Anna Kloots believes in the transformative nature of travel. After taking her first trip to Paris at 18, then moving to London, her life changed for one simple reason: taking care of herself gave her the opportunity to figure out what she wanted.
“I think that really changed the course of my whole life,” she says. “It gave me this confidence in this sense of like, ‘I can do it on my own, I can make things happen on my own and figure things out on my own.’”
But, like so many different parts of life, “figuring things out” has not always gone according to Kloots’ plan. “Between 83 countries, I've had my share of mishaps [and] I think it's the same in life,” she says. “Almost the more you plan, I find you're just inviting things to go off.”
However, embracing the unpredictability of life is one way that she’s opened herself up to new experiences — and it’s also helped her deal with any missteps or unexpected outcomes. “Everything that goes incorrectly is now just a way to reframe [the experience],” she says. “Every time that happens, you learn how adaptable you can truly be.”
The idea of adaptability is a huge part of her new book My Own Magic, as well as a vital part of adulthood. Because even when we’re living our dream lives, the bad days still come. Your dream job, your dream apartment, or your dream city aren’t guaranteed to stay in your life forever, nor are they guaranteed to keep you happy if they do stay.
“I think that the only thing you can really be 100% secure in and certain in is your actual self, your soul, your own being,” she says. “Then when these bad days happen, you're in touch with who you are and what you need and you can recognize, ‘I just need to cry right now.’ And that's okay.”
Taking The Space To Heal
Kloots spent years burying her own feelings and pain, and throughout our conversation, she reiterates the importance of understanding your own emotions instead of underestimating their power.
When her marriage ended in 2019, Kloots began to see that the issue might have been rooted in something unexpected: “I guess when I eventually saw what [burying my emotions] led to, which was me being insanely unhappy, losing touch with who I was, led to my marriage failing…Now I'm not trying to hide or bury anything.”
Embracing her emotions with abandon includes feeling the full extent of…everything. The good and the bad, the highs and lows.
“I feel joy immensely when it's there, and then I let myself feel the sadness. But of course, remind yourself it's temporary,” she says. “We all have these days, but we get through them. And it's not like one bad day or two bad days or a week of bad days means that you're never going to feel joy again. To me, it means that when you feel that joy again, you feel it double, triple.”
We’ve all experienced painful endings and longed for a fresh start, especially in light of the last few years. Even though feeling happiness after a deeply painful experience can make the joy that much stronger, it’s hard to remember that when you’re still in the middle of heartbreak, sorrow, or difficulty.
But, like Kloots, we firmly believe that things do get better, even if they take time. It also helps to remember that you don’t have to walk through life alone. Family members, friends, partners — your community is there to help you through.
“If you kind of stop and just take a quick account of everything, then you realize [who’s helped you], the people who really are your rock and who really love you,” Kloots says. “And when you really stop and take note of that, it can fill some of those cracks that you feel.”
Leaving room in your life for joy, healing, and creativity is one hands-on way to see the real-world effects of that internal work. And for Kloots, living in Paris has played a huge role in that growth.
“Life does move at a slower pace here…Everything kind of just allows everyone to enjoy their own life a little bit more and have a little bit more downtime,” she says. “I think the biggest takeaway I've had is to embrace it rather than fight it and to really appreciate the slower pace of life and how it kind of forces you to just enjoy everything a little bit more.”
Reclaiming Our Childhood Magic
Image via Katie Donnelley
Whether she’s highlighting different parts of her personality in her home design (“Everyone's apartment here that I've seen is quite unique because it really forces you to decide what you love.”) or drinking a creme from Café de Flore, enjoying the small details of life has also allowed her to reclaim her childhood magic.
“We lose touch with our child versions of ourselves so [quickly]. And it's almost [shameful],” she says. “When you think about the way [we’re] just in love with our own children, you have to stop and think, ‘That was me once. I was three and had these crazy dreams and had these big ideas and had a really good sense of who I was.’”
“There's this brief period of time before society really starts to get in and tell you what you should or shouldn't want. You're just free, and then we lose that,” Kloots continues. “I think we have to reconnect with that. And you have to not be afraid to really listen to that deep inner voice…Like, it sounds silly, but get more in touch with your kid self. Rediscover the joy you had when you were a kid and what brought you happiness.”
She hopes that her book allows people to reconnect with that childhood magic, and that it gives them the confidence to believe in themselves more.
“We are all worth so much more than we give ourselves credit for,” she says. “But we have to harness our magic and trust it and go for it. And I hope that that is the biggest takeaway, that it inspires people to go, ‘You know what? I am actually amazing and this is what makes me amazing and I'm going to take this and make it into the thing that fuels me to go live the life of my dreams.’”
Parisian This or That With Anna Kloots
B+C: Quiche or croissants?
AK: I mean croissants, but the quiches are nothing like America. They're really good. And I love them. If you come here, you have to try quiche. It tastes nothing like you've had at home.
B+C: Musée d'Orsay or Musée Rodin?
AK: Oh, That's like choosing a favorite child. Oh, I'm going to have to say the d'Orsay. It's magical.
B+C: Crème brûlée or macarons.
AK: If it's good — macaron. But you have to have them good. And a lot of them aren’t very good. So you just have to know.
B+C: Le Jardin du Luxembourg or Jardin du Palais Royal.
AK: Oh, I love the Palais Royal. I have to say Palais royal, even though Luxembourg [is a similar] thing. But I live quite close to the Palais Royale so I'm there more.
B+C: Champagne on top of the Eiffel Tower or a cafe crème at Café de Flore.
AK: Champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Always. There's a big theme of champagne in my book. It's one of the only things I keep stocked in my fridge is champagne, various butters and usually some rosé. And that's about it.
Anna Kloots' My Own Magic is on sale now — let us know how you're reclaiming your magic in the comments!
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This interview has been edited for clarity.