Editor's Letter

A Year of Magical Thinking

A Year of Magical Thinking

A year ago today, I was packing up my home in Los Angeles and doing that painful but cathartic task of sorting through 25 years of memories. Some were ready to be buried, others stored away, and a few chosen to travel with me toward a new life.

It’s the week of July 14th in Paris. When my son first left a week ago, I was overcome with a profound exhaustion I couldn’t quite explain. And yet, sleep was elusive, restless and broken by the heat, irregular rhythms, and the echo of Bastille Day fireworks and football cheers drifting through the streets.

As the days unfolded, I began to feel the full weight of the past four years: the quiet toll of starting over in a new city, mothering full-time, and keeping a business afloat. I had been running on reserves I didn’t realize were empty. And when my most precious responsibility, my son, flew back across the ocean, the exhaustion hit like a wave crashing over still water.

At first, the solitude felt daunting. Then, almost suddenly, it felt magical. I started to feel more grounded but still found myself pacing the apartment. I kept writing lists and leaving them untouched. I knew what I needed: inspiration. My vessel was empty, and it needed to be refilled.

CO Small Clutch

So I went for a long walk through the neighborhood and stopped in front of a camera store. I wandered in, meaning only to browse but walked out with a camera. Not the expensive, professional kind. Just something simple enough to learn on. And that’s exactly what I did.

I don’t aspire to be a photographer, but I’ve always loved taking pictures. I studied film, after all and was a filmmaker and producer for over 15 years. I think in frames and images and stories.

For the next few days, I immersed myself in tutorials, downloaded apps, experimented with editing. Once I understood the basics, I began photographing my apartment: the view from my window, the objects I cherish. Through the lens, I began to see this first year in a new country more clearly and how much it had changed me. How I had manifested the life I long imagined.

I had been searching for charm, beauty, and romance. Certainly, not in the traditional sense, but in a life that reflected my truest self, operating at its highest frequency.

In the solitude of those post-separation years through the loneliness, the resilience, and the quiet rebuilding I was being guided by an inner voice that never let up. Like a broken record, it kept whispering the same thing: Build a life that mirrors your deepest desires. Choose the city, the apartment, the pace, the poetry. I listened, and I acted singularly with this vision in mind. This, I’ve come to believe, is manifestation.

And through the lens of that little camera, I saw just how far I had traveled to arrive at myself. It wasn’t without hardship. But with each image I captured, I realized: I had made it. I was here.

On the final day of that quiet, creative weekend, my dearest friend Samuel called. “Let’s do something,” he said. “Let’s get you out of the house.” Like me, he’s always working, always in the city when everyone else is on holiday.

We decided to see a film. I hadn’t been to the cinema in years and certainly not to an art house theater since the Angelika in New York or the Egyptian in Los Angeles.

Samuel arrived, as he always does, with a stunning bouquet of flowers. (How lucky am I to have a friend who always brings flowers?) We talked, grabbed a bite, then rushed through the streets of Saint-Germain to catch the screening.

As we hurried through the neighborhood, we passed bustling cafés full of tourists, stumbled upon tucked-away galleries and restaurants, even paused to hear an opera singer belting Carmen in the street. Finally, we arrived at the tiny St. André des Arts cinema and slipped into its quiet screening room.

The whole way there, I kept thinking: How lucky am I. How lucky am I.

There was nowhere else I wanted to be but here: in an empty, echoing Paris, with fresh flowers on my table, a new camera in hand, in an art house theatre, my dearest friend by my side, and a week filled with the kind of glorious boredom that allows for reflection, refueling and creation.

What a year it has been.

Thank you Paris for saving me.

Thank you, curiosity and creativity, for being my most faithful companions.

Thank you, loneliness, for guiding me gently back to myself.

Thank you, imagination, for helping me dream it all into being.

My very own year of magical thinking.

Love,
Stephanie