If it happens to be of interest to readers, I enclose the following short brief on the reality of this morning in Paris the day after the much-reported attacks.
Nothing is different. In fact the streets were more peaceful than they have been in some time. I went about my usual business- like most others and noted that had my frenzied fair-weather friends in North America not bombarded me with emails of "concern", I would not have known anything was amiss or wrong in Paris this morning when I woke up.
Once I arrived at the café where I pause regularly to meet my fellow Parisians for a moment of companionship, I would have seen the headlines in the newspapers which are always on the café countertop for patrons to share over the course of the day. If your favorite paper is being read by another customer you have to wait for a while. Parisians are good at waiting. They seem to have inner lives so rich that the constant opportunities for pondering as opposed to hurrying ahead are, for them, a routine instead of a nuisance to be filled up with ceaseless staring at a hand held device or huffing and puffing about being “late”.
It was the strangest thing. All of the people who normally can't be bothered to reply or respond to me in a timely fashion, were there in my inbox. When I have communicated in the past seeking solace or some word of their lives, they have not bothered to reply. Is this what drives suicide bombers? I thought as I wandered the quiet streets of the city of light. The muslim woman who is the caretaker of one of the bourgeois buildings just beyond my working class neighborhood, was already busy polishing the front door brass handles, the garbage collectors who were recently responsible for days of filth and odor in the streets when they went on strike for better work conditions and wages, were out in full force. By the dawn’s early light, they were standing tall and proud as they swept the streets of the litter and emptied household garbage cans into their huge, stench-emitting “green” trucks.
But what struck me most this early new dawn in Paris, was the constancy of the birds. All the swans, seagulls and crows -not to forget the humble pigeons, were all soaring around the Notre Dame Cathedral and dipping and bounding over the river Seine.
One of my favorite ways to enter or exit a long contemplative walk is to watch the reflection of these various birds in the surface of the river. They seem to make gentle fun of humanity by their constant freedom. So this morning again, I looked into the river, it was like a magical mauve glass; the colors of dawn make the water seem solid. It is like a meandering screen reflecting all that we ignore here on earth as we hurry past each other insisting on gratifying ourselves to confirm our happiness and comfort with increasing impatience.
And then someone somewhere who has been ignored, shunned and denied the basic dignity of being acknowledged, gathers with other like souls- lost and longing for attention and they make a plan to get people to sit up and take notice- for whatever reason they deem a good enough excuse. I don’t say their ways are right but I feel that if I can make every effort to understand, I am being more useful than distinguishing myself by how I am different. I am not different and I am taking note; lengthy debates, happy protests, colorful pleas for calm never seem to have quite the effect that these "tragedies" do.
And how does all this relate to my connection to Pictou? Well, first of all over the Seine river by Notre Dame cathedral this morning I was sure I saw a Great Blue Heron! Like so many who soared along the Pictou shores, this one was headed East. And I could almost feel my own wings still aching to fly; I was from away when I arrived in Pictou and underneath all the gentle joking about “where I was from” there was a very serious and embedded rule about belonging being perpetuated that only a few people were brave enough to breach. No matter how much I volunteered and served as a citizen in Pictou, I was still, always, from away.
I was very lucky to encounter a few brave souls who embraced me as family and that helped me every time I was rebuffed, described as “different” or criticized for not being sensitive to local customs and needs.
So perhaps I am writing as an adopted Pictou girl to say that what has happened in Paris is as grave and important for people in Pictou as it is for anyone here who might have been at the American rock band concert in the theatre where most of the dead were.
It is easy to join in mourning and make macabre connections to the event by calling people you otherwise wouldn't answer so that you can run around saying "I know someone who died."
But the more important thing about these kinds of events is that they remind everyone about the eventual results of marginalizing other human beings.
Last night as I walked home from a talk about the power of art to transform, I was tempted into a shop where they were selling fragrance. There were lots of tourists milling around hoping to take home some souvenir and/or change themselves by putting on a potion or lotion. I like pure scents and they are the only thing I can consider in the realm of perfume since I am very very allergic to the synthetic, chemical, man-made concoctions mass produced for profit. I was happy to enjoy some marvelous aromas briefly before the shoving, impatient, pushing tourists drove me back out into the street.
At the door I noticed a stunning engraving of a woman with a steady gaze. It was titled "Attention".
And, this morning as I walked through the empty avenues past the monuments to soldiers, I thought about that image that is so fast being erased by our fast and furious certain ways of communicating; Attention. “Pay attention” I thought, as I waited in the mauve light for the traffic signal to change that would allow me to legally cross the empty street. I came home walking around the perimeter of the public garden- closed due to the events that happened on the other side of the city- in that garden are statues of artists and writers. People who made something of their feelings of loneliness or rejection. My favorite statue in that park is of Georges Sand. She was a rather eccentric person who managed to live beyond the definitions other people came up with for her. Her writing persists even as the “truth” of events that informed her era have long been forgotten.
If it happens to be of interest to readers, I enclose the following short brief on the reality of this morning in Paris the day after the much-reported attacks.
Nothing is different. In fact the streets were more peaceful than they have been in some time. I went about my usual business- like most others and noted that had my frenzied fair-weather friends in North America not bombarded me with emails of "concern", I would not have known anything was amiss or wrong in Paris this morning when I woke up.
Once I arrived at the café where I pause regularly to meet my fellow Parisians for a moment of companionship, I would have seen the headlines in the newspapers which are always on the café countertop for patrons to share over the course of the day. If your favorite paper is being read by another customer you have to wait for a while. Parisians are good at waiting. They seem to have inner lives so rich that the constant opportunities for pondering as opposed to hurrying ahead are, for them, a routine instead of a nuisance to be filled up with ceaseless staring at a hand held device or huffing and puffing about being “late”.
It was the strangest thing. All of the people who normally can't be bothered to reply or respond to me in a timely fashion, were there in my inbox. When I have communicated in the past seeking solace or some word of their lives, they have not bothered to reply. Is this what drives suicide bombers? I thought as I wandered the quiet streets of the city of light. The muslim woman who is the caretaker of one of the bourgeois buildings just beyond my working class neighborhood, was already busy polishing the front door brass handles, the garbage collectors who were recently responsible for days of filth and odor in the streets when they went on strike for better work conditions and wages, were out in full force. By the dawn’s early light, they were standing tall and proud as they swept the streets of the litter and emptied household garbage cans into their huge, stench-emitting “green” trucks.
But what struck me most this early new dawn in Paris, was the constancy of the birds. All the swans, seagulls and crows -not to forget the humble pigeons, were all soaring around the Notre Dame Cathedral and dipping and bounding over the river Seine.
One of my favorite ways to enter or exit a long contemplative walk is to watch the reflection of these various birds in the surface of the river. They seem to make gentle fun of humanity by their constant freedom. So this morning again, I looked into the river, it was like a magical mauve glass; the colors of dawn make the water seem solid. It is like a meandering screen reflecting all that we ignore here on earth as we hurry past each other insisting on gratifying ourselves to confirm our happiness and comfort with increasing impatience.
And then someone somewhere who has been ignored, shunned and denied the basic dignity of being acknowledged, gathers with other like souls- lost and longing for attention and they make a plan to get people to sit up and take notice- for whatever reason they deem a good enough excuse. I don’t say their ways are right but I feel that if I can make every effort to understand, I am being more useful than distinguishing myself by how I am different. I am not different and I am taking note; lengthy debates, happy protests, colorful pleas for calm never seem to have quite the effect that these "tragedies" do.
And how does all this relate to my connection to Pictou? Well, first of all over the Seine river by Notre Dame cathedral this morning I was sure I saw a Great Blue Heron! Like so many who soared along the Pictou shores, this one was headed East. And I could almost feel my own wings still aching to fly; I was from away when I arrived in Pictou and underneath all the gentle joking about “where I was from” there was a very serious and embedded rule about belonging being perpetuated that only a few people were brave enough to breach. No matter how much I volunteered and served as a citizen in Pictou, I was still, always, from away.
I was very lucky to encounter a few brave souls who embraced me as family and that helped me every time I was rebuffed, described as “different” or criticized for not being sensitive to local customs and needs.
So perhaps I am writing as an adopted Pictou girl to say that what has happened in Paris is as grave and important for people in Pictou as it is for anyone here who might have been at the American rock band concert in the theatre where most of the dead were.
It is easy to join in mourning and make macabre connections to the event by calling people you otherwise wouldn't answer so that you can run around saying "I know someone who died."
But the more important thing about these kinds of events is that they remind everyone about the eventual results of marginalizing other human beings.
Last night as I walked home from a talk about the power of art to transform, I was tempted into a shop where they were selling fragrance. There were lots of tourists milling around hoping to take home some souvenir and/or change themselves by putting on a potion or lotion. I like pure scents and they are the only thing I can consider in the realm of perfume since I am very very allergic to the synthetic, chemical, man-made concoctions mass produced for profit. I was happy to enjoy some marvelous aromas briefly before the shoving, impatient, pushing tourists drove me back out into the street.
At the door I noticed a stunning engraving of a woman with a steady gaze. It was titled "Attention".
And, this morning as I walked through the empty avenues past the monuments to soldiers, I thought about that image that is so fast being erased by our fast and furious certain ways of communicating; Attention. “Pay attention” I thought, as I waited in the mauve light for the traffic signal to change that would allow me to legally cross the empty street. I came home walking around the perimeter of the public garden- closed due to the events that happened on the other side of the city- in that garden are statues of artists and writers. People who made something of their feelings of loneliness or rejection. My favorite statue in that park is of Georges Sand. She was a rather eccentric person who managed to live beyond the definitions other people came up with for her. Her writing persists even as the “truth” of events that informed her era have long been forgotten.
