I’m reflecting upon differences in knowledge and preferences leading to vastly different life choices, as I’m home for a passing in the family, and staying at my father’s new apartment in a new development. Here is no parks. Here are no streets (just roads). Here are no views. Here are no houses (just buildings). Here are no pedestrians (just cars). Here are no squares (just bus terminals). Here are no restaurants, no cafes, no bars (just malls). And it looks sorta alright, but I’m fighting the urge to leave.

I miss my cafe, my view, my river, my bar, my streets, my squares, my bakeries, my deli, my fromagerie, my winery, my cinema, my park, my wine bar, my hill, my castle, my town. I don’t know what this is, but it’s definitely not a town. I suppose it’s made for containing humans while they’re not out working to pay for the thing that contains them. The buildings aren’t really architecture but building engineering; each slightly different looking on the outside – each with permutations of window placement – but all share the same plastered gray-white walls, concrete slab ceilings and gross lighting, in rooms too narrow and floors too shallow; as if they tried to trick people into thinking the apartments were liveable since care has (seemingly) been taken to make each building look slightly different on the outside. But, no, no care has been taken here for the emotional needs of humans, it is all material – except all the material is concrete, composite and fake metals. This is how you would build a town if you didn’t know humans are souls not bodies.

There is no consideration for how a person feels when gazing upon a pleasing view when they look out of their window in the morning. There is no care for how a person feels when the back of their hand strokes the wooden panelling of the walls when passing through their home. There is no consideration for the gleeful recognition of that squeak when stepping just in the right place of the floor between the kitchen and hall. There is no appreciation for the sense of connection felt when the woman at your corner cafe turns to great you with a smile when you come in the morning. There is no appreciation for the sense of being taken cared of when a waiter serves you in a room that is made to feel like home. There is no tradition. No culture. Memory. Place.

I’m moving to Paris, anyways.