A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 13 – How To Be a “Lockdown” Chic Success
May 2, 2020
“Become A Chic Success” is Fiona Ferris’s Day 13 in her book, 30 More Chic Days. Fiona encourages us to really think about what our personal vision of a chic and successful life would be. Whatever springs to mind, write it down. With the list, we now have a motivating individualized blueprint of how we wanted to live our lives. I love the idea of it! Our question, according to Fiona, would be “If I was a chic success, what would my life look like?”
I’m definitely interested in discovering what my picture of “chic success'” is with regard to my overall life. At the moment, however, I’m pretty focused on my here & now in Lockdown Paris, Spring 2020. My big question right now is: “If I were a chic success in this CoVid-19 lockdown crisis, what would my life look like?” My ambitions are not lofty. I’m not running a Fortune 500 company from my kitchen. No national leader has ever sought my advice on anything. My overarching ambition is just to navigate this period with as much grace as I can muster, be a good role model for my children and try to keep as healthy mentally and physically as I can.
Here is what sprang to mind:
- Physical health: I would be eating healthy, appetizing meals, doing my stretches and strength training and walking outside within my 1 km area.
- Emotional health: I would work at being calm and able to “roll with the punches.” I would be extra gentle and supportive with my loved ones and myself.
- Surroundings: my apartment would be organized and (relatively) tidy.
- Creativity: I would be working with my volunteer group, publishing a post of day, and journaling 5-10 minutes a day.
If I look back over this past week, I can see that I’ve done okay with the physical health part. My husband has been very disciplined about working out every day this lockdown period with strength bands so he has really inspired me. I have done the stretches, pushups and planks each day (the planks are about to kill me, by the way.) We’ve kept to a pretty healthy meal plan (I’m doing much better about not munching so much since I put the sugar away.)
Yesterday’s topic (how to be easy to get along with here) was a bit of a wake-up call. Gentleness and patience are not my strong points. I’m back on mission with a good attitude and a calmer outlook on life. I have to remind myself that this lockdown period will not last forever, we will all get through this and, even right now, there is plenty to be thankful for. In fact, as someone who has dreamed for most of my adult life of living in Paris, I’m still doing what I’ve always dreamed of. Yes, it’s the CoVid-19 crisis but at least I’m spending it here where the French government kept the chocolate and wine stores open as well as groceries and pharmacies (because they are all considered necessities, bien sur!) Compared to many people who are in truly dire straits, I have very little to worry about. (So I need to stop worrying!)
Surroundings: uh, right. Hmmm. The apartment could definitely use som picking up and putting away. (It’s not a large space so disorder is quickly obvious. Also, we have the windows open during the day so the apartment gets pretty dusty.)
Creativity: I’ve been okay on that score. I’m usually too busy to spend too much time on brain-wasters like click-clicking away down the rabbit hole of the internet. (There was some wandering around Amazon … Oh, well, tant pis!) The journaling part – that earns a big zero for the week
Looking back over the week and taking stock of how “chicly successful” I was at handling this lockdown period in a positive way, I give myself an OK. Current lockdown rules will continue in France until at least May 11. National leaders say that Paris will probably stay in lockdown longer than other parts of the country. So, for me, there are at least 2 more weeks of the current rules and then a multi-week, long, slow “deconfinement” process. Plenty of time to practice being a “chic success” at lockdown!
Plan for the upcoming week:
- add journaling to my lunchtime break.
- each time I start to get a bit stir-crazy or a bit worried about how long this thing will last, pull out the vacuum cleaner!
