La DanseJean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Musee d'Orsay
A word
As you might imagine, I was unable to access adequately the internet and was unable to post my final days in Paris. I have included a number of pictures that journal for you the places visited and the visions embraced.
My beloved family and I relished and exhausted each and every day in Paris. We delighted in a Bastille Eve soiree with the beloved Lynch family in The Marais neighborhood, the fourth arrondisement. The Bastille Day celebration certainly helped usher in a marvelous week of touring Paris. We even ventured outside of Paris for a day's trip to and from the stunning Mont St. Michel. The days minutes and miles were sewn together by countless trips on the incredible Metropolitain and a pied by foot.
Day by day, we gathered the visions of Paris and France into our minds and our lives. Like a quilt, the varied fabrics of monument, sculpture, bridge, river, cafe, stair, tower, stone, and street, pieced together became the journey for us all. The many sights climbing into the sky: La Tour Eiffel, Basilique du Sacre-Couer, L'Arc de Triomphe, La Grande Arche, La Tour Montparnasse, La Tour St. Jacques and the pictures closer to the ancient Parisian earth: Le Pont St. Michel, La Rive Seine, La cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, Notre Dame, les jardins, la vieille terre sous la vieille cite, fold one over the other in a landscape that is old and modern, haunting and inspiring, quiet and yet ever telling her story.
And though I believed I absorbed wholly the known and still mysterious city of Paris, I am certain that I grasped only the edge, the magenta and silken piping, of her gloriously quilted life, ever pulling itself out, adding a new color and texture, and being resewn into the rich, starry, and pulse beating town.
A thought
"Le plus important est invisible."
What is most important is invisible.
I have been back in the States for a week now and am still recuperating from the voyage a Paris. This place where you have graciously joined me has been a touchstone for my days and an essential space to reflect. The time in Paris was magical in so many ways, as my daily journals detail. The time was also very much a challenge. Paris is the city of bright lights, golden spires, winding river, bidding gardens, colored shades, crossed bridges, and narrow streets that altogether inspire awe and romance. Paris is also a bonne ville a good city where a different language is spoken and, not only, her unique culture abides. The city is one that beckons me to return, yet I am more aware now of what this particular journey demands.
Antoine de Saint Exupery's character of the little prince shares that "What is most important is invisible." All the classes attended, the visions captured, the friendships renewed and made, the pictures noted, and the conversations in French feebly attempted are not adequate to express fully what exactly happens on a journey away from the familiar. Some homeplace within and a young girl living there is asked to grow up, and grow up in those ways mostly that are painful and require a very palpable intentionality. This stretching demands a daily setting free those seeming realities of control, appearance, knowing, and expectation. This kind of acceptance is down right difficult. Yet walking along this new road of unknowing, so much that is unseen, even invisible, introduces herself, even bears a new way unmapped and mysterious, finally seen and at last attempted.
A hope
"Toutes les grandes personnes ont d'abord ete des enfants."
All grown-ups were children first.
May we all remember the precious words of beloved Antoine de Saint-Exupery's little prince.
May we welcome the moments of unknowing, risk, vulnerability, wonder, watchfulness, reception, and discovery that offer us the life of always being made new.
