Notes from Exile

A love letter to my new adopted home.

I immigrated to France less than 6 months ago.

I’m grateful to have barely escaped Los Angeles. The signs had been there for a while. The decay was everywhere.

You needn’t be a rocket scientist to see that the edges were tattered. I'd always loved LA and felt like the luckiest person to call it home. I mean, it was EVERYTHING in the 1980s.

It was full of sun and light — and the place of dreams.

But slowly, bit by bit, my love for this beautiful city began to fade.

Photo by Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash

LA had become the story of America. You didn’t need to travel far to see what was happening, simply drive down famed Sunset Blvd or Wilshire, or god-forbid, Skid Row.

Over decades, the city’s streets became filled with people, so weary and so desperate. It was clear America was a country that stopped caring about its people. It stopped investing in healthcare, mental health, and its great society and promise.

It was heartbreaking.

Now, here I am, a black American woman just shy of 60 starting over again— as an immigrant.

I’m surrounded by other immigrants — who hail from places as faraway as Morocco, Tunisia, Italy, Armenia, francophone Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam — who began with a little more than a dream and hope for a better tomorrow.

The beauty is Marseille is that its a meeting point. A convergence.

A destination — and yet an origin story.

It feels like a place of rebirth for me too.

The French will tell you it’s the most “un-French” city in France. They’ll shrug dismissively when you mention it. Google it, and you’ll read the usual headlines: dangerous, dirty, druggy — all the unfortunate D-words.

But here at Eventually Elle, I’m witnessing something else entirely.

Something Divine.

I want to show you the artists, the seekers, the visionaries — and the spaces they inhabit. The corners I pass. The moments I live.

On any given day, the sun beams boldly here.

Seagulls caw overhead.

And there’s a cackling, tangible energy— the kind you only experience in port cities. It’s that mixture that makes it exciting and palpable. Like San Francisco before the tech boom or New York before the money cleared out its artists.

This is my love letter to Marseille — a city that doesn’t try to impress you.

But serves you beauty nonetheless.

xoxo - Eventually Elle

Photo by Flori Braunhofer on Unsplash