A few close friends have recently been through romantic break-ups, which reminded me of an unfinished piece I wrote long ago, when I was heartbroken for the second time.

To those out there going through it, I wish you honest friends, at least three good break-up albums (see the end of this piece f…

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The year was 2020, and though there were whispers of a strange new virus, the general sense amongst my peers was that after years of political and civil strife, this was going to be a good year.

Looking back on those winter days now, I can see myself clearly as I was: a paradoxically  exaggerated…

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I’ve been feeling a bit apathetic numb lately; as if my body and the surrounding world are made of cotton, which tends to coincide with not writing/reading/listening to or playing music as much as I’d like—which is another way of saying I do not have a routine.

This next chapter in my ongoing novella about how I fell in love with my now-wife from across…

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This story was originally written in March, 2020 for “Photographic Prose,” a collaborative triptych series w/ that explored the relationship between photography, narrative & our own deepening connection. You can read Part I1 and Part III2 down below.

Six months after I wrote this story, Augusta & I travelled to the cottage in Bai…

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March 19, 2020, Quarantine Day 4

16:19 - Samuél: I just sent you the “Sandra” story. Are you cool with me sharing it once it’s edited?

16:25 - Augusta: Of course! I’m working on the first image now for Sandra. There’s two more to tell her story I think, but maybe just one. I have to see.

16:27 - Samuél: I like the idea of one image per story, ending up wit…

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This is a post for the 100+ people who’ve decided to take a chance on if not, Paris in the past few months. Because while I might not know most of you in the “real world,” since we’re now connected in one of the most valuable communities I’ve ever known, it feels rude not to introduce myself.

My name is Samuél L…

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A writer in Paris, a photographer in New Orleans, & a worldwide quarantine. This is how art brings us together.

Three weeks ago, photographer & writer Samuél Lopez-Barrantes didn’t know each other. A chance encounter in Paris revealed they shared a vast community of friends in New Orleans.

What better way to support fellow artists than by pushing each other to create? The following is the first in a series of triptychs exploring the relationship between language, photography, & narrative.

For the initial collaboration, Samuél wrote a piece of fiction & sent it to Augusta, whose unique photographic eye reimagined the story off the page.

“Sandra”

One morning just a few months ago, Sandra woke up from a dream and forgot how to breathe. It was only for a few seconds, but as she lay there gasping for air, it was enough to change her irrevocably.

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This is a true Covid love story comprised of lightly edited journal entries & text messages from early 2020 between me & my now-wife, the beautiful & supremely talented photographer

Click here to read Chapters 1-5 for free. The subsequent chapters are for my paying subscribers, who make this space (and this story) possible.

March 16, 2020 - Quarantine Day 1

14:06 - Samuél leaves Augusta an audio message while walking along the Canal Saint Martin:

14:08 - Augusta: Is the weather nice? Your voice sounds like it’s sunny.

20:41 - Samuél: France just announced a 15-day quarantine, except for going to pharmacies, groceries, and jogging. I'm going to be out all day in workout clothes.

20:52 – Augusta: the blow-up mattress my friend lent me is actually the most high-tech thing in here and is definitely fancier (sorry) than your couch-bed:

22:02 - Samuél: The light is incredible. I'll shamelessly say that it seems so far away and so desirable right now.

22:07 - Augusta: That’s because it is so far away, Samuél. I’ll shamelessly say I hope you get to see it for real sometime. The light, I mean. Of course.

March 17, Quarantine Day 2

19:27 - Samuél: I'm making lentil bolognaise and Aaron [my twin brother who spent the first month of quarantine in my apartment] is hanging laundry, and my apartment may as well be a hovel with an abnormal number of instruments in it.

19:28 - Augusta: Is there a family hiding under the floorboards you are unaware of?

19:28 - Samuél: Actually, there's a Moroccan family sharing a wall, with like 3 too many people in their room, and they wash their feet in the sink in the hallway toilet. That's gotta count for something.

19:29 - Augusta: You lie. For real?

19:29 - Samuél: Oh yeah. After four years I’ve gotten used to it. They used to cook on a hot plate out on the landing and hang their laundry on the stairwell banister. At least they stay INSANELY quiet and to themselves. It's gotta be tough.

There are four grown men confined to a space half the size of my 20m2 apartment. They have a secondary room too with a bed in it, which they use (from what I can tell) to host family members. Once I saw an elderly woman dabbing at another elderly man's forehead. He was convalescing in the bed. I haven’t seen him or his caretaker since.

19:31 - Augusta: They’re lucky they picked the attic room next to the sentimental young writer.

00:36 - Augusta leaves Samuél a voice message while walking her dog, a jackrussell terrier, through the leafy Fontainebleau neighborhood of New Orleans.

00:38 - Samuél: Thanks for that voice message. It's almost like you're on the other side of a plastic cup with a string tied to it.

00:41 - Augusta: You’re welcome. It does actually sound like I was talking into a plastic cup. I think the phone was too close to my mouth. I liked your voice message a lot, too. A real human voice. I’ve been talking to my dog all day asking his opinions but he just whines at me and then falls asleep on my lap.

00:42 - Samuél: Let's talk in real life voices tomorrow.

00:43 - Augusta: Deal.

Journal Entry, March 18, 2020

Day 3 of the quarantine and today I got out of the house after spending 48 hours inside the apartment. Quarantine doesn’t mean solitary confinement. This is a good thing to remember. The sun shone and the sky was blue and the clouds were wispy.

Each night at 8pm, France and its people open their windows and applaud the medical professionals, doctors and nurses who are saving many lives and saying goodbye to many others, as far as the news says. At 8pm this evening, all of the windows in the six-floor social housing unit across the street from me opened up, and people began to cheer and clap and sing.

Whilst the applause was still reverberating off the cold winter concrete, I got a text from my friend Blaire, who recently moved to Paris from New Orleans. She told me to go to the window and look down below, where she was standing with her partner, Marc, some sixty-feet below.

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If you’re new to this story, the first 5 chapters are now free to read for everyone. Click here to see what you’ve missed.

After Midnight, March 15, 2020

00:28 - Samuél: My city just got locked.

00:32 - Augusta: Do you get in trouble if you’re out in the streets?

00:37 - Samuél: Well, there's this group of men wearing black boo…

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If you’re new to this story, the first 5 chapters are now free to read for everyone. Click here to see what you’ve missed.

March 12/13, 2020

20:37 - Samuél: I've quarantined myself inside a makeshift bunker at Au Chat Noir. At least they serve beer.

20:42 - Augusta: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish I could pop over to the bunker for a brew and say hi.

21:04 - Samuél: Yeah, this bunker scene is great as expected. It's so nice to actually see people outside on the day when we're all supposed to shit our pants and never go out again.

21:06 - Augusta: Yea I bet it feels like a nice, settling sense of normalcy. However risky it might be. It’s SO nice out here in New Orleans, it’s hard to feel like staying inside is the answer to anything. I have this weird feeling like I’m still on vacation, like schools are canceled and there’s no responsibility—snow day vibes. I’m moving into my own new apartment this weekend too, so all of my shit is in boxes. Weird times.

21:15 - Samuél: Damn you've been in a whirlwind. Paris + global pandemic + long-term breakup in 2 weeks.

21:16 - Augusta: Oh ya. It’s been fun though. Minus the corona panic—all good things. Having a digital pen-pal in Paris is a plus as well.

21:47 - Samuél: Pen pal! I dig the designation.

21:49 - Augusta: Not limited to, but an accurate designation/description thus far, no? I don’t think I ever had a proper pen pal. Even back when that was more of a thing. Maybe we should take this to pen and paper.

21:53 - Samuél: Oh, that would be cool. I could spray perfume on the paper.

21:59 - Augusta: That you could. I don’t know my new address yet. LOL. I signed the lease yesterday

22:51 - Samuél: Living that Pandemic Life, off the grid. It's so. much. fun. To live alone.

23:47 - Augusta: My own lil' casa. I can’t wait to be honest. Things work out for all kind of reasons. I’m glad I live in the version of this universe where it went down like it did. I mean even to the point of if my trip had been for this week and not last week, I might never have even met you.

23:56 - Samuél: seriously. life is goddamn beautiful.

23:56 - Augusta: It really is. For a while, last year, I didn’t feel that way. Having this feeling back is good, and it’s going to be so good for making work I care about.

23:57 - Samuél: honestly, I think that's the #1 benefit to a breakup—having to rediscover oneself as an artist, and recognizing just how much time and energy relationships take. You’re going to create so much.

23:58 - Augusta: I knowwww. It’s gonna be sick. I already felt it when I was there and having all this time to myself

23:58 - Samuél: I know you don't need me to tell you this, but please, please, PLEASE don't be one of those gorgeous interesting women who immediately falls into another admittedly beautiful romance, only to surface like, 10 years later and say "I had that photo project I wanted to do."

23:58 - Augusta: Promise.

23:59 - Samuél: There isn't a pinky swear emoji, but for real (not that I doubt it, just being a good friend)

23:59 - Augusta: No no, that’s not on the agenda. But then it usually isn’t. It’s appreciated. I’m not looking for a relationship that puts me in any kind of domestic role. I can’t be anyone’s caregiver. I’m sure romance will ensue. But not letting anyone call me “theirs.” Been too long since I’ve been my own.

00:02 - Samuél: [slow clap] the possession game is played out, especially when you've got serious artistic talent. I'm not saying that in reference to me btw, just calling what I see.

00:02 - Augusta: Mhm. And it’s a damn good thing you’re in Paris, let me just say.

00:02 - Samuél: I'm very happy to be holding down the fort. Seriously, very much respect, and I applaud you for ending a very long and beautiful relationship in a respectful and caring way. It's so incredibly rare, and without making that the point of the statement (but also with, obviously,  it's inevitable), it's damn sexy, like, in a deep human sexy kind of way. It's like Mario when he eats a mushroom—next level.

00:06 - Augusta: Wow. I’m new level mushroom Mario sexy? Have to say, that’s a first. But thank you for recognizing. Most people are just freaked out and waiting for the fall out to ensue.

00:07 - Samuél: It's because they're afraid of taking the honest leap themselves. Being true to oneself in this day and age might be the most valuable commodity around, but it ain't for sale. And if you ever need to chat about the inevitable hard shit that comes with a break up, don't hesitate. I know what it's like to go through the ringer, and all I can say is, books have always saved me. Books and bloopers*

00:16 - Augusta: Thanks. I know some moments are gonna suck. Inevitably. I can’t wait to dig into a stack I’ve been neglecting. I just want to say thank you. I know we hardly know each other but, I feel like I’ve known you. And I really like talking to you. I hope it doesn’t ever become a bother.

Share if not, Paris

00:18 - Samuél: The feeling is so mutual. I want to thank you, too. It's been such a nice discovery to get to know you amidst the Parisian rains, and I have no doubt there are so many more conversations and Ricards to be had.

00:21 - Augusta: No doubt. I look forward to each one.

00:26 - Samuél: 💜💜💜I'm going to go read Camus to steel myself for tomorrow's headlines. And if I can give some final, very humble and admittedly trite words of advice re: break ups: let yourself be sad. Not in a self-pitying way, just in the recognition that sadness is a real, valid emotion that isn't supposed to be avoided or done away with, because when you recognize why you're sad, which often has to do with the reality of loss, you also get to recognize all the things you've gained, and then it's not really about loss at all, just experience, and that's my philosophical tangent for the evening.

00:27 - Samuél: And now, on the other side of the how-to-deal-with a-break-up coin, a blooper:

March 13, 2020

Tonight, at about 8pm, while having a drink with Eleonore Au Chat Noir, the news we’ve all been fearing came in: from midnight tonight, all non-essential businesses in France will be closed indefinitely.

To imagine the City of Light without bars or restaurants, if only for two weeks, is to confront one of the most profound sociological experiments ever enacted upon this city. There is no real precedent, and to think of any similar scenario (one involving curfews and bans on public gatherings and pedestrians) would be to return to late June, 1940, during those early days of the Nazi occupation.

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March 6, 2020

a thank you note + photos, March 5, 2020

10:48 - Samuél: Safe travels, Lady Augusta 🙏🏽 I'll keep the cobblestones polished and the Baxter stories flowing

11:47 - Augus…

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Journal Entry, March 2nd, 2020

I still feel sick, and I’ve found myself seeking more and more comfort and tenderness these days. But maybe spring will change my opinion.

This Coronav…

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Journal Entry, Sunday, March 1, 2020

I haven’t written well since that week ten days ago when I did write …

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journal entry, late February / early March, 2020

I’ve been feeling under the weather for about two weeks now. Dry cough and light fatigue. Maybe it’s Coronavirus. Who knows.

Next wee…

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“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

On February 29, 2020, a photographer from New Orleans walked into the Au Chat Noir bar in Paris, an 11th arrondissement watering hole where I’ve been writing and drinking for twelve years. The night before, after sixteen years of long-term relationships, short-term relationships, and many adventures, I’d written these words in my journal in the early days of my 32nd year: I know what I want now. I want love. I want real, deep intimacy. The kind that makes me forget about all the rest of it. The kind of love that I’ve been preparing for; the kind of love where I can’t hold myself back.

When the photographer walked into Au Chat Noir, I immediately noticed the book in her bag: a beat-up, annotated copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, one of the most important novels in the history of literature. The story is about masculinity and love and youth and regret, but most simply it’s about Jake, an American expat living in France, who dreams of building a life with the captivating Lady Brett Ashley.

Me and the photographer connected immediately over the story, and in the next few days we walked around the Latin Quarter to visit a few Hemingway sites, had coffee Au Chat Noir, and met up for my band’s rehearsal to take photos before we went on tour. Our connection remained platonic, and when Augusta, the photographer, returned to the USA five days later, we wished each other the best and hoped to see each other again someday.

What follows is a narrative, based on text messages, of how Augusta and I fell in love during a global pandemic. The story begins with the first text messages we ever sent to each other. We waited five months to know what it meant to hold each other’s hand, and in August 2020, while most of the world’s borders were closed, we kissed for the first time … not in Paris, but at the curb-side pick-up of Newark International Airport. Over the next five weeks, we road-tripped across the Northeast. By the end of March, 2021 we were married and living in Paris.

March 1, 2020 (the first messages)

00:48 - Augusta : Lady Brett Ashley

01:28 - Samuél: Duly noted

01:29 - Augusta : Hah. For the record, I wasn’t the one to dub myself that. She’s a badass but she’s also a total pill

01:36 - Samuél : No you wanna go with Lady Duff Twysden. The real version of the fictional character was so much more of a badass

01:41 - Augusta : The name Lady Duff is definitely less interesting than Lady Brett, but I prefer Twysden to Ashley for sure

11:08 - Samuél : this photo of Hemingway in Spain documents what would become the backdrop for the The Sun Also Rises:

11:11 - Augusta: Wow. I’ve never seen a photo of her. The real lady Brett. So pretty - that’s why the story is so good, because it’s real. I can’t imagine anyone capable of writing that from nothing.