Paris, 2025, in review: shifting sands, slow tides… as the year closes, I’m writing more slowly than usual …
As the year closes, I’m writing more slowly than usual, but running more quickly than expected. Paris does that to you in winter. It hasn’t been an easy year for the world, and for me. History has continued to unfold with complexity. There were moments when it felt as though the ground kept shifting, professionally, personally, and physically, just as we were finding our footing and changing our stride. We didn’t see what was coming, whether a foreign aid slowdown, an AI explosion, or a lamp post in the path of a morning run – all hitting like thunderbolts. And yet, creativity remained in 2025. In fact, it stepped up. Creativity arrived in Romilly, Normandy. There is something deeply restorative about rural France, older friends, and the natural environment. Creativity arrived step by step. Running the Odyssea 10 km event in Paris was a personal milestone, not only for me, but for the almost 16,000 participants. It felt symbolic: moving forward, step by step, and a reminder that progress doesn’t need to be fast, nor dramatic. You just need to show up, be present. Breathing helps. A journey to Tbilisi, Georgia, added a different horizon to the year: a city layered with resilience, generosity, warmth, and ancient stories that are still relevant in today’s times. Georgia has the power to reorient the soul. This year, creativity became less about outputs and more about presence. But when I adopted that approach, the outputs were satisfying. I released my novel, If Paris Were My Lover, a book shaped by the city itself: my love for it, and my uncertainty about it while trying to live in it and understand it. I spent three months immersed in “Soul Discovery” sessions with Jacob Nordby, author of The Creative Cure. Those months deepened my trust in creativity as a healing force, not as a luxury or an output, but as a lifestyle and a lifeline. That reflective writing journey flowed naturally into visual expression. Last year, I undertook Kari Van Tine’s “Magical Mandala” art course. I continued into this year with watercolour painting. Some of the most meaningful moments came not from finished pieces, but from experiences with other participants, and long conversations about the creative processes of writing, art, and music. This year also marked the launch of my non-fiction book, Innovation Within Constraints Handbook, a work grounded in years of navigating complex systems while doing my core work in the humanitarian and foreign aid sphere, where limitations are real but imagination still matters. My humanitarian and human rights work includes psychosocial support, which deepened this year with the creation and launch of two guides: the Moon, Mood, and Mind Mapping Tracker and Tranquility Mapping. Both emanated from a desire to help people silence the noise, to notice environmental and personal cycles, and to reclaim inner quiet, creativity, and wellbeing. As 2026 approaches, I do so with fewer plans and more trust. Trust in creativity. Trust in slowness. Trust that wellbeing is a way of staying in the world, with care. Thank you for being here; for reading and reflecting with me this year. Wherever you are as 2025 draws to a close, I hope you find moments of stillness, beauty, and creativity. To close, here is a poem — because a poem always helps. Paris, 2025 The city leaned inward this year, as if listening to its own heart. Rain softened the arguments of stone, and the Seine kept its counsel. I ran when I could, rested when I must, learned that breath is a form of stillness and watercolour painting is too. In borrowed rooms and distant cities I gathered myself again — not whole, but honest. Books were released like paper boats, art bloomed in floral delights, creativity — patient, unforced, waited, sparked, and grew. Paris did not promise ease, only presence. And that, in 2025, was enough. But the light is shifting now. Embraced anew. And I, towards you.
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Monday, 15 December 2025
Paris, 2025, in review: shifting sands, slow tides
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