Blog – Completion of My Time in France

I am finishing up my trip to France and many moments have opened my eyes. I got to feel into so many places that brought out my younger ballerina self. The one that was exploring Europe in her late teens and early twenties. The one fascinated and amazed by all the architecture, art, and intellect.
I had time to appreciate my daring Texas girl who took the risk to go to Europe, to let a moment of passion and purpose redefine who she was.
I was reminded that we are all here to support each other and to help those we can.
I have allowed others to support me along this journey and France reminds me of the innate goodness in people.
I have been helped in crucial ways and in turn helped others with the gifts that I had to share.
I have reconnected to parts and places that can never really be lost inside.
After all, moments spent in the pursuit of art and the exploration of the self, are never a waste.
I am reminded that life will constantly ask us to be willing to embrace our vulnerability and that goodness arises in each of us when we bring our full awareness to what is needed in this moment rather than what our mind tells us is so urgent and important.
I thought I came to France to get my book finished.
But I discovered that such a thing would be impossible in 10 days. While I have diligently worked on it, (and I am about 77 pages into my first edit) I had to embrace this daunting challenge with a new set of eyes.
I have embraced new levels of due-diligence, detailed editing, and the reconstruction of many chapters, and the tearing apart of aspects and putting things into folders for me to figure out how to organize later into a better flow.
I have taken time for myself in a way that I have never done before. I have recognized how much is ahead and that such a labor of love will require much more time. Some things can’t be rushed. Most great things require our full attention in a way that we are not used to.
After all, writing is no different than giving birth to another world. To give that world a solid foundation that can stand the test of time, one will be required to think beyond our own needs and into what serves this new life.
It seems writing this book will demand a type of focus that I have not had for anything else other than ballet in a very long time.
And that is a good thing. It feels delicious.
It shows me that even in my 60s that the meticulous detail that I lived and breathed in my teens and twenties, is still there. I am learning that there is great power in being willing to do what is necessary in each and every moment.
Here in Besançon, France, I discovered that I was staying in an apartment very close to the birthplace of Victor Hugo, the famous French author, poet, and statesman.
In going to where he was born, I discovered that the author of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862), was also a dedicated writer, poet, and believed in the same principals of humanity that I also believe.
It is no accident that a man whose literary works were often as long as 1500 pages, might be trying to support me in slogging through my 700 plus pages.
There were moments when I allowed my imagination to wander and felt into if he had friends or acquaintances, in the apartment in which I am staying? Or if he ever set foot in this enclave.
I can feel that the cobblestones I have been walking on, he walked as well. I feel a sense of peace because of becoming aware of the potential to inspire others with my words, just as he did.
While I am not a Victor Hugo (by any means), he inspired many famous authors that came after him with his honesty and his conscious and responsible romanticism. He was committed to make more visible the causes of social injustice and advocated that the world needed a stronger social conscience.
Clearly, I have a new guide and angel on my shoulder helping me to formulate this work into something that could have a life of its own.
In his own words, he was a free-thinker, and I like to think that so am I. His rationalism made him relentlessly point out abuses of power in all forms.
Seems we have that in common as well!
Together … with this new guide, I walk the path of many before me that believed in the unstoppable potential for humanity.
And I point out (like them) that the real battle was inside mankind.
Victor Hugo said, “Here is the battle between day and night.”

So, on this final day in Besançon, I thank him for inspiring me anew. And I thank all those that have helped me along this journey and honor the gifts and talents that so many offered up to me so that I could be here.
I close this blog with one of my favorites (but little known) quotes of Victor Hugo below.
Every time I read it; it makes me smile.

He said:

“Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.”
~Victor Hugo~

My translation is that we live in a world where there are too many that refuse to use their intelligence and therefore, they are not reasonable or rational. But imagination is a type of intelligence that has a purpose, a direction, and … a passion.
~Suzanne Wagner~