Take the Time

Take the time to talk to the elderly lady next door, to read a book, to walk to work instead of riding the subway when it’s a beautiful day. Take the time to escape for a weekend with friends.

Take the time to get to know yourself. Take the time to change, to grow, to rest. Take the time to say yes, take the time to say no. Take the time to be quit. Take the time to look after your body, to eat well. Take the time to ask yourself who you are and what you want.

Call your grandmother on her birthday and rinse your hair with cold water just like she taught you, listen to your children, breathe deeply, take the time to make fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast, to go to a museum, to go for a stroll in the woods and to listen to the sounds of tiny creatures in the grass. In summer, take the time to compile a scrapbook of pressed flowers with a child, to read him a story.

Take the time because nobody else will do it for you.

And don’t forget to daydream in the bath, just like when you were little.

Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas.

How to be a Parisian wherever you are.