penchant for turning dinner parties into a debate and/or dance party – usually both. But it turns out that cheap wine leaves it’s mark, no matter the country and no amount of café or pain au chocolat could lure me out of this hangover. I just had to wait it out the old fashioned way: in bed.
The next day would be for exploring so I plotted my moves for Monday. Living without my iphone isn’t terrible but it definitely requires me to put on my planning hat – something all of my former roommates can tell you I don’t wear very often. So I went down the rabbit hole that is Parisian tourism and mapped out a day filled with sketching at the Louvre, perfecting my pronunciation at cafés, searching for the perfect macaroon, and a dash of uncertainty. But during this exercise it struck me how brief my time is in Paris. I have but mere weeks to discover the city that could take a lifetime to explore. No, this doesn’t mean I’m moving to Paris (I don’t think) but it dawned on me that I will only be here for such a brief moment; I can already feel myself missing it in September. There’s just never enough time…
Time, its such a funny thing. To take something so infinite and chop it up into blocks of hours and weeks and years so we can grasp something that stretches beyond any understanding we could ever achieve. It’s so vast and yet we get to enjoy such a finite piece of it that it hardly seems fair. Of course that’s what makes it so powerful, that it’s only ours for such a short time. If we had it any longer it would just become another dispensable, disposable toy to disregard and ignore. We only live for an instant, a brief second in the infinity of time. But if all I have is a moment, I chose to spend it with strangers turned friends and a glass of cheap wine, waiting for the sun to rise.
