All the Photos not Taken

Marled blouse (c/o) (similar)
Grlfrnd jeans (c/o REVOLVE)
Jonak mules (similar)
Celine bag
Celine sunglasses
Keltie Leanne Designs earrings (c/o)
Location: Palais Royal – Paris, France

Last week, Canadian airline Westjet announced they would begin offering flights to Paris in May of this year. I don’t normally report on airline news, but this story piqued my interest because the announcement came with an incredible seat sale. Flights from Winnipeg to Paris were priced at just over $500 return. We are serious about sticking to a budget when we travel, and we have still never paid less than $900 return for flights to Europe. As far as I know, they simply don’t exist.

We had made plans not to visit Paris this year, but as you all know, I was already wavering. The seat sale pushed me over the edge. We would never be able to visit Paris for cheaper, I told myself – and for once, I knew I wasn’t just rationalising my desire to be there at any cost. I thought of all the cafes I haven’t yet sat outside of, all of the places I love and the friends I miss… and most of all, I thought of all the photos not yet taken.

I think I could spend the rest of my life taking photos of the French capital and still feel like I hadn’t finished yet. We’ve taken photos at the Palais Royal, where we snapped these shots, a dozen times or more (see exhibit A, exhibit B and exhibit C… and the list goes on.) But there are still new angles I want to capture it from. And it felt, briefly, like that could be reality, like it was possible that we could go back and continue our neverending project of photographing Paris from every angle. My excitement may actually have been palpable.

And then came the inevitable disappointment. It was inevitable, really – I keep forgetting that we are in a new place, still not really settled, and that things will not just fall into place the way they used to. My boss authorised my vacation time without blinking. Ian’s, on the other hand, informed him that vacation approval happens in mid-April, not before. Meanwhile, the Westjet seat sale ended on February fifth. The $500 fares slipped through our fingers like so much glitter in the wind.

So here we are, once again, back to not going to Paris this year. The initial disappointment left me reeling, but I’ve recovered in the last few days. Still, when I look back at these photos from last year, I can’t help feeling nostalgic for the holiday that might have been. We’ll be back in Paris again, of course. Probably soon. But as long as I don’t know when, it isn’t soon enough. On the bright side, today is Friday. And we do have another holiday on the horizon, one that is just a few weeks away. So I guess things aren’t so bad.