the paris diaries

part 2

You can read the paris diaries part 1 here.

beauty and time

“Life used to move at a completely different pace.” My friend says to me as I reflect on how preciously beautiful, detailed and elegant each building here is. I spent several minutes earlier that morning staring at the building across from where we are staying. A building covered in elegant details, in swirls and curls and ridges adorned with textures and designs that you just don’t see anymore. A true expression of craft. The building also had a numerical imprint etched into it: 1889—presumably the year it was built. I remarked to my friend that it seems like people thought they had a lot more time back then. Enough time to make something exquisite, to pour love into a structure that people will walk past every day for centuries—to not just make it functional, but to make it beautiful. To do such a thing, you need to think that there is time. You need to think that beauty is worth pursuing.

The relationship between beauty and time has always fascinated me. Beauty slows you down. It connects you to your breath by taking it away. It brings you to the moment by pulling your attention out of your mind and into what you are witnessing. Beauty calls your spirit forth. It activates your soul. It opens your eyes and puts you behind them with force. It connects you to your body. It clears your mind. It invites you in. Beauty is the ultimate seductress. She knows how to take the priorities you were so carefully and logically weighing out and balancing in your mind and wipe them away. She knows how to pull you in, how to make you pause, how to take your attention away from yourself and into the present. It takes time to create beauty; which is why it is impossible to make art when you are in a rush. You can’t force it, you can’t hasten creation. It needs to come through you gently, sweetly, slowly.