A week has passed—an orbit around a sun made of espresso, baguettes, and the hum of a camera shutter. I sip my coffee as the day begins, a loop I don’t dare break. The laptop glows with edits, pixels becoming faces, colors becoming memory. Eleven o’clock sneaks up like a shadow on the wall.
Go arrives. From Tokyo to Paris, we exchange stories about the labyrinth of creativity. My mind, still tethered to retouching, takes the shoot in a natural direction—close-ups, faces fragmented into collages in my head. Go’s expressions tell stories I don’t yet know how to write. When we finish, the golden arches call us. McDonald’s Paris: a paradox of the familiar and the foreign. Fries that taste like nostalgia, burgers wrapped in intrigue. The birthplace reimagined.
Back to my apartment, Aapo arrives. We dive into the shoot, the conversation orbiting art and movement. I show him the collages that pulse like living things, fragments of color and texture stitched together by imagination. His excitement mirrors mine; the future of these images glimmers in our shared anticipation.
Afterward, the city whispers, and I wander. The Moulin Rouge windmill spins lazily, a relic of Parisian spectacle. Down the hill, my feet trace streets that no longer feel foreign. My internal compass aligns, the map of Paris slowly etching itself into my memory.
Today’s fixation? A laundromat. Circles of dryer doors reflect the endless loops of this city, this week, my thoughts. The machines hum their mechanical song, a rhythm that matches my steps. Circles inside circles, a motif that won’t let me go.
Back at my apartment, dinner is ramen. A simple bowl, a spiraling reflection of the day’s themes. Circling back through the week in my mind, I see the loops:
Weekly Recap:
Day 1: Bent wire becomes sculpture. Trash cans whisper poetry. Aldehydes and buttery air swirl into eggshell blue, and Paris exhales cigarette smoke like an artist puffing on inspiration.
Day 2: A dome devours me—a Saint Honoré cake alive with golden arches. Sacré-Cœur sits atop a hill paved with pastries. The carousel spins, a kaleidoscope of sugary visions.
Day 3: Grapefruit bursts through Hedonist’s amber fog. The Arc de Triomphe becomes a portal, old stones bending into floral textiles at Yves Saint Laurent’s world of petals and gowns. Somewhere, a voice sings me back to the Seine.
Day 4: Jazz notes carve shapes in the cold air. Sea urchins spill golden secrets into stainless steel trays. Scallop shells march in rows, repeating the mantra of old cabaret posters. My battery blinks its last, but I keep moving.
Day 5: Sicilian lemons tossed into the trash—what is old, what is new? Pop art unfolds in grocery aisles; marbled meats and neon fruits sing in harmony. Charging batteries, I recharge myself.
Day 6: Lane’s photos ripple into the past, colors spilling into black-and-white memories. A comic artist’s studio brims with ink and paper, old and new colliding. Glass reflects stone, chocolate bridges centuries, and the Eiffel Tower’s light twinkles like a memory already forgotten.
Today was circles: the dryers, the ramen bowl, the rhythm of a week replaying in my mind. A paradox of completion and continuation. The city folds back into itself, and I follow its loops, always beginning, always ending. Tomorrow will come, and the circle will turn again.