Basquiat - his pain, his perceptiveness, his visceral connection to his landscape, his madness and his genius were palpable in this exhibit.
@_chris_style and her commentary, perspective and give 0 shits attitude toward interactive art appreciation made this experience 100x better 😂😘 you better believe we laughed and felt the absence of a visionary and freaked out and thought of relevant songs and posted to Instagram, even or possibly because we were shook. And yes, we took hella pictures with the art.
This entire trip came together in the span of 5 days and might be one of the most spontaneous things I've ever done. I don't know anyone personally in Paris - all of the people you've seen in my stories over the past few days are new friends. I found myself a $385 RT ticket that worked with my dates and an Airbnb. I reached out to anyone I knew for recommendations, scoured the Instagrams of my favorite French artists, booked tickets and off I went. I kept being asked why. Why Paris? Why now? Honestly, I don't know. Perhaps I'm rewriting memories, perhaps I wanted to throw myself into a place where I didn't understand everything around me, where life was simultaneously comfortable and still foreign.
I questioned why I do this to myself, wondering if I was chasing something unrequited or perhaps running away from my reality. My first night, I walked around the city to fight off jetlag, listening to the same song on repeat, reflecting on the dual nature of being isolated. You can look at being by yourself as an opportunity to stretch outside of who you are, reinventing yourself to satisfy your objectives. Or you can turn to self-pity and feel terrified for yourself and regretful of your decisions. In those few hours, I decided I would trust my intuition and embrace my impulsive streak; I would operate on the premise that fear was a social construct. I would say yes to anything that was within my budget and moderately safe and just run with it. From a bar crawl to a hip-hop club to finding a soul sister in an Instagram friend and another through an African Textiles tour to finding amazing vegan spots, to attending a concert without tickets to learning to trust and depend on the goodness of other people.
It is a blessing to be able to have the resources to do this but not everyone in my position would choose to stray so far from their comfort zone. But as I live my best life and reflect on what I have gained in a few days here - perspective, courage, a reintroduction to my extroverted side, confidence, acknowledgements of my intelligence in between doses of luck, pushing past preconceptions to discover my truth - I would not trade this experience for the world.
