An Afternoon in Paris

The things we never saw coming often take us to the places 

we never imagined we could go.

The shortest period of time lies between the minute

you put some money away for a rainy day and

the unexpected arrival of rain.

                      ~ Jane Bryant Quinn

You travel with the hope that some thing unexpected will happen.

It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out

and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well

where I'm going, or when I have lived in a place so long 

that there's no chance I could possibly get lost.

It was our last day in romantic Paris. We asked each other, what do we want do before flying home to resume our lives in real time?

We spent our morning with Monet’s water lilies at the Musée L’Orangerie. His eight murals stretch across the oval walls of two rooms. It seemed a fitting way to end our time in France as we had begun our time visiting Monet’s gardens at Giverny. I had always thought that Monet either had a vision problem or his impressionistic painting was an intentional blurring of what his eye saw. Instead at Giverny, as I gazed across the water where he had stood with paints and easel, there was something about the quality of the air that Monet accurately reflected on canvas. To sit in the Musée on its benches and absorb his work had been a delight.

Next on our day’s itinerary - a leisurely lunch as only the French can do lunch. Then we wandered across the open space toward the Louvre.

Ah yes, the Louvre! One of the world’s largest museums, where a person could spend a week or even more. We would never be able to take it all in. Our life-list of places we wanted to see was far too long to allow us to spend adequate time in Paris to truly appreciate this vast collection of art.

We looked at each other. Was it unfair to just walk through its doors and after a few hours to simply leave? But at least we could say we’d been to the Louvre!

The long queue stretched out from the iconic glass pyramid marking the entrance like a languid snake. We found our place at the end of the line. Others followed behind us. After standing there for about ten minutes, two gendarmes hurried straight toward us. We looked at each other – what offense might we have committed? How could they know we were planning such a short visit to one of Paris’s greatest treasures.

One of them explained to us that the Louvre is closing right now. There is an electrical problem of some kind. The two of them moved on to other people who had been waiting in line – with the same explanation. Gradually people began to disperse, some seeming to be at a loss as to what to do.

We kept a straight face until the two men moved out of earshot. Then we burst out laughing. A few years earlier in England the same thing had happened to us with the British Museum. On on our last day in London, we had saved this venerable museum as the climax of our time in England and Wales. We had arrived at the Museum promptly at the time it opened in the morning. Only to be told that it was closed due to some kind of electrical problem.

As people began to move away from the Louvre, a light rain began to fall. Some last day in Paris this was turning out to be! Out popped the umbrellas.

Then we noticed many people streaming toward the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral. We shrugged as a Frenchman might and said why not. At least, it would be out of the rain.

Entering the doors of immense Cathedral we joined a crush of people putting away umbrellas. Peering over their heads, we saw the Cathedral was filled with people seated everywhere possible. Before we could figure out what to do, a brusque-looking woman in a uniform hurried towards us. Oh dear, here we go again. At least the lights remained on.

Without saying a word, she beckoned to us to follow her. Leaving behind all those damp Parisians jammed together like sardines in a tin at the Cathedral’s entrance. She took us down the center aisle to the very front row by the high altar to two empty seats. She motioned that we should sit down. Why she assumed we did not speak French we had no idea, since we had not said one word as we crossed the threshold. And blending into the crowd whenever we could was something we strived to do when we traveled.

Why not? A late afternoon Sunday Mass was not something we would have particularly sought out. But with our front room seats, we had a prime vantage point to see everything. Fortunately the rhythm of the Liturgy is universal and language was immaterial. Thus it was easy to know when to cross ourselves or when to stand up or sit down - and not look like a total tourist.

Apparently it was a special occasion, complete with Bishops and Cardinals dressed to the hilt. They gathered around the altar like bees at a hive. And the pageantry unfolded – in French! At the very end of the Mass, a Cardinal with a very American accent offered the final prayer in English. However, we never did figure out what this celebratory Mass honored.

After all the dignitaries processed down the aisle, the musician presiding over Notre dame’s incredible organ opened all the stops, playing a famous Bach cantata. Some of us just stood there, craning our necks upward and absorbing the sound filling the cavernous space. Watching his nimble fingers fly over the keys.

What a glorious way to celebrate our last afternoon in Paris! As one traveling friend has said it is not the planned itineraries that make travel such a gift and a blessing. It is the willingness to embrace the unexpected.

I Have a Dream . . .When the Impossible Became Possible

Today is a day of remembering in our household. Fifty years ago today, my beloved husband was part of the March on Washington. I asked him to be my guest essayist and write about what this experience meant for him.                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                      ~  Elizabeth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are many quotes by Martin Luther King . . . but I chose this one to reflect upon this week.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.

When Elizabeth and I graduated from college, we married and moved from western Minnesota’s prairie to Washington, DC. The cultural differences and learning curves for both of us were immense! What an exciting and challenging time to live in this international city. It was a time much like today's world with many contemporary cultural changes and learning curves surrounding and penetrating us on a daily basis!

I remember the sky-blue Wednesday of August 28, 1963, the day of the March on Washington. On the day of the March, I was determined to make a difference! While Elizabeth spent her day at work - scared stiff for my life. There were predictions of possible violence. No one knew what was going to happen. And nobody knew how many people would actually come.

People kept coming and coming. The mass of marchers became huge. At the time, Washington DC newspapers and news reports argued as to the number. Early media reports said not even 100,000 “if that many.” Observers and March organizers maintained that there were at least 250,000 people. For myself, I was so naive. I thought everyone would come forward to "speak out with their feet." It was a way we could take action to make a difference.

I remember walking just four steps behind Martin Luther King. I was pressed to the front of the crowd, and ended up just at the base of the steps leading up to the Lincoln Memorial. I was enthralled by the music of Marian Anderson, Odetta, Dylan, Joan Baez, Mahalia Jackson, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. But it was the I Have A Dream Speech sounding forth by Dr. King that was the heady climax of an incredible day.

How could I have been so privileged as to be part of this movement that refused to be thwarted! This day changed my life forever. It became for me a new lens to look at the world in myriad ways.

But the time is now, August 28, 2013 . . .  so many of the same challenges still face us and our world. As well as many new ones that we couldn't even have imagined in 1963.

I would like to share something I wrote a couple years ago.

                                                                                                 

Been There, Done That!

I paused in the hallway with a mom and dad and their young daughter. The dad said to me,

I told her that you had been in the March on Washington. 

Marcie, tell him where you just were!

She replied, her eyes shining,

My class went to Washington, DC and 

I stood right in front of Martin Luther King’s statue, 

right in front. See, here is my picture!  

          

We paused there in the hallway, just looking at each other. Then I said,

Marcie, I have never seen that statue of Martin Luther King 

that you stood in front of . . . and do you know what?  

You were not there to walk with Martin Luther King, 

and yet – both of us have been there. 

She smiled a big smile and said,

I’m so glad!

                                                                  ~  Clem

Yesterdays Becoming Today

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse;

as I have found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort

 to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place.

                                                  ~  Washington Irving

Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.

                                                  ~  Marshall McLuhan

The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence;

 it is to act with yesterday’s logic.

                                          ~  Peter Drucker

It had been fund-raising time on PBS. Previews of shows to be aired, interspersed with sales pitches for people to join (donate), were advertised for several weeks before the pledge drive began. Many of those shows were singing groups from past times.

As I watched these “commercials,” rather than listening to the variety of music of the time, I was struck by changes in the way musical groups moved, sang, and dressed. And I began to reflect on the differences between the culture when I grew up and our present culture – against the backdrop of all the turbulence in today’s world.

People have referred to the fifties in various ways. Some see these times as idyllic because of the relief that we supposedly had fought the last world war – and that now things would be different. Except that it also was a time of rigid rules and the beginning of the Cold War. And I wondered how the strands of history since that time were being played out now, in the way countries are functioning – or not functioning.

Men ruled the world and women ruled the house.

Less than fifty percent of the population enacted all the laws.

Women felt lucky to vote – provided they were not black.

Discrimination was blatant and if drafted you went.

                    Today, the rules of life are much more complicated.

Boys took Shop so they could fix and build what was needed.

They played football, basketball, and ran track.

Girls took Home Ec and learned to cook and sew.

They cheered from the sidelines, wearing skirts not-too-short.

                    Today, women build and men cook gourmet.

No one traveled far, couples married young, bought a house.

Before they were twenty, babies began coming.

Wars were short with definite beginnings and endings.

Enlisting in the army or navy was the way to see the world.

                    Today, couples skip marriage and war is continuous.

Children were to be seen and not heard, and stay out of trouble.

Dad drove the car, and on Sundays families would go for a ride.

Meals were meat and potatoes – unless you were poor.

Parents hoped their kids would have more than they did.

                    Today, rapidly the middle class is becoming extinct.

Men wore suits and ties to church and women wore gloves.

Aprons were a must, dresses below the knees were standard.

Everyone knew their place, only a few challenged norms.

The moral standard by which everyone lived was honest hard work.

                    Today, we wear shorts to church, that is if we go to church.

Everyone spoke English, except maybe grandparents at home.

We were proud of our forebears, who had immigrated here.

But insisted we now were Americans and certainly not foreigners.

South America and Africa were large blank shapes on the map.

                     Today, we are multi-colored and beautifully diverse.

News-reels informed us of world events during Saturday matinees.

Local papers recorded who poured - and who was visiting whom.

Clothes-shopping happened in August just before school began.

And we hoped we wouldn't grow too fast through the next year.

                    Today, news happens in real time and we shop all the time.

Portable typewriters and luggage often were graduation gifts.

We added and subtracted on paper, rarely wrote checks.

No bookstores in small towns meant many homes had no books.

When computers first were invented, they filled entire rooms.

                     Today, we read Kindles and order on-line.

If we went to college, we used heavy calculators.

Requiring considerable strength to move them from desk to desk.

We carried state-of-the-art slide rules, useful as status symbols.

                        Guys them hung from their belt, while women carried theirs.

                    Today, solar calculators are the size of cell phones.

Telephones were party lines, used to hear the latest gossip.

Might not know who was listening, so took care what we said.

Long distance calls were kept brief, made only in emergencies.

Letters kept everyone current with relatives in other towns.

                    Today, Facebook connects and NSA collects our texts.

Today, children watch TV’s violence and reality shows.

Countries face off against each other with heated rhetoric.

Plane travel is increasingly adverse, terrorists plot and bomb.

Starvation, human trafficking, and climate-change are epidemic.

                    Yesterday, we believed life promised happy endings.

Now – about riding in stage coaches and shifting positions so as to be bruised in another place in one’s anatomy . . .