I met my husband in a bar. Not very romantic from the outside. He intervened during a bar-regular’s pitiful attempt to pick me up, and we spent the rest of the evening arguing about hockey and debating the ridculousness of monogamy. Again, not terribly romantic…but then we got onto the topic of Paris. My first and truest love.

At first I thought it was a carefully calculated story – I mean, any woman would be enchanted by a man’s tale of 5 solo trips to Paris just to soul-search, right? It was all so very… Moleskin and Cafe de Flore and, well, existentialist. But I didn’t fall for it. Not at first. Paris was not a trendy fantasy or the backdrop of a romantic comedy to me. It represented much, much more.

After months of relentless pursuit, he began to break down my barriers. He was handsome, accomplished, thoughtful and genuinely kind. Quite honestly, he is an amazing man. But that moment, the one we all dream about – the one where you just know? Well, one day he led me to his apartment for the first time. I saw something hanging on his wall – one single solitary photo of a remote street in Paris. I was shocked. Not because he had a photo on his wall of Paris (doesn’t everyone?). But it was his photo, one he had taken years before we’d met. When I had moved to Paris as a younger woman, I wandered the streets for nearly 2 months looking for a place to live. I’d had friends (of friends – essentially strangers) who graciously lended couches while I searched, but I was literally and figuratively lost in a foreign city. I’d been denied a bank account, had no phone, had barely contacted my family since I’d arrived and was expected to perform at my job while I carried my every belonging in a back pack – week in and week out. Such experiences change a person, and those times imprint themselves upon you. One day I met an agent about a property on a street that was not of any significance – in fact, I couldn’t even tell you the name of the street today. Worn thin and becoming hopeless, I made my way around the corner I saw the Eiffel Tower – a pillar of majesty and inspiration to me – I took a photo of it, and I carried on.

A few years prior, long before we’d ever met, this man (my now husband) found himself on this same street. And was moved by the same exact scene, for whatever soul-searching reason. We shot it differently, but if you look, you can see the same “Restaurant” sign on the street as the Eifflel Tower peeks out over the buildings in his photo. We both shot it with the same camera, on film. I recognized it immediately, and realized I had found my soul mate.

So you see, life moves us in sometimes unexpected ways. Just like a song or a treasured memory, a photograph matters. Having it printed on your wall matters. Letting it live on and tell it’s own story matters. One changed my life. Because one day I saw something hanging on a wall that took me back to a place I loved – a time that changed me – and that scene was just as meaningful enough to someone else to hang it there.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my sweet husband – a man I love for who he is today and for the man he had become long before we’d ever met.

So as this marks my last post before we sign off for the holiday, I would like to wish you as smiley and joyful a weekend as you are about to see here with this little bit of happiness. Happy Holidays to you all!