The sweetness of a slow simmering dream

12 years ago, I had a book published in France for the very first time. 

When it came out my french publisher, Flammarion, invited me to Paris to meet with them and a wonderful woman named Marie collected me from the station. 

Marie had translated the book into French from the original English edition and she was (and is) a hugely experienced and well respected book translator and a fascinating person. 

I still vividly remember getting into a cab with her at Gare du Nord to go to the publisher's and as we were whisked through Paris I felt something resonating deep inside of me. A recognition. A sense of home-coming.

There was something about the vibrancy of the street art, the beauty of the buildings and the people all sitting in their rows outside cafes reading novels and watching the world go by that struck a chord deep inside of me. 

I felt as if I'd stepped right into a scene from one of my favourite French movies and I couldn't quite believe that it was actually happening in real life, and to me. I was in Paris to celebrate my first French book deal! 

Back then I was a broke single mum with a fledgling writing career in the UK, this kind of thing didn't happen to me … and yet it felt weirdly familiar. 

A voice deep inside me seemed to be saying, this is where you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing. 

And so began a wonderful friendship and creative partnership with Marie, and a passionate lover affair with Paris. 

When I got back from that first trip I stuck pictures of Paris on my vision board - of beautiful rooftop apartments, Montmartre and an Eiffel Tower keyring. I also craftily made sure that my subsequent novels had storylines that somehow ended up in the French capital!

signing copies of my second French novel

My cunning plan worked and I got more French book deals and I came back to do more promotions and hang out with Marie and other friends I'd made there. And all the while the dream of one day living and writing in Paris kept whispering, 'One day...' in my ear.

Years passed. The pictures of Paris on my vision board became tattered and faded. Life happened and the dream began to fade too. I stopped writing books about Paris. I stopped getting French book deals. 

But then Covid happened just as I was offered a publishing deal to write novels about World War 2 and I saw an opportunity to write about Paris again. And so, during the first UK lockdown, I escaped back to Paris in my imagination, to write my first WW2 novel, An American in… guess where?

Writing about Paris brought my love for the city sparking back to life and as soon as I was able to travel again, I went there for a few days for real. And when I decided to leave the UK last year to be a nomad, Paris was my first port of call.

I've just finished a 3 week stay in Paris and when I collected the keys to my Airbnb apartment and saw the Eiffel Tower keyring they hung from, I was sent hurtling back in time to the picture of an almost identical key ring I’d stuck to my vision board as a symbol of my dream to one day live and write in Paris.

with my keyring of dreams

A dream that has been bubbling away on a long, slow simmer for twelve whole years!

I loved every minute of my last three weeks, living and writing in Paris, as well as exploring the sights and meeting up with friends, new and old. 

And every day when I locked and unlocked the door to my tiny studio apartment and saw that key-ring I felt a burst of happiness.

I was finally - finally! - living the dream that had planted itself inside of me over a decade ago. Next year I plan to spend as much time as possible living and writing in Paris - I will also have two more novels published in France, for which I am hugely grateful.

We live in such a fast-paced world now, and we’ve become so used to fast food and next day deliveries and jumping from one place to another on our screens.

But there’s such a sweetness to be had in finally realising a slow simmering dream. Such a wonderful sense of satisfaction and achievement.

Sooooo… if you have a dream that’s been simmering away on the back-burner for what feels like forever, I hope you find this week’s Wonderstruck heartening.

Keep inching towards your goal. Keep visualising it happening. And you never know, one day you might experience the same spark of joy I did the moment I saw that Eiffel Tower keyring.

Until next week, keep dreaming!

Siobhan