This is not a top ten list. I have cried three times since being in Paris.........
Unless you count the time my battery died 10 minutes after running to a music store and back to replace the memory card that became full during my visit to the Louvre......
Or the time that I ran back to the apartment for the battery for Logan's camera to find that he had used the last of the toilet paper and had not bought more after finding the apartment without (the only thing it is without - it has a thermos and a trivet but no toilet paper) while he was spending the whole day wandering around and on the computer (I left him a nicely worded message[he was out]to get more after finding a scrap of used tissue in his pocket I could use).
Boy, those two were the same day - I ignored some pretty big omens that day but didn't notice until I was doing laundry (for obvious reasons) later that evening in my panic to see the Louvre.
Anyways - back to the crying. The only reason I mentioned it is because it occurred at places that surprised me:
The First time was my first glimpse of Notre Dame on Easter Monday surrounded by the faithful, the curious and the resigned locals. I was walking along, crossed the street and there it was, sitting as it had since the 13th century and I felt my nose and eyes fill and my throat close. Now, you need to know that in total I have spent no more than 12 hours in a church and most of that when I was very young and went with my elderly babysitter, Auntie Nessie. In order for you to understand me and religion I need to tell you about my record player.........stay with me. When I was 5 my parents bought me a RCA record player, it was blue and had a lid that you could close with a latch and a plastic handle for carrying it around. At the same time as they bought me my record player they bought about 20 records, that they added to yearly, all of which were not music but stories with read along books and some larger records with Disney stories or Golden Book Nursery Rhymes or Dr. Suess - things that cannot be found except rarely now. I know, I have looked - great gift mom and dad. Anyways, the point is that I loved stories and my parents probably got me this to let them off the bedtime reading hook so when the time came for me to be exposed to religion, how do you think that was done in the United Church that I attended with Auntie Nessie? Through stories read out of a really old storybook that someone told me was called the bible. I attended Sunday School happy as a clam to have this nice lady read me stories - just like an in person record player! Some time later someone, can't remember who, told me these stories were real but the damage had already been done. To me, stories from the bible were just that - stories. If someone told you that Little Red Riding Hood was a true story and implored you with fervor to believe them you would understand how I felt. That is how my little blue record player was instrumental (ha!pun!) in ensuring I had an educational enjoyment of religion, but, no faith. So you can see why seeing a church and feeling the shock of waterworks - from a distance surrounded by a crowd - completely stunned me. Nice Church.
The Second Time I cried was, you guessed it, at ANOTHER church. WHAT is the DEAL?????? A couple of Days ago while walking to the Catacombs, which turned out to be closed, we stopped at St. Sulpice Church - that's right, of DaVinci Code Fame. As we arrived the choir was singing and the organ was playing and I felt a sniff which I brutally quelled (I might have told myself to get a grip out loud...........yeah, that could have been the reason for the dirty looks........hmmmmm). But then when I got to the temple of the Holy Virgin and saw its beauty and embellishment there was no stopping a tear or two. Why am I having this reaction? I feel no draw to organized religion even now. I think it is a feeling of empathy - what it must have been like for people living in the middle ages to be surrounded by such a mean existance, sickness and early death and to come to these places and feel the wonder of its architecture rising from the squallor. Also the love that went into building these churches. Look at the way we throw up buildings today - speed of the essence and a request for crown moulding is a huge inconvenience. Every inch of these churches (more area than a football field including the bleachers) is embellished with works that, on their own, would take a week to complete. That is pride in workmanship.
The final time was not so surprising. For those of you who know me well, I have probably made you uncomfortable at least once by telling you that I feel very strongly that I have lived before and I have some connection to what happened during the holocaust. I began reading books on the subject in the third grade after reading a book from the school library on a child hiding from the Nazis. I read the Diary of Anne Frank in 4th grade and continued to have this rather macabre interest for several years, even writing a speech about it during 9 th grade complete with pictures that I showed the class from a Time Life Series on WWII that we had at home. Whether I was Nazi or Jew - I was there. Today we went to the Mèmorial de la Shoah. If you don't know what the Shoah is it is the Jewish word for catastrophe and is used to describe the holocaust of 1933-1945 in Europe and parts of Nazi occupied Africa. We had to enter through the most stringent security I have ever seen including the airports of Vancouver and Paris. After picking up my purse from the x-ray machine and going through the metal detector and two sets of bullet proof doors we came out into a marble courtyard with the names of the French deportees and their dates of birth under the year they were deported to the camps - mainly Aushwitz, Buchenwald and Drancy (in France). I have to say that Logan has become very interested in this part of history - when I told him we could come here he was excited to come (hmmmmmmmm......another connection?). In order to bring meaning to what I was seeing I asked him to find three names, names of children who would have been the same age as my children are now when they entered the camps (two boys and a girl) and we took a picture of their names. Then we entered the reception area and it started, I was handed an English speaking map and watched a slide show on the wall of pictures of beautiful families, couples and smiling children. After each picture it would fade only to come back with captions letting us know their fate. Suddenly I was soundlessly crying hard - not like at the churches - I was embarrassed and trying desperately to hide it from Logan but when I turned my head to the side there was a group of French school kids. I waited for it to pass but then Logan spoke to me and I couldn't speak and he noticed - I motioned for him to give me a minute and he escaped gratefully, embarrased greatly (Logan is proud NOT to be emotional). The suddenness and the length of time it took me to get under control shocked and embarrased me - I felt such sorrow, such fear. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life second only to the birth of my children. I feel sad that the world has learned nothing except to arm itself (this place) against hate and assert its rights with violence as we see between Isreal and Palestinians as effective weapons to ensure this particular nation never finds itself exterminated again while in other Nations, Darfurs are occuring. I feel glad when I see all the school groups going through because for every 10kids who looked bored one looked interested - this is how you fight hate.
To know more about the incredible global foundation of the Shoah check out a DVD copy of Shindler's List - there is an excellent DVD feature on the SHOAH foundation who have interviewed, verified, recorded, catalogued, archived and developed an interactive method of public access access to these memories before they die. Also check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USC_Shoah_Foundation_Institute_for_Visual_History_and_Education
I love you all and will go now and enjoy my last 2.5 days in Paris.
See you soon
Kim/Mom
