Worn

On my first visit to the Paris, first time through the Louvre, something caught my eye that I've now seen echoed all throughout the city - the stairs.

See, there in the Louvre, worn into the right side of the stone stairway was a subtle bowl - eroded like a canyon by countless individual footsteps over hundreds of years. Each life, each story, leaving a tiny mark.

Those marks are everywhere here. In my little apartment now, up on the sixth floor, I climb a narrow wooden spiral staircase up up up.

Each step has a story. A slight groove, a rounded lip, a smooth sheen from the pressed past of heavy boots, light bare feet, sharp heels, a dragged suitcase.

Some stair treads, worn, have been replaced. Others wait, wearing a little while longer, before it's their time to rest.

This is perhaps my favorite thing about Paris - in no place, at no time are you allowed to forget that you are a part of this great human story.

Here, you are always a small, tiny part of a big, big story.
And here, now matter what you do, you will leave a lasting mark.

I wonder - where does the past shine through where you are? And where will someone still see you there, long after you're gone?

Have a fantastic week,

-Steven

p.s. The best thing I read this week was actually the start of a longer book I'll probably tell you more about later. It was the first chapter of Factfulness, by Hans Rosling. In it, he artfully dives in to how it is that we keep getting our stories about what the world is like completely wrong. :)