DOES TIME AGE?

Can we go back in time?

I decided to go to Paris last weekend. My mind said, you don’t have time. My heart said, I’m so close. I took a moment to pause and decided to “nip over” (as the British would say) to Paris for the weekend after the conference in London was complete. It’s been so long since I was there and a last minute schedule change made it possible for me listen inside and realize that my heart was yelling at me to spend the weekend in Europe to catch up on memories and friends instead of rushing back home.

I used to spend a lot of time in France when I was younger. My family had a place in the mountains and we often went skiing (even in the summer) as a way to spend quality time together. Once I moved to the US my parents sold the apartment since it was no longer easy to just jump in a car and go skiing together.

After my parents passed away I would go to Paris every year on my way home to Denmark for my grandmothers’ birthdays; and once they both passed away, Paris was no longer a yearly voyage. And I have missed it.

What we miss is still with us. 

I have missed walking the streets with nowhere in particular to go. I have missed the architecture that shows the history of this old city and tells stories about its people, without saying a word. 

I have missed the small city squares with trees, plants, and people gathering; the restaurants packed with people for lunch, because eating alone is not the way to belong. I have missed the sidewalk cafes with chairs lined up, even in the chilly wet weather, with people engaging, not with their phones but with each other, exchanging thoughts or simply watching people walk by with a coffee on the table. A very small cup of coffee that would be gone in a minute but instead somehow will last for what seems like hours.

Maybe it’s the feeling that life is here right now and people are not rushing towards the end of the day. Maybe it’s the notion that life, food, art, culture, architecture, people and conversations are all embedded into daily life. Maybe it’s seeing so many elderly people being out and about. Maybe it’s the mornings where parents are walking their kids to school while the streets are still quiet. Maybe it’s the markets where food is fresh and affordable and people stop in to buy what they need for today.

However, being back, it felt like it hadn’t been a long time. I was back and it felt like home.

I recognized how it felt to be there. It wasn’t about time passed, it was about feeling familiar. What I missed what still there with me all along.

Changes of the time.

This time coming back after many years away I now see Paris as a multi-generational city. Of course I have changed with age more than this city, which seems ageless in its historic way of life. The most modernizing I see is the small streets with electric charging stations for their cars, which are all smaller to fit the energetic nature of narrow streets with many corners to get around. I see other efforts like the composting and recycling bins in the city square where people are coming out from their apartment buildings to dispose of their garbage. The goal is a greener future overall, which right now is easier in the city than the countryside, where farmers still drive trucks and change is slower to manifest, even though still important for our collective future.

What we care about persists.

However, the sense I get being here is that to care is not an effort, it’s a way of life.

Last week I wrote about noticing the small things and how curiosity can spark creativity. This week I pause to notice the human connection, even when we are not directly connected, we are all interacting and engaging with each other and the places we inhabit, all the time.

There is no time and space in the human connection. Our memories might fade but they still live on within us.

Time doesn’t age, even if we do. Our relationships continue and culture is alive when we engage in the life that surrounds us. 

At work we can reflect on this as well. With age comes wisdom and experience, with youth comes curiosity and excitement, and yet we all have a common need. Each other. That doesn’t change with time.

It’s the human connection that makes a city and it’s what makes a workplace where we respect and care for what has come before us, what is here now, and what’s possible for a greener future.

A future where we can continue to harness change and grow together, no matter what age.