Difficult to break the silence, complicated to take my pen again after these last few days of nightmare. Lost my appetite, lost my envy of cooking, the strength to write.

I live a few meters from La Belle Equipe, my closest friends work in the building adjoining La Bonne Bière where they drink coffee every day, I eat at Le Petit Cambodge all the time, always hesitating between a bobun and its crispy spring rolls, or fragrant soup, and then we have fun drawing our order to be on the wall of fame, and then the Carillon, this old bar where we celebrates all of our birthdays and innocently pour our beers everywhere. And then my mates, music fans, rock fans, who would have perhaps dragged us to the Bataclan that night. That night, we could have been in any of those places. We were a few meters away. The thousand messages from distraught relatives. The madness of the sirens. The endless wait. Anxiety, fear, of dying or losing a friend. Running to seek refuge, startle at the approach of a car. The terror that I experienced that night is yet immeasurably tiny compared to the one experienced by the victims, witnesses, the injured, the survivors and their loved ones, their families, and the trauma that they’re going to have to deal with probably forever.

I know these words are imbued with great sadness and are probably clumsy, but I was struggling to get on the blog as if nothing had happened, because everything happened touches me deeply and we are all touched our way. But optimism must regain the upper hand. I want to send you words full of love and hope, make you big hugs, prepare you comfort food, and then we have to go back to smile, laugh, drink, dance, live, but not forget. And stand stronger than ever, together.

Love. Peace. Bravery.