Abi Summers

May 2024

A breakdown of some of the things I got up to in May 2024. It’s been a busy month, I’m so pleased the weather is starting to get warmer despite the rain and that the days are getting lighter (it’s light after 9pm!).

All things Paris

I’ve really enjoyed getting to spend some time in Paris this month.

I’ve been to three different exhibitions this month:

Présences arabes: art moderne et décolonisation at the MaM. This exhibition highlights the relationship of Arab artists with Paris throughout the 20th century. Throughout the exhibition, there are timelines which show some of the key events including geopolitics, cultural life and artists life. It was really interesting to reflect on how art has been, and continues to be a form of political engagement.

France sous leur yeux at the BNF François-Mitterrand. I really liked this exhibition, and I would like to visit again because I felt like I rushed the last part because my thoughts started to drift off (I wanted to take the time to really read and reflect on all the explanations which were only in French). The exhibition shows the work of 200 photographers who has taken photos during 2020s. It really got me thinking about how in 2020 (during the pandemic) everyone had vastly different lives and how some people were more impacted than others. It reminded me that there are so many possibilities and different paths we can all take in life.

Métro ! Le Grand Paris en mouvement at Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine. I love public transport, the metro is incredibly cool - tunnels underground that allow millions of people every day to cross Paris! This exhibition has been on my list to visit for a while so I’m pleased I got to see it before it ends (the last day is June 2nd). It focuses on the history of the metro and also the future with the extension and creation of new metro lines in Paris.

And I’ve also been to two museums to see their permanent collection:

Musée Carnavalet, a free museum on the history of Paris in Le Marais. I’ve been here a few times, and each time I end up in a different part - I find the flow of the museum quite hard to follow, but I still enjoy my time there.

Invalides for the first time - which is wild because I’ve lived here for over 7 years. I spent 3 hours here and there’s still loads that I didn’t see. I’m pleased that I got the audio guide because there’s a lot of information and stories that I would have otherwise missed.

I went to two different events:

I went to my first Shakespeare and Co event. The event was with Sheila Heti on her latest book Alphabetical Diaries. I went with someone I met through a facebook group (I would have been happy going on my own too) and we went for a drink before the event. All the seats were taken by the time we had arrived, but we were still able to stand and listen. I know for next time, that it’s better to arrive in advance. At the end of the talk, I bought a copy of the book and has it signed by her. Earlier this year, I read another one of her books Motherhood which I found to be super interesting.

I also went to the Turkish festiculture which involved a lot of great Turkish food - I’m pleased we went in the morning because it was super busy in the afternoon. After the event we went for beer at BBP Canal. I enjoy drinking beer but I like a very specific type of beer - the fruit and/or sour beers, which you don’t really find in normal bars in Paris.

And I’ve also been able to catch up with some friends that I haven’t seen for a while. I met a friend for beer, another friend for Palestinian food, and I had lunch with some friends from the company that I used to work at (we had dosas which I love) and was able to give them some chocolate and Irn-Bru that I got for them when I was last back in the UK. With another friend we went for dinner and had planned to go to a jazz bar after, but in the end we just had a drink at an Irish bar - the jazz night will be rescheduled. And I had a friend from Germany that stayed over - we had a chilled night at home.

I volunteered once at the Serve the City food distribution, it was nice to be back after a few weeks away.

Day trips

I’m still working on my Île-de-France alphabet project so I did some day trips:

I went to Yerres but I was having a bad day so I came home early. You know the days where everything just makes you angry or frustrated? Yeah, it was one of those days despite the good weather. I will be back to Yerres sometime soon so that I can complete my blog post on it.

All things blog

On top of the blog posts as part of my Île-de-France project, I also posted some other articles:

I added a section for my monthly wrap ups, and this is the first edition! I’ve also been working on some other collections to add including one around museums in Paris (more on that in June!).

Books

I’m part of a book club, and each month we meet to exchange books, to talk about the books we’ve read and everything else in life. This month we went for fluffy pancakes which were pretty good (although more of a snack than breakfast). I loveeee this book club, and everyone in it - they really are part of my community in Paris.

My book club book this month was Working Hard, Hardly Working which honestly wasn’t my favourite book. I feel like a lot of the tools she spoke about are things that I already do in my daily life (both personally and professionally) so I didn’t take much away from it.

I also read Metamorphosis by Kafka. I very rarely read classic books because it’s not my favourite writing style. I wasn’t sure how to rate this books, because it definitely made me uncomfortable - and I guess that’s kind of the point? But I also don’t want to rate highly a book that made my feel that way. I was able to discuss this book with my partner who has previous read it (we bought it while on holiday in Brno, Czechia). I love being able to discuss books with people in my life which is why I often give away or lend out books that I have bought (so if any of my friends want to read a book that I have, please tell me so I can give you the book!).

I also read A court of Thorns and Roses which I loved, so much so I finished it in just over two days which is pretty wild for a book of 400 pages. I then immediately ordered the second and third book in the series. I’ve already finished the second book and will start the third book sometime in June. It’s different to my normal reading style, but I felt like I needed to read something different.

And I have been reading Alphabetical Diaries. It’s so different to any other book I’ve read. It feels so personal, so vulnerable and so poetic. In her talk, she spoke about how three themes came up for her a lot over the 10 years of her diary - and it got me thinking about what my themes would be (because I definitely tell the same stories and write the same thoughts in my journal a lot).

I’ve read a lot more in May than usual, and my stats on StoryGraph really show that.

Music

Here’s some music that’s been released this month that I’ve really enjoyed:

Journalling

I love journalling, my journal comes with me pretty much everywhere I go. I enjoy use the quiet moments in the day to sit with my thoughts rather than spending the day on social media (it doesn’t always turn out that way).

I’m part of a JoClub, an online journalling community and at the start of each month we try to set intentions for the month with the rule being one of them is a soul goal.

My goals of the month were:

All of these were a success 💃

For the self awareness challenge (affiliate link), having an accountability buddy has been great and it means I’m actually going to finish it. Line, a friend from JoClub has been doing it with me. Each day we share our insights based on the prompts which has been a lot of fun. You can find her instagram here where she shares her writing and photography.

I did this challenge back in 2022 (I unfortunately didn’t finish it) so I spent some time typing up my responses from my journal to Notion so I could compare. Some responses were the same, but for others I interpreted the prompts in different ways or had a different feeling now. I was also able to attend the kickoff session - live journalling is a very soul warming feeling. When a 21 day challenge is (re)launched there are 3 live journalling sessions.

I attended one normal JoClub session “Plan with Jo! May edition” which is a monthly session hosted by Jo. In this session we reflect on the last month and think about what the next month should look like. My favourite prompt from this session is where we had to rate on how fulfilled we were across different areas of out life: career, life admin, love, friendship, family, mindfulness, health and fun.

French

I signed up for French classes again with Lingoda (referral link). Since I’m no longer speaking French at work, I feel like I need to start again with lessons so that I don’t lose my level - it’s not something I will do every month but it seemed like the right time to start again. I still speak French in daily life, but it’s usually the same type of conversations so I wanted to expand my vocab and work on the grammar.

Work

I don’t want to jinx anything yet, but I’m in the recruitment process with a company to start as a tour guide. More on that next month (hopefully).

Other stuff

I found the time to look through some photos from a USB stick. These photos were mostly from my first year in Paris with au pair friends, but there was also some photos related to learning how to code and finding a job in tech. It was fun to look through and to think about what has changed and what is still the same

Wrap up

It both feels like May went super fast, and yet was here forever. I feel like I got a lot of things done this month while also making the time to see friends and visit museums.