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French Crawl has grown into a few different things since the project started, essays, videos, thoughts on French language and culture, travel, an entire Olympics recap series, and more.

If you are new here and want a guided way in, there are two ways to experience the site: follow the narrative thread or explore by edition.

(For the fuller picture of who's writing this and why, see About, which gives a fuller backstory).

The Thread

Ten posts, in chronological order, that trace the actual thread underneath all of it:

1. Paris is Burning, Again | April 2019

This is where it starts, and it wasn't supposed to start anything. Just a reaction to watching Notre-Dame catch fire, written the week it happened.

2. Becoming Américain | September 2019

Five months later, French class. It's 18 years since I last took French. This is where the fire turns into a decision and where the identity questions that run through a lot of what follows first come up. My hope was to catch Christo and Jeanne-Claude's wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe to come.

3. La Vie en Rose by Lucy Dacus | April 2020

Covid locks the world down so I made a music video montage with Lucy's cover of a classic. Just a personal favorite of mine. It was a little bit of hope for a better day.

4. Marée basse // Low Tide, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Gift to Paris | October 2021

The third wave of covid retreated and I visited Paris, documenting the city coming back to life with Christo and Jeanne-Claude's posthumous work giving people a reason to gather again.

5. The Biggest Impact | October 2021

I meet Charles, my guide in Normandy, who takes time to help me gain some confidence in speaking French.

6. The Paris Olympics 100 Years Later | August 2024

The Games come back to Paris, and everything I'd been building toward with the language gets a real reason to matter, a trip I could actually navigate in French instead of around it.

7. The Soul of Notre Dame | December 2024

The reopening. Notre-Dame comes back and opens its doors to the public again.

8. Paris 2024 Olympics Recap | August 2025

A year after the Olympics, I publish my multimedia documentation of my 19 days experiencing it in France.

9. A Run Through the Pyramids at La Grande-Motte | March 2026

I run a half-marathon in one of France's greenest cities on one of its rainiest days. La Grande-Motte is an architectural curiosity raised up from a mosquito infested coastline.

10. Seven Years Since the Fire at Notre Dame | April 2026

Standing in front of her again, seven years later, measuring what's changed. In the cathedral and in myself.

Explore by Édition | An Anthology

Rather than scrolling a continuous feed, French Crawl is organized as a curated digital publication released in distinct volumes called Éditions. Each issue gathers essays, video montages, and notes around a shared theme, a specific moment in time, or an ongoing thread.

Summer 2019 – Eve of Paris Olympics

The Paris 2024 Olympics

Winter 2024 – Summer 2026

Navigating the Rest of the Site

If you prefer to browse by medium, the site is also structured across four primary sections: Essays, Videos, Language & Culture, and Travel.

Within each section, you'll find posts grouped under specific series titles (e.g., Ground Zero). Clicking any series header will take you directly to the full archive of posts tagged for that series.

And whenever you come across a Table of Contents, clicking the links will jump to that section of the page.