My heart thumped wildly as I exited the metro and began my languid stroll to the office yesterday. Back to the routine. I love what I do but the attendant stress (of any job, really) of what I took on last year really wore on me. Perpetual tension in my shoulders, neck aches and blurred vision after hours behind the computer were standard yet almost everything I do demands these conditions.

 But while on holiday these last two weeks, I was fully relaxed. Oddly restful might even describe the feeling. Quality family time and limited obligations spurred the kind of calm missing from my daily life and for the first time in ages, I was more attentive to the minutiae of my surroundings and the signals of my own body. Exhausted? Sleep twelve hours. Restless? Spend an hour at the gym. Nowhere to be? Plow through that stack of magazines you haven’t had time to read. In many ways, it was better than the most rejuvenating of beach vacations.

Back in Paris, where the vaporous sky forebodes a long, grim winter, my newfound clarity is already dimming, slipping from my grasp. So in an attempt to cling to this swiftly fleeting feeling a little longer, here are a few of my favorite snapshots from my trip. May they crystallize into memory and steer my course through the year.

Brooklyn and Philly, you were good to me. Loads more photos HERE.