Big change this week. I start to venture out more, much more. Here in France we need to fill in a form indicating the reason for going out. There are several options : going to work if home office arrangements are not possible (also a certificate from the employer needed), grocery & medical supply shopping, doctors’ appointment (other than Covid-19), and the one hour/one kilometer limit allowing going for a walk or a run in the vicinity of one’s home.

Until now, I had only gone out grocery shopping, first once a week and later twice a week. Now I start going out practically every day, wearing a mask and respecting social distancing. Instead of individual sports, I go for photo walks within the one hour/one kilometer limit. It is a strange feeling being out again, the neighbourhood looks like Paris in August : neighbourhood restaurants and shops closed and most of the locals gone. Except that now even the tourists are gone. There is a sad undertone.

And then even the beautiful spring weather is gone. The greyness penetrates through the windows of our apartment and invades our indoor life. The rain drains away any erring enthusiasm left. It is during these moments that I realise how therapeutic photography can be. “We’ll always have Paris”, thought the locked-in street photographer when she culled her images in Lightroom.

In the meantime, my husband faithfully sits in the open space of our home office working during the day. In the evenings and during the long first of May weekend he continues the massive task of organising 12 years of reckless storage in the attic and the cellar. He also keeps moving with times, redoing our son’s childhood room into a room of an adolescent. A new book case and bed arrive, requiring some serious assembly skills. Mission accomplished. And our son? He is doing his part, dutifully going on with his homework, now writing a diary as part of his French exercises. I’m very drawn to his style of writing, in my immigrant eyes, it is so French and so sophisticated. Must be coming from his father’s side.

Talking about immigration, Sunday 3 May marks the 26th anniversary of my beginnings in Paris. I still remember arriving with two suitcases, being yelled at by the taxi driver and arriving into my first, very basic apartment. Not really sleeping during the first night, because I had forgotten my alarm clock in Finland. So nice to relive the first moments in my head, safely from my home with a family, and an iPhone to wake me up for work.