Ten Summers Ago in Geneva

What a season abroad taught me about slowing down before I ever knew I'd need to.

It hit me the other day that it’s been ten years since I studied abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. TEN. It honestly feels like I just got back sometimes. I can still picture the slowness of the lake, the quiet of the hills where I stayed, and the half-packed bags I carried across borders and deeper into my twenties like they were permanent homes.

I was there for an international intellectual property summer program (because of course I was). Law school Noémie, with her passport in hand, was ready to conquer the world back then. I spent the summer working at WIPO or finishing assignments in the UN building, drinking the best Bordeaux I’ve ever had in my life for happy hour, then riding the bus into the French countryside by dinner time just to buy bread I could afford.

And I do mean bread. Fresh baguettes from the corner boulangerie. Every other day. That was real life.

What I didn’t realize then, and what I couldn’t have fully absorbed yet, was that I was walking right into a way of life that would eventually become a kind of home for me. Not the place. The pace.

So, it was the summer of 2015, and so much of Geneva felt like it was on vacation. Stores closed for lunch. Afternoons lingered. The air moved slowly. People rested, and did it routinely. They weren’t in a rush to answer emails or prove how productive they were. I didn’t know what to do with that kind of stillness back then. I kept moving at the pace I knew at the time. Hustle, achieve, perform, excel, and rinse, then repeat.

But the world around me didn’t respond well to that rhythm. It was like trying to run in a dream while the ground melted underneath me. I’d be up early with a to-do list, only to find that the market hadn’t opened yet. Or I’d walk into a shop at 2pm only to be kindly told it was closed until four. It used to frustrate me. Until it didn’t.

In Geneva, and later in Milan where I spent two more weeks to extend my trip, people were working to live, not living to work. That phrase gets thrown around a lot, but when you live inside it, it humbles you. Nobody was asking me what I did. They asked how I was liking the weather. Or what I cooked for dinner. Or how I was sleeping. It was disorienting. And then, comforting.

I think a lot now about how much that summer gave me, even though I couldn’t name it at the time. It planted a seed. The kind that would take a decade to bloom.

Ten years later, the world feels louder, faster, and much heavier. Every scroll is a sprint. Every milestone a race. Every season blurs into the next. But there are days I remember Geneva. I remember those long walks. Those slow afternoons. The way I would open my window and hear the silence of a world that wasn’t rushing. And I remember how strange and sacred that felt.

Back then I thought slowing down was a luxury. Now I know it’s a way of life. One that I’m still trying to practice. One I still have to choose over and over again, especially in motherhood, in marriage, and in this digital world where everyone seems to be building something faster than me.

I’m reminding myself that rhythm is enough. And every time I slice fresh bread at my own kitchen counter, I think of that girl who caught the bus to that quaint boulangerie on the border of Switzerland and France just to get a little taste of peace. She was already learning how to live. She just didn’t know it yet.

Can you relate?

• Have you ever had a moment, a season, or a place that didn’t make sense until years later?

• What did it teach you about the life you want now?

Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear your story.

xo Noémie

P.S. - I’ve really lived a thousand lives y’all lol.