Hopped on over to Paris, rediscovered the lovely metro, passed a Michael Jackson memorial with gloves moon-walking included, weaved around the hand-holding "heal the world" circle and saw the Eiffel Tower which never fails to take you aback, wandered around the gardens, the peace wall, circled the Arc de Triomphe, passed stores on the Champs Elysees that my imagination cannot even afford, ate some escargot. Went to mass for the first time in...a very long time...at Notre Dame, fell off a seesaw shaped like a duck, toured St. Chapelle and Conciergerie, lunch in the Latin Courter, made it to the Dali museum and found an appreciation for surrealism, had my breath taken away by Sacre Cour and a talented man with a soccer ball, wine, brie cheese and a baguette by the Eiffel Tower at night, lit up and sparkling while the boys smoked cigars. Wandered the Louvre, overwhelmed is an understatement, realized how much I don't know about art, saw the Moulin Rouge, went to Paris' sex museum (wouldn't fly in the States), beer at a bar by the metro, many beers in a bar around the corner where every third song was the Temptations "Stand by Me." Modern Art Museum - beautiful - complete with a Bresson photo exhibit, fell in love with the Musée D'Orsay and found a Renoir portrait with an eerie resemblance to my face (clearly a past life), drank espresso and discussed life, closed another bar. Found a new appreciation for stained glass at Chartes Cathedral where the tourguide claimed that there are too many Japanese to fit in Japan so they send them out in tour groups, felt homesick for a place I've lived three days, made it to St. Malo in a storm, had the most incredible dinner of my life for which I have no words. Scaled some rocks at Mont St. Michel and realized my life is taking an unbelievable turn, ate a galette. Saw the Bayeux Tapistry, the scarred landscape of the Point d'Hoc, dinner with a view of one of Normandy's beaches, played darts and drank Bailey's on the rocks with a couple from England, Ally loving Margaret Thatcher's ability to tell the Unions to "sod off," and Paul's theory that the cigar of the phrase 'close but no cigar' was smoked by Eisenhower. Swindled by the clouds out of a sunrise, humbled by the American cemetery above Omaha beach, I slept in a ball for most of the 6 hour bus ride to Belgium.
But I did get a minute or two to think.
While I was climbing around the rocks around St. Michel, an excited kid in a jungle gym, I stumbled, not literally of course, across a peach pit and picked it up. I looked at it for a while, focusing my eyes like a camera lens between the tiny fruit core, the yellow, burnt orange and white speckled boulders, and the deep blue and green water that ebbs and flows between where I sat and the Brittany coast. Peach pits always make me think of my grandfather. He used to save them, allow them to dry out, the widdle them, hollowing out the middle but leaving an arch, creating a small basket, which he would sometimes lacquer. I love them, and to my glory, he widdled boxes full of them. My favorites were the smallest ones, the ones that, I would imagine, took the most patience, intricacy and delicacy.
So while I sat looking at the French countryside, secluded momentarily on top of my rock, what came to mind was that I am where I am because of a number of circumstances beyond my control. My grandfather carved peach pit baskets while he raised my mother, who in turn raised me, who along with my family supported me enough to send me to college and to send me abroad. Maybe it was the European air or my lack of sleep that caused me to wax philosophic about a peach pit, but what my feelings led me to was this: there is a continuity to life, a reason, a plan, and all the restlessness I've been feeling throughout my life is a result of me fighting it. Sitting there, I realized that perhaps the way to control our lives, to "find our way" so to speak, is not necessarily making plans and following a set of rules or ideas, but just letting go. There's some rhyme or reason that carried me over to the rocks, and I think there's some rhyme or reason thats going to carry me to a whole lot more. So I'll take words from the Brit I met in an Irish pub in Arromanches, "sod it all," and make the most of this freedom. I feel like on the horizon, along with the pink clouds I saw at 7 am this morning, is the time of my life.
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