Intermission nº01
"We'll always have Paris"
For the past three months, my life has been on an intermission. I’ve been trying to keep my word to write at least one piece every month; the amount of pressure and criticism I’ve been putting on myself for not accomplishing that is immense and hurtful. The truth is, I'm looking at nine drafts on my Substack, I haven’t stopped writing, I just haven't been publishing.
Life started shifting when the anxiety I was feeling for April was through the roof, I could not concentrate on the day-to-day routine, I could only see the days going by as the important colour-coded events on my calendar were getting close, I was simply functioning on automatic mode.
Seeing all of my week and weekends filled with events and gatherings, I felt happy and sad at the same time, most of the events were happy ones, travels, birthday parties, having my partner over for a couple of days, some new film releases and a lot of writing. Still, I knew I wouldn’t rest, not the way I need it to, rest by just laying in bed with my cat and watching a large amount of movies while the day turns into night.
Besides having a packed schedule with important events, I also had my weeks filled with work. I found myself serving my notice at an old job (easily one of the worst places I have ever worked) and also onboarding a new job (that now consumes all of the time and energy I have, including weekends).
To finally achieve a career that I love, I also have my passion projects on the side, my writing and this page (I see this Substack as a “job”), and my film producing gig, where i'm developing film projects with dear and talent friends.
I just don't seem to give me a real break.
(And for those who don’t know, I live in Portugal, so on Monday, April 28, 2025, I found myself in the middle of a power outage, between two countries. EVERYTHING WAS OUT. *screams internally*)
After sobbing for weeks on end, writing without a stop (not very good writing came out of it), hopping on late night calls with my mom, going through tough and long conversations with closed ones, I finally learned and accepted the limitations I was putting on myself, so I decided to burst the bubble and make some concrete decisions.
On the hope of practicing to focus on the beautiful things, the calm came after the storm, I started listening a bit more to my mom's advice, and listening more to my heart. I began to accept that I'm evolving and want new things in life.
Having big changes happen in small periods (which is a big constant in my life) made me think more about rest and bliss. I have achieved a point where all I want is to feel joy and calm, I want to feel the wave of love and happiness we see in movies.
Not so long ago, I hadn't watched any of the “Before Trilogy” movies. I used to think they were overrated. I would roll my eyes every time I saw people recommending and posting quotes and scenes from the trilogy. It didn't help either that most of the people who did all of that and recommended specifically to me were people with not very good recommendations.
But a couple of years ago, on an afternoon after a breakup, I chose to give these movies a try (perfect timing, I know), just rip the band-aid off at once, and surprise, surprise, they are PERFECT.
It fathoms me how I got to experience these movies the way I did and as a grown woman, having the ability to understand the depth they go into, what a relationship (the act of relating to someone) can look like, how vulnerability and truth can be sexy and scary at the same time.
It's priceless how Jesse and Celine’s story transcends languages and cultures, how it shows that being the most authentic and messy self, while having compassion and interest, is the only way you will connect deeply to anyone or anything.
“Effortless” is the word I would use to describe what Richard Linklater wanted for us to feel, how love can be really simple if we’re open to real intimacy, to being honest with ourselves and with others. Upon watching it, I was faced with so many questions and feelings about what I wanted for my life, how I wanted to be loved, and how I wanted to love someone else.
(It has to be said that I still haven't watched the last one of the trilogy, Before Midnight, simply because I’m almost certain it will wreck me)
Life imitates Art and Art imitates Life...
"Life is not a movie," a phrase I hear a lot from people and I strongly disagree with them, if we can dream about it and yearn for relations just like we see in movies, if its up there on the screen is because someone has lived something similar, its because we dreamt enough to make it possible.
A year later, after watching it for the first time, I set out to watch it again with my now partner, a Frenchman. There is something quite beautiful to watch pieces of art with people you love, watching the images in their eyes and hearing their thoughts on what’s unfolding in front of you. (It might be one of my greatest joys in life)
I’ve meet my partner, nine years ago, right when I moved to Portugal, we talked a lot but nothing ever came of it, we then went on to live our lives with other people and ended up loosing contact to each other, seven years later we ended up finding each other again, from message one, I knew life would change. After months of texts and a seven-hour drive to meet me for only a couple of hours, we knew we didn't want to spend time without one another.
“What if you had a second chance with the one that got away?” - those are the words you read when you look up the blurb for Linklater’s Before Sunset. (my favourite so far in the trilogy)
My partner is not quite the one that got away; we never had a relationship before to feel that way, but we are having a second chance with each other, and I cannot stop thinking about how tender it is.
While watching Before Sunset together, he was telling me about how he used to walk around the same places Jesse and Celine were passing by, we immediately started making plans, that one day we were going to roam around the Paris streets together, just like in the movie.
The plan became real on the week of the 16th of June, the same date Jesse and Celine meet, and coincidentally in the year of the 30th anniversary of Before Sunrise (which makes it even more special).
On our way to a different destination (a piece of paradise), we had three hours to walk around my dream city, not a very long time (I know), but I had a Frenchman as a guide, so I had an advantage on where to go.
Oh, Paris!
As a young little girl obsessed with fashion, thinking clothes would be my career, I dreamt of the day I would show my collection in the most beautiful and famous city in the world. Gladly, I ended up following another path. Now my dream is to screen a movie in competition at Cannes (still French territory), or to spend a month in Paris just going to the movies and watching films from morning to night, while eating the best butter and the best bread in the world. (much more achievable dream)
The excitement could not be contained inside me as I landed my feet in Paris, with a list of places to go, longer than I care to admit, and with no time to do everything, I opted to put my partner on the spot and asked him to take me to a nice place. Without missing a beat, he had a full schedule prepared and a mischievous smile on his face.
We started the schedule by going to a press kiosk (the ones you buy newspapers and magazines), to purchase my only wish for the day: an "L'officiel des Spectacles" a movie, art and theatre guide, where you can find all the movie listings for the whole week, I knew I wouldn't have time to watch anything, but I wanted to have the memory with me, of what was playing in the City of Lights while I was there.
We then headed for the Luxembourg Garden, which was filled to the brim with different vibes and people enjoying the start of the summer. I ended up getting mesmerised by some old lovely people playing pétanque, I had never seen it live, only heard about it, but what caught my attention was how happy they were just enjoying the Saturday morning and spending their time with friends. I just sat down on a chair under a tree's shadow and kept watching them play, letting myself get emotional by the feeling of how simple and good life can be.
Wanting to enjoy more of the good feeling but having to leave due to not having much time, we went on our way, to our next destination, but not before I made us stop at every cinema that i recognised (for a person that does not live in Paris, I know quite a lot of where they are located) and every bookshop that crossed my eyes. Spending the time we didn't have, I melted with the passion of finding books and sometimes films that are impossible to find ANYWHERE, followed by the heartbreak that they were only in French (a language i haven't learned...yet).
I looked like a kid in a candy shop, I had the largest smile on my face, I would just point and say the name of things as if they were miracles I was witnessing, but little did I know that the most important part was yet to come: film locations.
Dawning on me where we were headed, I could not hold much of my emotions, with some tears in my eyes, I asked him if we were walking on the same street as Jesse and Celine in Before Sunset.
He said “yes”.
I’ve always been more of a realist than a romantic. Real intimacy reveals how much you’ve been afraid to let things go and just happen how they're supposed to, and as I'm getting older, I'm falling in love with small things in life. I’m learning to slow down, and not to live in survival mode 24-7, learning how small gestures mean much more.
The romance movies I love the most have Paris involved in some way; they don’t specifically have a happy ending, but all of them are about dreaming and enjoying the moment you have with that person.
I felt I was in a dream haze, where it didn't feel real, that someone had prepared a special day for me. When we turned the corner at the "Shakespeare and Co." and I got to see the Notre-Dame in the background, I cried.
After going through other film locations, we had a final stop, he wanted to show me a Jazz Club, the oldest and most renowned in Paris, we stopped at the front and he told me that this was the part he was most excited about. That upon doing his research, he found a place that is mentioned and featured on the epilogue of Damien Chazelle's La La Land, a movie I deeply, I mean DEEPLY care about.
I now had a lot of tears running down my face. My partner said he was sorry he took me somewhere that made me cry, he didn't think I would react like that, but I said that he made me the happiest, and that they were tears of joy. I cried more than I would like to admit.
The movie’s epilogue unfolds as we see an An American in Paris-inspired number take place on the screen, colouring our eyes with beauty and hope of what the characters’s lives could've been. We see Mia and Sebastian (Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's characters) dancing along the Seine, she now a famous actress filming in Paris, and he playing at the most prestigious jazz club there.
La La Land is about chasing your dreams, sacrifice, love, and never giving up on what you want. During the fall section of the movie, we watch Mia having her big audition, where she talks about her aunt, who lived in Paris, being silly, messy, and alive. She sings about how you have to be a fool and a courageous one to dream.
"I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect. Later in life, you realise it only happens a few times.” - Before Sunrise (1995)
Losing touch and then finding each other again, these moments are so rare that they turn into the most important feeling. When you love someone, either a partner, a friend, or family, you have to learn to enjoy the moments, care for the special time that will live with you forever, and cherish the memory that will build your character.
As the time for our train was getting close, we strolled around Quasimodo’s home (the Notre-Dame) and went to enjoy the breeze (it was a very, very hot day) by the Seine before heading to the station.
We sat down and I just marvelled at how happy I truly was.
By the end of the afternoon, we were boarding our train, leaving the City of Lights behind us. With a two-hour ride on our hands, we tried to find something to watch, but we were so ecstatic with the day we had that we settled for just having a good conversation. Making everything more poetic, my Frenchman said to me “It’s a shame, we didn't have more time to spend in the city”, to which I replied: “We’ll always have Paris, my love.”
I could not leave Paris without mentioning Casablanca, so for the next hour during our dinner on the train, I told him all about Ilsa and Rick’s (Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart characters’) love story, recollecting the whole plot of the movie, (my reenactment was so detailed, he could have logged straight onto Letterboxd).
Thinking it now there is a lot of comparisons between Casablanca and La La Land, Mia has an Ingrid Bergman’s poster on her bedroom wall, Sebastian also opens a nightclub named after himself just like Rick’s cafe, the studio lot where Mia works is where they shoot Casablanca, and finally both Mia and Ilsa show up at their (Sebastian and Rick’s) establishment after years of being separated with their current husbands.
Right person, wrong time - that’s what all of these movies have in common, they are all movies I care about and love, movies that taught me big lessons, the most important one being that we can not fear the heartbreak, that falling madly in love is worth it.
I never thought I would be someone writing about my love life, is too personal, this piece comes with the fear of putting out tender words for a future that we don’t know how its going to be, but I also don't want to keep me from writing what I am feeling, with the fear of what might come.
Today, I feel happier with myself. I'm happy with knowing who I am and what I want. It took me a long time to accept and to get here, and I still have a long road to follow, a lot of growing up and evolving.
I don't find life beautiful at all times, I struggle with that a lot, but when I do... It's the most colourful and worthy life one can have.
So here’s to feeling inspired again, here’s to the fools who dream.