The path to self-expansion is rarely paved with perfect certainty. My journey to Paris—a city I was destined for, as I was asked to present my research on mass shooters and childhood trauma1—began not with exhilaration, but with a sudden, urgent pause.

A day before I was scheduled to depart, the quiet rhythm of my life was broken by an alarming phone call: my partner’s sudden development of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. Faced with the immediate unknown of a loved one’s health crisis and being a caretaker, I instinctively canceled my longed planned trip. It seemed yet another vital experience would be deferred by the complexities of life. Yet, as the situation stabilized—a necessary external pacemaker adjustment, specific to the physical strain of my partner’s hiking Bear Mountain—the path forward reappeared, demanding I embrace it.

My arrival, however, was marked by the scatter of jetlag and a pivotal lapse: I had forgotten my glasses. This forgetfulness was an unconscious hidden gift. Standing before the conference—a convergence of neuroscience and psychiatry—I was forced to abandon the safety of my prepared notes. I spoke with spontaneity, with a passion that bypassed the dry text of my published article. I spoke directly from my heart and soul, engaging the audience not just as a presenter, but as a person present in the moment. My delivery was more powerful, far better than any rehearsed performance. It was a vital lesson: true power lies not in the safety of a polished preparation, but in the courage of engaging in spontaneity.

This experience reinforced a profound truth: it may never be the perfect time to leave. Conditions will rarely align flawlessly for an ambitious trip, that new venture, or that leap of faith. But I discovered the immense, non-negotiable importance and privilege of feeding my burnt out being by again immersing myself in a different culture.

Though I had been a French major and fluent many years ago, and though I had visited Paris several times in my youth, this return was a profound re-engagement with my former self. Naturally, my French rushed back. Soon, I was dreaming in the language again, just like when I was 16 and spent the summer as an exchange student with a Swiss family. I felt an energetic transport that uplifted me, temporarily separating me from the anchors of quotidian problems.

Walking along the streets of my hotel situated perfectly between Saint-Germain-des-Pres and the Latin Quarters, I felt swept into a timeless cinematic grace, as if I were a whispering character caught in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris—a traveler existing beautifully between epochs.

Revisiting iconic sites—Le Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame—was not only repetition, but similar to re-reading an old, beloved novel but with a new, mature lens. The familiar yielded new and surprising insights. This time I was able to run along the Seine and experience these sites more as a local. Also, I dove deeper into the layers of French history, making unexpected connections. I learned, for instance, the historical nuance that no French king was ever crowned in Notre Dame, only the Emperor Napoleon in 1804, and the foreign King Henry IV of England in 1431.

Walking through Paris’s Quartier Latin on a guided tour, I was re-immersed not just in history, but in a revelation about the connection between place and language.

Despite the area’s ancient lineage, I learned that this district on the Left Bank did not earn its name from Roman history. Instead, the name speaks directly to the area’s thousand years of intellectual fervor and the essence of its academic culture.

The Quartier Latin owes its name to the language of medieval academia. Since Latin was the essential language for all teaching and discourse among Sorbonne students and masters, the area’s identity became intrinsically linked to this intellectual tradition.

The return of a language—like the return of my French fluency—is a powerful testament to the enduring imprints of past education and passion. The Quarter remains a vibrant intellectual hub, reminding us of that knowledge, like an ancient tongue, never truly dies, but simply awaits the right moment and place to be spoken anew.

Having dinner at the Les Deux Magots, nestled deep within Saint-Germain’s ancient pulse, the café’s familiar glow brought a sudden, rich tide of memory.

It was more than a meal; it was a sensory passage back to my college years—a time when the essence of the air was thick with existentialist philosophy. I felt the pages turn again, drawn into the seats where I first resonated with the fierce freedom of Jean-Paul Sartre and the feminist liberation of Simone de Beauvoir, their French voices now echoing perfectly in the moment.

I recalled in A Moveable Feast, Hemingway details the grinding, beautiful discipline of his early life in Paris, a life characterized by acute poverty and a relentless focus on his craft. The grand, iconic cafés like Les Deux Magots were expensive. The young Hemingway simply could not afford to dine there. The few francs he possessed were dedicated to basic sustenance, rent, and the tools of his trade. These establishments represented the world of comfortable success and artistic recognition that he was still striving to enter.

The irony is stark: Hemingway could not afford Les Deux Magots, yet the café now thrives because of the mythology his struggle created. Patrons pay to occupy the space he was barred from. The café stands as a symbol of both literary brilliance and the grueling price of artistic ambition.

My journey was an act of self-reclamation, a passionate return to a forgotten self mirrored in the beloved city. Revisiting Paris felt like savoring a long-desired dessert—a deeply satisfying sweetness that nourished the spirit and restored a sense of joy.

The trip was a reminder: new discoveries await even in the familiar, provided we have open hearts. I left Paris not just refreshed, but magically re-energized, having found a renewed, vital joy and an expanded sense of my own potential.

— Written by Dr. Nina Cerfolio

Reference

1. Cerfolio, N. (2023). Psychoanalytic and spiritual perspectives on terrorism: Desire for destruction.