entry 001. what familiarity forgets // jean paul
The Ambassador. What Familiarity Forgets. 2023
This is Jean Paul. (Yes, that's his real name.)
Jean Paul was my guide during a trip I took to Paris a few years ago. I wanted to go sightseeing, as most people do when they visit somewhere for the first time, but I didn't want to just go, see, take some photos and leave. I wanted to see the city through familiar eyes. There's so much that you miss without the context of familiarity, and I try not to get too lost in the spectacle of new things. So Jean Paul became my lens. A man who spends three days a week in retirement sharing his city with strangers (as he likes to spend the other four days quietly with his wife).
He said that he loved the city. The history of it all. How the culture of the place has shifted, moved and flowed like a river. "You never see the same Paris twice," he said.
As he went on with stories about the art and history of the city, I stopped and really looked at him. There was a light in his eyes and a contentment in his tone. His arms sweeping, on and off the steering wheel. The pointing, the controlled enthusiasm. He truly loved this place.
Panthéon, Cyclist in Foreground. What Familiarity Forgets. 2023
I asked him, curiously, of all the things a man who has lived the life he has could do with his time, why this?
He replied, simply and elegantly: "I have the chance to experience the city like it's the first time through the eyes and ears of my passengers. I do it because I love this city. These tours help remind me of so many whys in my life, and also to not take living in one of the world's great, most beloved cities for granted."
Spoken like a true ambassador, I told him.
He looked back, smiled, and launched into a story about he and his wife's favorite bakery as we passed by it, pausing just long enough to recommend we try their pain au chocolat and macarons. Of course he did. Again, a true ambassador.
It wasn't until I made it back to my hotel that it dawned on me. There was a lesson woven into my afternoon with Jean Paul. Familiarity has a quiet way of making the extraordinary invisible. The people, places, and moments closest to us are often the ones we stop seeing most completely.
Bouquinistes Along The Seine. What Familiarity Forgets. 2023
Jean Paul figured this out.
He not only found a way to fall in love with his home over and over again, he was intentional about it. Romanticizing every turn, every side street, every landmark. He loved Paris because it offered him a life. He met his wife there. Raised his children there. And he chose to spend his retirement driving strangers through it, not solely because he loved the city itself, but because of the decades of living he had built there. Every tour reminded him of who he was and what he loved. He got to feel all of it again, every time he settled into that old Citroën 2CV and wound through those streets. Those rides were just as much for him as they were for his passengers.
Of the many things I learned from Jean Paul that afternoon, the most important was something he never explicitly said.
It was something he lived.
Written & Photographed by Terrence True
Shot on Leica D-Lux 7
