The Paris Connection
Tiago Forte's scary visualization exercise
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
In the Year 2030…
Tiago Forte is concluding his Annual Review workshop this week. I have loved everything about it, except for Monday’s time travel five years into the future.
In our Zoom meeting, Tiago suggested we close our eyes and imagine being dropped off in the year 2030. Here is an excerpt from the transcript:
I want you to imagine an average day. Not necessarily the best, most perfect day, but an average day in 2030. Imagine where you live. What kind of home or apartment? What kind of neighborhood is it in? What do you see when you look outside? What city is it in? What state? What country?
Imagine yourself waking up in bed. What kind of bed is it? What size? What kind of covers? What is the light like through the windows? Who is next to you as you wake up?
What I didn’t initially love about this guided meditation is where it instantly took me in my imagination: Paris.
By the time he asked who was next to me in the scene, I nearly opened my eyes and clicked “leave.”
The problem was Darlene.
I knew there wasn’t a croissant’s chance in hell that she would ever live in Paris or any other place in France. Yes, we had a wonderful three-week trip to Provence last summer. But that was a one-off adventure, not a prelude to upsetting our seasonal migrations between Maine and Sanibel Island.
I’d paid good money for the workshop, and I trust Tiago. So I stayed untill the end of the visualization. Afterward, I asked NotebookLM, loaded with my 2024 journal, why I found myself dreaming of Paris.
(I need to create a nickname for NotebookLM. How about Leonard McDoogle?)
Leonard’s reply was thoughtful, of course, since everything he knows he learned from my journal. Here are two excerpts:
You found France both destabilizing and creatively inspiring, perhaps seeing it as a place where you could try new ways of being. This desire for change and exploration may have led your imagination to picture Paris as a place to start over.
It is possible that your brain, while not wanting to leave your familiar homes, was still drawn to a place as different as Paris, both positive and negative experiences considered. It could be that your mind was drawn to a place that offered you the intellectual and cultural engagement that you enjoy, but it also represents what you do not have, an alternate experience.
Brilliant. My intuition, guided by Tiago’s soothing voice, was not suggesting a literal relocation. But I did take note of how powerfully Paris beckons me as a metaphor or a symbol.
Thus deepened, I sat down with Darlene for a difficult conversation about our planned August trip from Maine to Canada to Montana to Yellowstone National Park and back.
Our itinerary was nearly completed, except for strong disagreement on whether or not to fly directly to Toronto to board a VIA Rail Canada train to Vancouver. I wanted to drive to Montreal first, so we could travel by rail all the way from Quebec to British Columbia.
The Tiago visualization helped me to see a day in Montreal as part of my Francophone soul’s desire for new ways of being. When I spoke from the heart about that, Darlene surprised me by saying, “I get it. We can make that work.”
During yesterday’s Annual Review session, I raised my virtual hand to tell the group about how the visualization led to a surprising conversation.
Tiago closes his eyes as he listens to comments from the group. After my story, he asked a question about Darlene: “What did you learn about her or your relationship from this whole situation?”
I replied:
She gets this connection I have with France, more than I thought she did. That made me really love her. We went to a French immersion school 15 years ago, and she nearly had a breakdown during six weeks of trying to learn French. She just could not do it. So for her to give any support for my French dream of myself is a true act of love.
I didn’t want to take up more time from the other participants. But Tiago made like Columbo and said, “One more thing: What did you learn about yourself?”
That led to this exchange:
Len: I'm 74. I tend to think I'm kind of done and I'm just sort of cruising. But now I think I may be bigger and more exciting, with new things to explore. That just made me feel larger.
Tiago: Mmm. Expansive.
Len: Yeah.
Tiago: Wow. You have the same age as my father, and I wish that for him as well—a sense that there's still life to be lived. There's still new things to explore that he's not done. Thank you for modeling what that looks like.
Len: Give him my number.
Tiago’s father, Wayne Lacson Forte, is a noted artist, a painter born in 1950. He and I will both be 75 this year.
If our paths ever cross, I will tell him how his son helps people of any age listen to their inner promptings, the better to live life boldly.
You might consider a week or two in Paris on your own someday.