Reinventing a Life in Paris--American Runaway by Audrey Edwards

What happens when you reach retirement age… and realize you’re not ready to simply “settle down”?

In this fascinating and deeply personal conversation, journalist and author, Audrey Edwards, shares the emotional story behind her decision to leave America after the 2016 election and begin a completely different life in Paris at nearly 70 years old.

But this episode is about far more than politics.

Audrey opens up about fear, reinvention, aging, risk-taking, identity, race, retirement, loneliness, freedom, and what it really means to create a life that still feels alive and meaningful later in life.

We talk about:

•  Why so many people stay trapped in lives that no longer inspire them 
•  The emotional side of starting over in your 60s and 70s 
•  Learning to live in a foreign culture without speaking the language 
•  Why Paris changed the way she experiences life 
•  The difference between comfort and fulfillment 
•  Retirement, purpose, and the question: “Retire to what?” 
•  Why risk-taking becomes even more important as we age 
•  The surprising cultural differences between America and France 
•  What truly makes a place feel like “home” 

Audrey’s stories are funny, thoughtful, moving, and incredibly honest — from freezing winters in tiny Paris apartments to discovering a completely different rhythm of life abroad.

This is a conversation about courage, reinvention, and refusing to coast through the later chapters of life.

Audrey’s memoir:
 American Runaway: Black and Free in Paris in the Trump Years

https://www.facebook.com/audrey.edwards.260471

If you enjoy stories about reinvention, purpose, travel, and living boldly later in life, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Contact us:   againstthenorm.net

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:28

Audrey, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to see you. Thank you, Norman, for inviting me. And to have you as a guest. It's so, so, so great. And you know what? I know that we emailed one another before we even got together today. But one thing that struck me as so, so important, you had said that that in your interviews, most of the time, with regards to your book, it focused on the politics of why you left. Yes. But that the emotional journey has been a huge part of your story as well. Yes. And I'd love to start right there. Start at the beginning of what was the catalyst, what happened, what was the emotional part of your life before you decided to leave?

SPEAKER_03 1:10

You know what, Norman? I was of an age. I was in I was about to turn 70. And I had been thinking about retiring. I was doing real estate, as you know, and I didn't really know what that would look like. And I'm the kind of person I've never had a career that followed a particular strategic path. I really more organic and instinctive. So the immediate decision to leave was based on what was happening politically with the election.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Now, I was like a lot of people who would say, if he's elected, I'm leaving the country. And I'd heard this from the time that Nixon was elected and I was in my twenties. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

And I think me and my college roommate at the time would say, if Nixon is elected, we're getting out of here. We're getting the hell out of this country. And I didn't really I can't even say I said that, but I kind of thought it. And there were different presidents coming in where people would say, if so and so is elected, I'm leaving. Right. So when Trump actually declared his candidacy, I thought it was so lunatic that I didn't really take it seriously.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

So I just started saying, you know, if he gets in, I'm out of here. Never thinking I would actually have to do it. Right, just being flippant about it. Being okay. Yeah, right, yeah. Right. So he did win. I'm also the kind of person who likes to keep her word. And really what motivated my leaving for real is that people started saying, Oh, you're not doing, you're not leaving. You're not leaving.

unknown 2:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Uh everybody says that you're not leaving. So, and then they would say things like, Well, you know, France is racist too, which to me was not what the issue was with his election. The issue was his election. Right. How astounding that he even got elected. Right. Right. Race had nothing to do with it. So the more people kind of challenged or belittled, and even I would say things like, I'm leaving, but I really hope I don't have to. Well, when it happened, I thought it was so h horrible that I said, well, let me think about really doing this. Now I had tried to retire to Paris in 2017. No, I'm sorry, 2007. 2007. Oh, 10 years before. Ten years before. And what had happened? My I had a very good girlfriend, successful writer who had died of cancer. I had an ex-boyfriend who had sickle cell anemia, and he was not expected to live a long life, but he died, and my mother died, and they were back to back.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

One was October, one was November, one was September. In 2007. In 2007. Yeah. Uh-huh. And I just said, you know what, I need a break. So I left, really kind of testing the waters for retiring there. Mm-hmm. I didn't give up my apartment. And in 2007, the Euro had just come into effect in Europe.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

And the dollar against the Euro was horrible. Hor yeah. It was horrible. So I was there three months. I said, you know what, you can't retire here. It's it's too costly. Way too much money, yeah. So I came back. When 2016 happened, and Trump was elected, I at least knew I had a place to go. I had made friends during that three months. My college roommate Joe Lowry from the Seattle area, like you. We were roommates at the University of Washington. Sure. She had married a Frenchman and had been living in Paris for like 20 years. And I had stayed with her in 2007.

unknown 5:03

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

So I knew I had a place, and I had met people, and one of the people I met was a Frenchman who was a landlord. He rented Maurice. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Maurice, yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

I will tell you that is his fake name. Fake name? Because Maurice rented to the uh American University of Paris students. Joe worked in housing. They gave a Christmas party. She asked me to help. I went to the Christmas party. That's where I met him. You know, he hit on me, he flirted with me, and he talked about this studio apartment he had that he rented to students. And because I did real estate, he said, Oh, I'm sure you have a clientele that would be, you know, appropriate for my apartment. And I'm thinking, well, no, I really don't. But we became friends. Right. And when I had decided I was really going to go back to Paris after Trump was elected, I contacted him and his apartment was available. Wow. So I was like, oh my goodness. Now, I didn't take his apartment immediately. There was another woman, American broker, who did real estate very successfully in Paris, Adrian Leeds.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

She's on HGTV now, whenever they're doing international house hunting in Paris. Adrian is usually the one. So I contacted her, rented a nice apartment. So in January 19th, the day before Trump was to be inaugurated, I was on a plane flying to Paris. Right. So that was the initial move. Didn't intend to live there.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Oh, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

You know what I thought, Norman?

SPEAKER_04 6:44

He's not gonna last.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Yeah, I'm gonna take a break.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

And you know how stupid I was? Not only did I think I'm gonna take a break, I'm thinking in the three-month litmus test that America always gives towards new presidents in those 90 days, everybody will know a mistake was made.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

And he'll be gone. Yeah. And I didn't really think about how he would be gone, but everybody would recognize, oh wow, this is a disaster.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

So we got to get rid of him.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

Well, that didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. So now I'm into month three two, realizing he's not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

And therefore neither am I, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

Well, no, I knew I had to come back because I didn't have a long-term visa. Right. It w I still had an apartment in New York. I still had a life in New York. I had not wrapped any of that up because I didn't think I was going to be there permanently. Oh, and it was also the worst winter in Paris's 30 in 30 years.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

I have a question about that soon, too, because no central heat in Paris? What's going on?

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Those were were, as we call them, come to Jesus Lords. But I also learned a lot about myself during that period.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Sure. Well, you know what? Tell me more about what you learned about yourself because I have a couple of questions that I want to ask, but this is so important about what you learned about going somewhere new, relatively new. Wasn't your you know place of residence for years and years and years you didn't grow up there? Right. It's new, you had somewhat of a social, you know, environment, some social people. Connections, a little bit of people to go to. But what was unusual about the whole experience? What was difficult?

SPEAKER_03 8:42

What was challenging? What was The main thing was that I did not speak French. Ah, yeah. I did not speak French. Now, a lot of French people, a lot of the French people do speak English. Mm-hmm. Sure. But as a journalist, as a writer, as a communicator, it really bothered me. Yeah. That I could not communicate with people that I admired greatly, respected their culture, thought their art was beautiful. And I'm thinking, how can you be a credible communicator if you cannot speak the language of the country, the people in the country that you purport to want to live in? Sure. So I did take French. Um and that first well, when I went ten years before, I had taken French, and I was doing pretty well. And then there was a metro strike. And one of the things that I will say about the French, when they strike, they really do a good job. They go hard.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Go all in.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

They were out long enough. Didn't stay that long, but it was long enough for me to lose everything I had learned.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

And I never really recovered from that. And I was 10 years younger.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

And there and it's really true, I don't care what people say, it's harder to do anything when you're older, but it's really harder to learn a language absolutely. A new language. It really, really is.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

You have some great stories about the Foreign Language Institute with the people. Yes, yes. Really funny stories.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

Yes. And my ego took a big beating because now I'm in a situation where I'm really not only the oldest one in the class, but one of the three dumbest ones. Meaning we had a hard time learning the language. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

And if you come from an experience where in school you're the smart kid and the teachers call on you and you get all the A's, and suddenly you are floundering. Right. And and I wasn't that embarrassed because I was old enough to know that I'm not stupid. But it was so demoralizing not to be able to catch on to the language. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:55

And you were a writer, you're a journalist, you were in real estate sales all the time, talking to people, and that made it real, real difficult. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was a challenge, that's for sure. But I also know that the winter there, that first winter you mentioned in the book, was incredibly cold. And so what did you learn about inconveniences or problems with you know what I learned, Norman?

SPEAKER_03 11:20

I could get over it. Now I came with this these little spring-like nightclothes because my apartment in Brooklyn is normally overheated. Yeah, of course, yeah. So after the first night, I went to Monoprix, which is like going to Target and bought a flannel nightgown. All right. And I think about a flannel robe. I had a space heater, but the apartment was about as big as this table. But you mentioned in the book. Teeny tiny, you called it. Teeny tiny. It was smaller than my master bedroom here in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

But what I love about the French, it was beautifully styled. Meaning there was a living room section, there was a kitchen section, and there was a little office section.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

So I could uh sit in the living room and watch TV, I could actually cook in the little kitchen. And I tell people, people especially who saw the apartments, like, how could you live there? I said, I wrote that book in that little apartment.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

In the apartment, right.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Because it had a workspace in which I could write a book. It had a desk, it had a little bookcase, I could put my computer, my my laptop, and I could write. That's great. So I realized even at five foot ten, I did not need a McMansion to live. Right. America is about size, and I say the French are about style.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

And if you have the right style, you can live anywhere.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Or any size place, which is what I learned.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

I'm wondering, do you think that as Americans, we're just, you know, too, too extravagant in our lifestyle? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yeah. Everything has to be big, everything has to be comfortable. Um, you know, I'm getting ready to call my son now because my remote TV in my bedroom, I have three TVs, but the remote doesn't work when I try to turn it off. So I turn it on, laying in bed, and it's like, oh my God, I have to get up and go to the TV and turn it off. You know, poor me. I mean, it's so disgusting.

SPEAKER_04 13:33

It's really disgusting. When we were kids, I remember, you know, lying on the floor watching TV with my parents because they had to watch, I don't know, some stupid show. And I had to get up and go turn it off.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

And that's how if you wanted to turn it on, you had to go turn it on. Um did you ever question? I'm, you know, with all the inconveniences of moving to a new country, did you ever question your decision to move there to pick up and go?

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Well, you know what, Norman? I didn't ever okay. What I kept asking myself is are you going to make a permanent move? Sure. Are you going to sell your apartment, which I could get a lot of money for? Of course, yeah. Are you going to go through the process of getting a green card, which is a long-term visa, and actually relocate? Yes. That question I'm still asking. Right. Nine years later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Yeah. Because of the challenges and the difficulties of getting that so-called green card as a green.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Well, that's part of it. That is a large part of it. The other part is not knowing what's going to happen here. I was never one of these people who wanted to be an expatriate. I was never one of these people who had to see all of the world. I traveled a lot as a kid because my father was in the military. The American expats that I've met in Paris, many of them knew they just wanted to live somewhere else. I was never that person. I was never that person who doesn't want to live in America. So it was difficult for me, and it still is to decide: are you really going to leave your country? And while I don't think of it with this sentimental, oh my country, my country, it is home. It's where my family is, it's where my son is, my grandchildren, my friends, my brother, uh, my other extended family on both sides, mother and father's side. So am I really going to leave them? Right. Yeah, I know you can get on a plane and be back here in seven or eight hours, but it's still a major move.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And as I get older, it's less likely. But I don't know. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's a question I'm still asking.

SPEAKER_04 15:59

And what is it like to have two almost distinct lives, one in Paris and one in New York? That part I love. Oh, interesting. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

I've always, from the age of my late 30s, had a second home. Oh. My first second home was in Sag Harbor, which I bought in 1984 for less than $100,000. Oh my God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Wow. Do you still have it? It's now millions. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

Oh yeah. Now, what I realized, and I s I would say I love having somewhere else to be. I love having another community, another set of friends, just another place to be. Yeah. So Sag Harbor made it possible for me to live in New York City very comfortably. Right. Because I could get away. Go. Yeah. I could get away. But the first few years I was able to rent it during the summer, which paid for the m paid the mortgage, which wasn't very high. But I had this other community. Sold it in I sold it whenever it was time for my son to go to school. So I used that money to send him to school. Right, right, right. But then 9-11 happened. Maybe a year after I had sold Sack Harbor. 9-11 happened and it's like, I gotta have a place to get away. Right. I gotta be able to get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

I felt trapped. I said, I don't ever want to feel trapped in a city. Because when that happened, if you lived in New York, you didn't go anywhere. You couldn't get out. You couldn't get in.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

I was in Brooklyn, went to the roof. Uh uh, the people who lived in the buildings, some housewives, maybe I don't know, five or six of us. It was a very telling moment. The Arab guys who ran the bodega on the corner, they were on the roof. We watched the second tower go down. I was like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Took me nine hours to get home that day. From where? Where were you? Manhattan, Midtown Manhattan. Yeah. It was what an ordeal, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was an ordeal. So after that, I bought a house upstate. Yeah. Which I had for, I think, eight or nine years. Again, I loved having someplace to go, another set of friends, another community, another kind of neighborhood, um, a wonderful house in the woods. But I knew you're not going to retire in the woods. You know, and those winters were much more brutal than anything France could have. So it was not difficult for me to think in terms of having another home in Paris because I'd had other homes.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Right, right. It was just distinctly different because of the different culture, different language, different, you know, set of friends, all sorts of different things. But uh still something that you really loved.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

And you know what? Now it's something I need because of what's going on here.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

You know, it's really a different air. No. The minute I get in a cab from the airport and start riding, it's just different.

SPEAKER_04 19:04

From when we were kids, I'll tell you, Audrey, to now, it's a different world and a different country. Absolutely. Totally, totally different. Absolutely. Yeah, it's crazy. But you know what? You you asked a question in your book uh that a lot of people are quietly afraid to even ask. And you said something like, Well, retire to what? Yeah. What are you retiring to? How did you answer that question? Or are you still in the process of answering that?

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Paris became the answer at that time. And I think, and you really uh do it very well in your against the norm substack. And I think men suffer from this a little more than women because men are so identified by their work.

SPEAKER_04 19:51

With what they do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

It's it's their life.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

So when you no longer have that, you don't know what to do. Exactly. You really don't. And I remember telling my accountant, his son, um, that I was thinking about retiring. And he, you know, these are country guys, these are black men from North Carolina, they're so funny, they're so sharp financially.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

So I was telling Aaron Jr., I said, Well, you know, Aaron, I'm really thinking about retiring. He goes, and do what? And do what? He goes, and all my clients who retire, they're dead in a year. So I said, Oh, well, maybe I shouldn't do it. But I also remember when my father retired from being a technical writer at Boeing in Tacoma, Washington, he would sit at the dine at the kitchen table, looking out the window all day, drinking scotch. And whenever, you know, we I'd be out with my mother, we'd come home, there'd be my father sitting at the table, and he ended up becoming part of the security force at the state legislature in Olympia, which he loved. Great. Because he got to meet all of the politicians. He was a very smart West Indian man. They loved talking to him, that he loved talking to them, and he had something to do. Right.

unknown 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

That fulfilled him that yes. Yes. And I remember my mother buying him this beautiful set of golf courts, uh, what do they call it, golf clubs when he retired. My father never played golf, and he had no interest. What did she buy him golf in the city?

SPEAKER_02 21:28

She was trying to get him interested in something.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Just do something. Get your ass in gear. Got him move.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

He did like to play bridge, but he couldn't do that multiple. So I remember his struggle with retiring. Uh-huh. So it's a common, you know, struggle. It is. It's a common struggle. And I, you know, didn't have that, but I did have I did say, well, what are you gonna do? Right. Uh huh. You know, are you are you go, you know, you don't want to sit now, real estate. Is something you can do almost forever.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

And we had people, I think I was the second oldest person in the Brown Haired Stevens office. There was one person older than me, and I would say, okay, if I'm if I'm her age and still selling real estate, shoot me. But it's something you could do. Yes. So um, yeah, so at the point that I left, I was asking myself, what do I do? And the answer at that moment was, well, one of the things you can do is leave, go to Paris.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Um, you know, hang out, meet people. And then what really turned it, I hit on doing the book. Right. And that happened because um a friend of mine wrote for Huffington Post.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

When Huffington Post had a writer's platform. All you had to do was submit an essay. And if they liked it, then ran it.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

So I said, you know what? And I don't know. I know what happened. I knew I knew a professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She called me a former reporter with the Times, a former Pulitzer Prize winner. She was on faculty. She called to say, We'd like you to be a correspondent, a Paris correspondent for Morgan's journalism department. I said, Oh, that's wonderful. So I did the first piece. They never ran it. I never heard from her. Right. And it's like, okay. But it made me think, well, maybe you could write about why you left. So my friend who had written for the Huffington Post told me how to do it and how to post it, send it out, and I did. And the the um what they said in the instructions is if you see an orange banner with your story, it means it's not only been accepted, it's going to be running with no ads. Oh, it means it's an editor's pick for the day.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Right. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

So, okay, I got it set up, and I went out with some friends, and I came back, and I turn on the computer, and I see this orange banner and a Huffington Post um link, and it said, Your story is an edit the editor's pick of the day. Right. And the story was called Punking Out in Paris. And it talked about why I left. And it went viral. And the next thing I knew, it's like, I don't know, 20,000 likes.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

And now you're a superstar and it's well now I said, maybe there's a book. There's a book, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

So that's how that happened.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

That's how the book happened. Yeah. And it's a great, great, great book. And you know what's interesting about your situation, Audrey, is that you didn't really retire. I mean, I love the part in the book where you're talking about going and see all the chateaus and what is it called? The Lore Valley and talking about the teeny tiny apartments in in Paris and showing people the apartments and things like that. So you're kind of expressing yourself in a different fashion.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

True. True. True. Yeah. Yeah. And that's been wonderful. And my friend Bob Tomlinson, Dr. Bob Tomlinson, he is the one who took me to the Loire Valley to see the chateaus. Uh-huh. And because I still have a passion for real estate, I tell people it's my porn. I love looking at beautiful property. I look at mansions, homes, little studios, mega mansions, it doesn't matter. So I did a chapter also on going to the chateaux because you just get a sense of the French and what they consider. I mean, they're so over the top. I mean, the monarchy, the people who had real wealth in France, their homes were so over the top. Yeah. You know, it made it made Mir Lagro look like a little shack.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Even the how about the mansions in Newport, Newport, Rhode Island. Are those? I haven't seen those. I haven't seen them.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

They probably come close, from what I know. From what I know. The Gilded Age kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

They're beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

So um, yeah, so it's just been wonderful. It's been a wonderful, wonderful journey.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

Journey, yeah. You know, before I forget, I wanted to ask at the very beginning of this podcast, but I'm going to ask it now anyway. Let's say Hillary Clinton had won the election. Would you have left?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

No. I had bought my third second home that year. It was in Atlanta. Oh, wow. And what I wanted or thought would happen in Atlanta, that was going to be my winter home. Because Atlanta has better climate. Sure. Not so much anymore. And the real estate was so inexpensive compared to the East Coast. And I had a lot of friends in Atlanta. In fact, before I bought, I counted up all of the people that I knew in Atlanta, most of whom had left New York and retired to the city. Right. I love the city. I love the real estate. It's beautiful. It's a laid-back city. It's got majority blacks. It's got a lot of, you know, black power is real.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

So I bought this wonderful condo. And I'm ready, you know, I'm looking at how I'm going to decorate it, and it's I'm going to be there half the year. It's only 90 minutes from JFK. And Hillary lost. Right. And I have thought so many times about what my life and the life of the country would have been like had she won.

SPEAKER_04 27:42

Had she won, right. Yeah. And you would not have relocated to or not relocated, but you'd not have gone to Paris so much. No. Maybe to visit, but not certainly to live out there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

I would have gone to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_04 27:53

Interesting. Yeah. So interesting.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

And I still have and then now I don't look at Atlanta in the same way because I lost two good friends who died. Sure. So now it has another kind of But I was all ready to be there.

unknown 28:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

It's interesting how life takes you in different directions depending upon certain circumstances. Absolutely. Really, really interesting. So um you wrote also in the book that fear can actually galvanize you and even save your life. Yes. And so how did fear work for you uh in you know, or against you? What happened? How did that work?

SPEAKER_03 28:31

I felt that the and I'm not a prescient person at all. I do believe, though, in listening and heeding your instincts. And I just knew instinctively that Trump was going to be a disaster.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Now, what did that mean? To me, it meant meant I was not going to feel safe as a black woman, whatever that means to me.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

I was worrying about my son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Sure. Um, so it was just this vague kind of uh discomfort and uh an apprehension, which motivated me to say, let me just take a break. Let me get out of here. Right, right, right. And kind of see from a distance what's going on. So that is what motivated me. Interesting. Yeah, that was it it was fear, and it but it was displaced, unarticulated, um turned out to be worse than I could have ever imagined. But I felt something.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

You felt it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

And it was enough to make me get up and get out.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Yeah, interesting. And do you feel that a lot of people in their 60s or maybe even 70s, do you think they recognize that? You clearly recognized it. It was part of your whole emotional being. Do you feel that people in their 60s and 70s recognize it all the time, or they kind of stop just beyond in front of that and say, Oh, I can't do that. It's not right, it's not the right thing to do. How would you advise somebody who's feeling the fear but not wanting to take that next courageous step like you did?

SPEAKER_03 30:17

You know, so many people who were putting down my move were operating from what you're talking about. I feel. Yeah. I feel exactly most people are not risk takers. You're a risk taker. Yeah. I'm a risk taker. Right. Most people are not. Yeah. That's the reality. And which is there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Most people are comfortable in the nine to five, secure. I'm getting a steady paycheck. I'm going to retire at a certain time. I'm going to get X amount of money. That's comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

That was never comfortable for me. Right. Right. It was never comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

So that's just how I'm made. It's how you're made. Most people are not made like that.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

And what they do, which which can be annoying, is sort of put you down for not being like that.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

Right. Why are you doing that? Yeah, why are you doing that? What's the purpose? Yeah, or whatever you think.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

And you know, I loved I didn't love it, I hated it. Well, the French are racist too. I mean, I can't tell you how many people said that.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

As if it explains something. And it explains.

SPEAKER_04 31:28

And you shouldn't go to Paris because they're just as bad as they are here. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

One, it's not true.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Two, that's not why I was going.

SPEAKER_04 31:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Yeah. But it was something for them to say to kind of um keep me from doing what I was doing.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

And to justify why they're not doing it.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

You know, there's a wonderful movie, I've seen it several times, called Revolutionary Road, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett. Okay. And it's about a couple in this middle-class suburban community. And Kate Winslett, he's a salesman, he's kind of this cog and a wheel. You see in the it's in the set in the early 50s. You see him getting on the Long Island Railroad, and he goes to work with all these men wearing suits and hats and sits in this big room selling whatever they're selling. She's more of a free spirit. Uh-huh. And she decides, a family decides, they're going to move to France. And she's excited, and he's excited, and the kids are excited. Well, their best friends, this other couple, are like mortified and upset. Right. And then they're almost hostile. Yeah. And it takes this turn where Leonardo DiCaprio's character gets promoted. And once he gets promoted, all bets are off.

SPEAKER_04 32:53

Now he has to make a decision as to whether to actually go or something.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yeah, and they're not going. They're not gonna go. They're not gonna go. And she's devastated. She gets pregnant again. She doesn't want to have another child. She ends up trying to do an abortion, self-abortion, and she dies.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

So it has this tragic ending. And the couple who didn't want them to leave, and a lot of other things happen, but they say, okay, we're not gonna talk anymore about France.

unknown 33:20

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

No more about France. Right, right, right. You know, that was just an aberration with our friends. Uh the wife died, he moved back to the city with the kids, and that was it. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Yeah, and it was so, and I w because it's really a wonderful film, and I watched it so many times because of this dream that the wife had, and he had too, until his circumstances. But he really didn't want to move. He really didn't.

SPEAKER_04 33:49

Right. As evidenced by the fact that he made the decision once he got promoted, and that was that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And once again, it's circumstances or choices that you make along the way that decide not your fate, so to speak, because it's not etched in stone, but how your life develops. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

And what was interesting to me was the other couple who were like all of the people who were naysaying to me. Right. Yeah. They were just horrified. Right. But they were also resentful that this couple were gonna take the risk and take the chance of changing their life.

SPEAKER_05 34:26

Yeah, kind of.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

They were really resentful. Yeah. Yeah, kind of jealous. Yeah, that happens a lot.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. One thing that that strikes me, I'm I've always thought of going somewhere and traveling for months and years on end as well. It's so exciting. But it seems so glamorous, and it seems so wonderful. Is it that all the time, or is it just that's kind of like a fairy tale thing? And there's so many ups and downs and so many problems. Tell me a little bit more about the glamour or the not glamour.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Okay. I'm I tell people I know I have rose-tinted glasses when it comes to Paris. Yeah. Okay. To me, it's glamorous because Paris is so beautiful. The cult the lifestyle of Paris, I think, is beautiful. Paris is a city where you can sit in a cafe, and I've done this all day.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

All day? All day. They don't kick you out and say we have other customers that need this new kidding.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Never. Never. In fact, one waiter in a restaurant that I went to all the time, it was across the street from where I lived, Vincent spoke Victor. He spoke English, and I'm sitting there at lunch, and tourists were coming in, and he came over and he said, Okay, darling, we need the table. He said it, you know, like an American would say it. Yeah. And then I said, Victor, you're putting me out? Well, he turned beat red. He was so embarrassed. He started apologizing. He went off and I didn't see him again.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

Really?

SPEAKER_03 36:06

He was so horrified that he had done that. Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Because now, some things have probably changed over time, but in the nine years I've been running back and forth, that's one of the things I love. You can look and I've done it. I I met a a friend. We were going to a museum. We met for lunch. We were still sitting at the table when the museum closed and when the restaurant was about to close. It's crazy. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 36:33

It sounds like fun, but it's a little crazy. It's so funny. It's funny you mentioned this when I first moved to New York. I, you know, New York is a crazy place. You got to get up and go and go and go and go to the next customer, next customer. Right. So I remember after about a year, I went back home to visit Seattle and I had lunch with a friend. And I I said, David, we gotta we gotta go. We gotta go. Norman, what's your problem? Why are you in a rush? Why are you rushing? This is Seattle. This is not New York. Yes. I don't think New Yorkers could handle this.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

I have a line in the book where I talk about this and I say, in Paris, you have in in in the States, and in New York in particular, if you're in a restaurant, the waiter comes to you with the check saying it's time for you to go. It's time to go. Yeah. In Paris, you have to ask the waiter for the check. Different. Indicating you're ready to go.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Mm-hmm.

unknown 37:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

So in Paris, it's about the customer being ready to go.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

So fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

It's not based upon the economics of the whole restaurant. It's not. No.

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Which is why there are a thousand restaurants in one block. You can have ten restaurants in one block. And I'm saying, how do they stay in business? Because if you let your customer sit all day, there's another restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 38:03

There's another restaurant right down the road. Yeah. There's plenty of places to go to to sit and spend all day. Yeah, that's so nice. And New York couldn't survive like that. But it's a different society.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

What can I tell you? Trevor Burrus, Jr. Because New York is a rush-rush society because it's about succeeding, competing, getting things done. Now, the downside of the French, they are not nearly as efficient as the Americans. Right. And that has driven me crazy. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Tell me more about that. What does that mean to you? Like Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

I've had actual fights with the French.

SPEAKER_04 38:37

Oh, you're kidding.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

No, no, no. I've had I had a fight with the two delivery guys who brought my couch. Uh-huh. And they one had carried up five flights because it wasn't the elevator was not big enough. Right. Okay, so they already have an attitude.

SPEAKER_04 38:53

Of course. Yeah. Was it a five-story walk-up?

SPEAKER_03 38:56

It was. Well, I was on the fifth floor. Fifth floor, yeah. And it had an elevator, but they couldn't put the couch up. Right, right. So now they get up, and Joe, my next door neighbor, my college roommate, she's the first person they see. She's this little white woman with white hair, and she's peering out the door, and they see her and they grin, and she motions next door and they see me. And I've got on a head rag, and I'm so now they start screaming.

SPEAKER_04 39:21

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

But they don't want to bring the couch inside. Right. Okay. They're gonna leave it outside. It's got all the wrappings. Oh God. And I'm like, get it inside. Yeah. So they're screaming and hollering. Now, one guy, and I I describe him as he looked like Jason Momoa without the charm. You know, he looked like um Jason Momoa was um Aquaman. Oh, you know, big some moment. Big Samoa.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Okay, that's what this guy looked like. He could speak English. The other guy's this little, you know, wiry guy. And they're fussing, fussing, fussing. And I'm saying, you've got to bring it in. So the big sumo says, okay, we're bringing it in because you are a woman. You're a woman. We know you can't bring it in. You're a woman. Whatever. Yeah. Bring it in. So they take the wrapping off, they leave the wrapping on the floor, they drag the couch in. Now they don't want to set it up. But you've got to set it up.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

So they're still hollering. And I'm hollering. And the little guy, he's like, So I say to him, and I've done this a couple of times with the French, I literally say to him, shut the F up. I don't speak French.

SPEAKER_04 40:35

Yeah. So you acted like a New Yorker, a real New Yorker at that time.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

And I'll tell you something, Norman. Every time you do that with a French, they back off.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

Oh, they do.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

They back off. Because they don't really do that. Oh. They're civil and polite. So when an American and we're very direct, we are very aggressive. You know, that's kind of our thing.

SPEAKER_04 41:00

That's the way. That's the way here. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Yeah. And I, you know, I'm only aggressive there when I have to be. But I know when I go to aggression, I'm going to get what I want. But the fact that I have to do that, it's usually because they're coming from a completely different way of thinking. When um my landlord that I'm very good friends with, when I would leave and I'm coming back, oh no, I came back and he said, I have to show you how to turn on the electricity and activate the water. And I said, What do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 41:33

Activate the water? What's that?

SPEAKER_03 41:35

He turns off the water. They want you to turn and the electricity. And I said, Why? He said, Because you're not using it. I said, but it doesn't matter. I'm paying for it, but you're not using it. I said, when I leave New York, I do not call con ed and tell them to turn off the electricity. But they have a light system where you go into a lobby, you turn on the light, and three minutes later it turns off.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

Oh, right, right. On the stairway. Yeah, in the stairways.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

Because the thinking is nobody is living in the stairway. Yeah. So you don't need light all the time.

SPEAKER_04 42:12

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

So that's the thinking within an apartment. You're not here for two or three months, so we turn off the electricity and we turn off the water.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

So yeah, it's just a different way.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Different way of looking at things. It's totally, totally, totally different. Yeah, and it's tough. I know. In some places, when I was in um in Spain, I think, in order to get hot water, you had to turn on the hot water heater to give you the hot water. Yes. Because otherwise it's just cold water. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

And I guess the thinking is if you're not using it, why do we need to have it? Why do you need to have it heated all the time? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

Yeah. It's interesting. You talk about finding you know, now that we're talking about differences in societies and how people, you know, interpret things or understand things. You talk about a little bit about a better way to be. Yes. What changed in how you experience life, not just where you live, but how you experience life by your, you know, going to Paris and living there. What do you what does that mean to be for you now?

SPEAKER_03 43:18

For me, it and uh W. E. deBoss talked about this when he would talk about the soul of black folk. America race to me is paramount. Uh-huh. Even if you are not experiencing racism as we think of it, race is a huge factor. Sure. Of course. It's in the census. Yeah. You know how you count people. Um it's in what you talk about when you're looking at things like household income. What's a household income of a family of four that's white?

SPEAKER_04 43:55

It's in every single mortgage document. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 43:59

It's used to describe. Discriminate, it's been used historically to discriminate, especially in real estate. Yeah. So that does not exist. Now, it doesn't mean that people don't have racist attitudes or racial attitudes, but it's not defining everything they do. And I think here it's it's become almost unconscious.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

It's really unconscious, but it's here. When I am there, I don't feel that. I tell people I go into a place and I do not people see color, they're not making a judgment about it. That's my feeling. Interesting. That's my feeling. And I tell people when I show up, they see my height, they see my skin color, but they probably see my nails more than anything.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

Okay, all right. They look great.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And I think people make make assumptions maybe about that as opposed to some intrinsic judgment about who I am as a black woman. And my best example, um, Maurice's apartment that I rented was in a very in the six arrondismont, a very chic neighborhood. Lovely building. You I had to to get to the front of the building, I had to come out of my building, go through a courtyard, and then walk through another building. So I did that one winter, the first winter, and it's cold, and I have on my boots, and I'm five foot ten, and there's this little petite French woman walking ahead of me. And I'm clunk clunking with the boots. She doesn't even turn around to see who's behind her. I pass her. When I pass her, she turns, she looks at me and says, Bonjour, madame, and keeps going. There's no or clutching of her bag.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

Right, right, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Or do you live here? Right. All of which I have gotten.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Would have happened here in New York, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

And has happened.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

Yeah, in America.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Yeah. So I was so struck by that. I was so struck by this woman is comfortable in who she is and is comfortable in who well, you know what I call it granting me my humanity. You're just another person.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

Yeah. Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And the world is full of different races and different colors and different individuals, and that's just the way it is. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Exactly. And uh France probably is a multi-ethnic society as well. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

The other thing that Europe does not have, and it makes a huge difference, they do not have ordinary citizens carrying guns or owning guns. Oh. That is not part of the culture. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Against the law, or is it just not a case?

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Uh they don't do it.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

They don't do it.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

It's just not in it's not in their constitution the way it is now.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

It is here, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

Yeah. So that gives a whole other level of peace. The atmosphere is one of peace. I've been in Little Africa where there are Africans and Arabs and um Middle Eastern folk, all kinds of folk, largely men. They're talking, they're interacting, they are not fighting, and they may argue, but nobody is getting to a level of disagreement that it's going to end in violence. Right.

SPEAKER_04 47:20

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Which is not to say it doesn't happen, but it's not part of the culture. Right. And I was with I was with a young woman who was a designer, my height, a very attractive young woman. She was biracial, she was um African and German. And we're in little Italy that's just teeming with men and all kinds of folk. So we walk by these two young men who are leaning against the fence, like, you know, young guys, young black guys, and they say, Hi. And it's like, okay, they know we're, they think we're Americans. They go, hi. So we don't say anything. And then again, they say, Hi. So now we speak. So I said, Tatiana, if we were in Brooklyn and we walked by two guys who said hi, and we didn't speak, they would have gone, Well, well, what? You think you're too good? You think you're too good? I didn't like you, no way. We would have had a whole other conversation. All the time. Yeah. All the time.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

So you don't have this instant going-to aggression. You don't have and you have different cultures. I had gone to um the big white party in Paris. It was populated by the white party. So there are thousands of people all dressed in white. It's an outdoor picnic. Afterwards, everybody is trying to get a cab home, and everybody went to this restaurant. Now, this restaurant was owned by the Eastern Europeans, what I call the big guys, you know, the Russians, the Albanians, and they control kind of the private cab company.

unknown 48:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

So I'm in trying to get a cab, and all these cabs are lined up, and they say, Okay, okay, you want a cab, you want a cab. And I go, What, what, are you guys from Harlem? Because they sounded like the guys who were hustling, you know, uptown.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

But their manner was just different.

unknown 49:15

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

You know, it was just kind of cool, and they're smiling, and they're all racing. I I take you, I take you, where are you going? I take you, I take you. No fear, no anything.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

So you didn't feel that they were going to uh charge you an exorbitant fee or they didn't.

SPEAKER_03 49:33

Uh that's actually illegal. Oh. If you well, it's illegal at the airport, there is a standard fee. When you come to into uh Charles de Gaulle, if you're going into the city, it's 55 euros.

SPEAKER_04 49:47

Oh, that's it. No matter where in the city you go. No matter where.

SPEAKER_03 49:49

And if they try to charge you more, you can report them.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

Interesting. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you you say a lot of really, really great things about Paris or France. And there's a lot of really great things about America as well. Absolutely. Totally, totally true. So you're deeply rooted in America still. You're deeply rooted in Paris still. Like, where and how do you resolve that kind of like not disconnect, but where where's the tension? Or is there any, or have you resolved it completely?

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Um the tension is really in what I'm going to do. Uh-huh. You know, I mean, Amer f for me, America's very comfortable. Sure. You know, I have a great apartment, I live in a great neighborhood, I have resources. I also am very well aware. Now it's changed with the new regime, as I call it. And I have told black American friends in particular the opportunities that we have had as black Americans here are unparalleled compared to the rest of the world. They really are. And I acknowledge that. I don't think one of the things I say, I love Paris. I said I don't see them having a black president anytime soon. There are a few pe few people of color in the French Parliament, but not a whole lot. I can't think of any black mayors in the provinces. Interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:25

Yet they have a lot of black individuals living there. Yes. Right?

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Yes, because France was one of the biggest colonizers. Colonizers in Africa. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So there's a big African population. Interesting. Oh wow. There's a big Eastern European population, just like just like here.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

There's a big Spanish population.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

Oh, wow. So it's a very ethnically diverse city, Paris in particular. But the people who have the power and are running Paris in particular are the French.

SPEAKER_04 51:57

Are the French French are the white French. Right, right, right. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Are the white French. Right. Interesting. And it's a very rigid social structure. And what people like, meaning Europeans, the French in particular, what they love about America is the social mobility. Right. This is a very fluid society. And I would say to people, you know, when I was talking about the book in particular, America is a country where Jay-Z can be born in the projects of Brooklyn and be a partner in the Barclays Center.

SPEAKER_04 52:33

Right. Become a multimillionaire and billionaire. Oh, billionaire. Oh, he was a billionaire. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:39

Yeah. Now he did it through entertainment, but he also did it business wise.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

That does not happen to the extent.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Oh, it doesn't. No.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

No. It happens a little, but not to the extent. Are the economic opportunities at least there for anybody? No, because you know what? France is a very rigid system for the French. The school is very rigid. It's a very competitive system in terms of who goes to college because a lot of these institutions are free, but they're very competitive. And Jo, my roommate from college, who was a white American. She married a Frenchman. But her kids had to really compete. And it's not and and they're doing okay. But like kids here, it's not like they can buy a home. And um her son is actually living in New York. And what he loves about New York, which is what people love about New York, can get his hustle on.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 53:42

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, he's working in a restaurant in Williamsburg. He went into partnership with some guys for a wine store. He can he can, you know, doop, doot, doot. He can't do that in France. Can't do that there.

SPEAKER_04 53:54

So while there isn't social social injustices, so to speak, or discrimination, so to speak, over there, there still is the economic because it's a rigid class system.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

It's a class system. Social uh racial system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Different different countries. And now the French respect class. Yeah. So you can be of any color if you're in the class that they respect.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

Yeah. You can be an African potentate.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:24

You know, a a wealthy African. You're in the class that is respected.

SPEAKER_04 54:30

Mm-hmm. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

Regardless of your color.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

Right, right, right. Totally different. Totally, totally, totally different. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things, and I know we're we've talked a lot about the differences of you know living here and living there, but one of the things that you mentioned in the book is what makes a home, actually? Like, and your answer isn't a simple one, that's for sure. So we're sitting here now in New York City, in Brooklyn, New York. And how would you answer that today? What makes a home? Where you are, where you want to be?

SPEAKER_03 55:05

What makes a home? For me, I think what makes a home is how you feel. How you feel psychologically, how you feel spiritually, how you feel emotionally. Um we come from the same home of origin, you and I. We come from the Pacific Northwest. Pacific Northwest, beautiful place. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. I don't want to live there because of the rain.

SPEAKER_04 55:30

And I'm serious about that. It does rain a lot.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

In Paris, it rains a lot. And my first winter, with that, was the other almost deal breaker. It's like, I could have stayed in Seattle if I wanted something like this. Right. Right. I have no idea that Paris had to kind of rain it happen. So I think it's how you feel. I think it's where your family is, your sense of rootedness. I tell people I have no sentiment about a number of black people will say, this is my home. This is where my ancestors were beaten and brutalized, and the soil is bathed in their blood. I have no sentiment about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:11

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

That's not a romantic notion to me.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 56:16

So that's not how you're going to convince me that America's where I should be.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

Because you know, the history for my people was awful.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Awful.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

Yeah. It was awful.

SPEAKER_04 56:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:27

So it's about where my family is, where my friends are, where I feel comfortable, where I feel I have opportunity, and where I'm gonna feel safe and at peace. Mm-hmm. And even now I struggle with where, because I'm in real estate, I'm always looking for where else I can move to. And at this age, it's about what's comfortable, what's convenient.

SPEAKER_04 56:52

Yeah. Yeah. So it's not necessarily where you currently are. It could be anywhere as long as you're comfortable, you're safe, you're with family, you're with friends. Right. It could be anywhere, really. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

But you know what for me it's only it's really boiled down to two places New York and Paris.

SPEAKER_04 57:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 57:09

Why? I don't have to have a car.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 57:12

Um the people are sophisticated. There are enough sophisticated people of like mind. You know, I don't want to live in Montgomery, Alabama, where I went to see an old boyfriend recently. And aside from the fact that downtown Montgomery, which is the capital of Alabama, is empty. There's nobody down there. Wow. Because everybody lives in the suburbs. Right.

SPEAKER_04 57:37

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 57:38

And where he lived was lovely, and there's nobody on the street.

SPEAKER_04 57:41

Yeah. Can't live like that.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Yeah, I know I can. I've been in New York too long. I gotta hear the noise. It drives me nuts at times, but I gotta see the people moving. I have to have energy.

SPEAKER_04 57:52

I agree totally with that. Give me New York, London, Paris. I'm fine. Yes. Yes. Otherwise, no. Yes. As we uh wind down today, there's one last question that I that I have for you. And it's kind of it's interesting. Uh it's just a a question that I that I've always wanted to ask. Let's say you hadn't done this. You didn't go to Paris. Trump was elected, elected again, right? You didn't go. You stayed here. What did what do you think your life would be like today?

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Man, that's a good question, Norman. Norman. Um that's one I haven't given a lot of thought to. I think I would be low grade depressed, maybe. Um I think I would have found other ways to get away. Maybe I would have bought something somewhere else. Maybe I would have bought something in St. Croix, where my father is from. Right. Uh-huh. Although I've been to St. Croix and it's it's okay. Um I probably would have done something else geographically.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

Just to be away.

SPEAKER_04 59:09

Away a little bit, yeah. Yeah. You would probably would have regretted not going if you if you stayed here. You don't want to get older with regrets, that's for sure. Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 59:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

And even now I have a French friend, uh, it's uh Sophie and her husband, now her husband. Uh Pierre is very funny and kind of sharp. And I'm always saying, well, you know, I don't know how much longer I can do this, how much longer can I get on a plane. And he says, You do it for as long as you can do it. Interesting. And that's kind of That's where you are.

SPEAKER_04 59:43

Yeah. That's where you are. And you make each decision as they come by, and your life keeps on changing and growing. And that's the key. And that's what I love about reading your book, Audrey. It was phenomenal. Really so exciting to read. And seeing you again. And I so much appreciate you being here with me today.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

Well, Norman, Norman, I have to say you are one of my favorite people in the industry. Thank you. Yeah, and because you, first of all, I love your Against the Norm.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:13

And your own move to constantly stay fresh, uh, be reinvented, do what's interesting. But I remember I had not been at Brownhair Stevens very long. You and your guys gave a Christmas party. And every year you did something. You sent birthday calls, you sent gifts, like $50 Apple gifts to everybody. And you gave this party, and we were there, you hadn't arrived yet, and you came, and three of your guys came with you. The tall four tall men walk in, and the way he walked in, just full of confidence, and I remember saying, Oh God, the Vikings are here. Because there was just something about how you and your team moved.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:59

Right. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:00

And it just had to do with you being free in the world. You know, uh, you're a masterful promoter.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

You helped me refinance my apartment. I will always be indebted to you for that because I locked into one of those low interest rates.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:15

Oh, yes, very, very good.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

We will never see again in our lifetime. So, yes, I'm very flattered that you asked me to uh so much fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:25

Thank you so much again. And I'm very appreciated. I can't wait to see what your next adventure is. Me too. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

I have no idea. But I hope it will be as fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:37

It will be. Thank you again, Alan.