I need to get back into the swing of things and I think I've left a few questions unanswered. I wrote the following post a few days ago and afterwards read from a blog which I enjoy immensly, Self Taught Artist. She talks about the real fears involved with leaving security and pursuing a dream. It's strange but that, in part, is what this post is about but I want to think more about the real fears involved- the fears I've purposely not explored because I thought it might keep me from chasing the dream. I'm pondering that this weekend. I like when someones writing challenges me to do a little soul searching

Paris. It was a great trip and we did what we wanted. Our plan in going there was to walk the neighborhoods and decide if this was a place we wanted to live. Seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? Paris versus the Midwest….hmmmm. Maybe the choice is obvious but there is a romance factor with Paris that you have to get past. When I think of living in a foreign city I immediately roll into a romantic notion of what it would be and my romantic version of life is nowhere close to reality.

An Italian friend of ours lived in Paris for several years working in restaurants before opening his own place here. He made an interesting and simple point when he said “living in Paris is considerably different then visiting Paris.” So we went to Paris to walk the neighborhoods. We didn’t go to any museums, we didn’t clutch The DaVinci Code in our sweaty little hands as we searched for the sacred feminine and we did not tell one Frenchman that “we saved his ass in the big one” although it was tempting –we, essentially, took a 12 day stroll around town.

I have to be honest -part of it scared me. I haven’t had to live without the security of money for a long time. I’ve always had enough squirreled away that it would take a major financial crunch to unnerve me. I’ve grown used to living in a house with different rooms for different activities and a yard to work on and a car in the garage. It will be different, but of course, that’s the point.

I don’t know that Paris will inspire me as a writer. Truth be told I could just as easily, perhaps more so, write in the Midwest and work a job and keep my house and be near family and friends but for reasons unknown I want to put it all on the line. I want to sink or swim as a writer within the year. I want to be able to look back on it and say ‘I gave this writing thing a fair shake.’

This sink or swim attiude is fine when you are on your own but that is no longer the case for me. K- will sink or swim with me. She is being a good sport in putting our lives on hold for this dream of mine. She has, in fact, made this her dream. She will get her masters She was just accepted to teh AUP (American Univeristy in Paris), study French, and, perhaps, learn to tie a scarf.