Shakespeare & Co.

I was back in Berry, the small country town where I grew up. It was 2015. I was twenty-three years old, and out for my daily jog around town.

A few weeks prior, I'd been scrolling through Pinterest when an image popped up that captured my imagination. It was of a little bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare & Company, full of mismatched books and wooden ladders that slid along the shelves.

I decided, then and there, that I wanted to visit that bookshop in the next twelve months. I was broke after the failure of 99dresses, and was living with my parents at the time. I spent my days teaching myself new skills that would come in handy for the next phase of my career, particularly programming and graphic design. I also did a little contract work here and there, but nothing substantial.

I had no idea how my French holiday was going to come about, but I had a hypothesis I wanted to test. I decided to run an experiment whereby I'd convince my consciousness that I was already there, in Paris, on that trip.

So that's how I found myself running through the streets of a little country town in Australia, projecting holographic images of cafe-lined Parisian streets onto my surroundings. I could look up and see the Eiffel tower in the sky. I could visualize the experience in incredible detail in my mind, and overlay those images onto my mundane reality.

I also began learning French on Duolingo. Every day I'd spend fifteen minutes learning new vocabulary in preparation for my impending trip.

After a few days of this, I began seeing French things everywhere. My rational mind tried to label it confirmation bias. Perhaps it was. However, I distinctly remember saying to my mother, "I just have this feeling that I am going to go to France this year." She had smiled and said, "That's nice," knowing full well that the last thing I could afford to do was take a holiday to Europe in the summer.

A few months later, a man I'd never met before tagged me in a tweet.

Toulouse, I thought to myself. Where's that?

I did a quick google search and nearly spilled my coffee. Toulouse was in France. Of all the places in the world, I'd been invited to speak at a conference in France.

So that's how I found myself physically running my hands along the spines of the books in Shakespeare & Company — just like I'd done in my mind a few short months earlier. I laced up my sneakers and jogged through the streets of Paris in real life, revisiting a place my consciousness had already been. It was as if the holographic projection in my imagination had somehow leaked into my physical reality.

The trip to Toulouse was magical. It was the beginning of summer, and I experienced the very best of French hospitality. Wine and cheese were as abundant and free-flowing as laughter and fun. I met some other entrepreneurs there, and over several nights we found ourselves in little Toulouse nightclubs or enjoying Fête de la Musique on the cobbled streets.

A week later, I flew to Paris and spent ten days aimlessly wandering around the city. I bought my entire collection of Harry Potter books. Half my days were spent sitting in cafes by myself, drinking coffee, and reading about magical worlds that hid behind train platforms.

I usually re-read the Harry Potter books every few years when I had some free time and wanted to appreciate a feat of great ingenuity. I loved JK Rowling's writing — particularly how the final book tied together all the little loose strings and clues hidden throughout the entire series. The ending changed my perspective on the whole journey. It was a creative masterpiece.

Maybe one day I'll write a story like that, I thought as I lay in bed, reading. Something clever and creative and magical.