Category: History

The Bells Of Notre Dame

Notre-Dame-AP

Several years ago, we rented an apartment on Rue du Petit Pont in Paris.  And for a lifetime of springtime, we walked, talked, laughed, cried and slept within the sound of the bells of Notre Dame.  They woke us up in the morning and put us to bed at night.  In the afternoons, we heard them with “une verre de vin rouge, s’il vous plait.”  And in the evenings, they rang as the great cathedral itself emerged from the gathering night, heavy with light.  And it was always there, from the sidewalks of the Seine, that we saw the people – people drawn to the light – drawn to the cathedral – drawn to the beating heart of Paris.  People from around the world and across the street.  We saw mimes and jugglers and fire eaters who blew plumes of flame into the sky.  Once, we saw a woman cross the bridge on rollerblades, weaving through traffic with one hand on her telephone and the other holding a cigarette – Gauloises, I suspect.  Once, we saw a line of pilgrims alive with faith and purpose and each one alone in exaltation.  We saw children with balloons and teenage lovers and workers eating their lunch.  On one particular afternoon, we saw a troupe of Esmeraldas, dancing through the tourist crowd, their brothers and boyfriends lurking with pickpocket intent.  We met a man from Italy who thought we were German. A man from Normandy who liked Kay’s hat.  And an elegant woman who became a character in one of my stories.  All in the shadow of Notre Dame.

Today, the heart of Paris is burning, and I whisper a prayer because once, in an infinite springtime, I sat in the warm evening and watched the world light up with the sound of the bells of Notre Dame.

The Good Old Days

vintage

It’s hard to live in a time when the gods are changing, but it’s loads of fun, too.  This transitional world we live in is so full of cool it’s difficult to sort things out.  So many neat things are going on right now that I’m totally pissed I’m never going to see where they end up in 50 years.  But honestly, I haven’t completely comprehended our world for at least a decade.  Somewhere I lost track, and even though I can still fake it, there are too many holes in my knowledge to ever claim understanding again.  Fortunately, the world has gotten so large that I can just narrow my focus, avoid the stuff I don’t recognize, and keep on moving.  But there are certain things that I miss from the old world; things that were quaint and homey and comfortable.  And sometimes, I’m just a bit sad that young people will never enjoy these things.

Quiet contemplation on the bus.  In the olden days, people on buses used to sit in their own world.  They read books and newspapers.  They decided what to have for dinner.  They mulled over their problems.  Sometimes, they talked to each other in that secret mono-voice reserved for private words in public places.  They looked out the windows and thought about their lovers.  Buses were romantic places.

Cheap restaurants.  Before fast food, restaurants had neon names and vinyl seats and thick noisy plates.  The servers were waitresses and didn’t introduce themselves.  They were places to go for breakfast or meet for lunch.  Places to have conversations.  Places that had pie and the promise of more coffee if you wanted a longer afternoon.

Love affairs.  Relationships are such artificial animals.  They’re built on the premise that the clinching ache in the bottom of your belly has a beginning, a middle and an end.  They take too much thought and are almost corporate in their planning.  I prefer the days when people had love affairs that began by accident — at places like bus stops or cheap restaurants.  They took time to unfold, over longer and longer, long evenings in wood-paneled restaurants with adult only lighting.  And even though they always began as separate adventures, unlike relationships, love affairs got passed back and forth so many times that they became a jungle of intertwisted experience that could never be understood separately again.

And if you did it right:

Love affairs led to newspapers, those big Sunday thumpers that took a half a morning to read.  They had complete sections that you could trade across the breakfast table.  They were big enough to fold, so you could drink your morning coffee.  They were lazy with long stories.  They had movies you wanted to see and places you wanted to go.  They had columnists from faraway Chicago and Frisco who had something to say.  And they had crossword puzzles that might take all day — even with help.

Today might be a brave new world.  It is a brilliant place, with new and exciting things.  But sometimes I just like the feel of yesterday.

It’s Spring — 2019

spring

Thank God it’s spring!  And this isn’t just another date on the calendar; this is the real meal deal.  Mother Nature is changing her clothes, and Father Time is watching.  We mere mortals are only a small part of what they both have in mind, but, like every year since this planet was a baby, it’s going to be spectacular.   As of today, the birds and the bees are back, and they’re feeling frisky.

Unfortunately, the spring solstice doesn’t carry the kind of punch it used to.  These days, it’s mostly living on its rep.  We all know it’s spring, but in a world of central heating, air conditioning, mega-malls and concrete canyon streets, how many of us really care?  In the 21st century, we generally ignore the world around us until Mother Nature gets pissed off and starts slapping the crap out of everything in her path – then we pay attention.  Primitive humans weren’t this arrogant; that’s why they treated the spring solstice with some respect.

Back in the day, winter in the northern hemisphere was nothing to be trifled with.  Our species never physically adapted to the cold the way some of the other animals on this planet did.  However, despite our natural tendency to freeze to death, we insisted on living in climates that were inhospitable for four (or more) months of the year.  The only recourse for this stupidity was to outsmart Mother Nature, using the tools at hand – fire and the skins of more practical animals.  Plus, our instincts told us to hide in caves when a hostile world starting howling for our bones.  This strategy worked and we survived long enough to understand that — even though Mother Nature spent a good amount of time trying to kill us — eventually she would relent and treat us like her special children again.  And this was cause for celebration.

As we evolved beyond beetle-brow tough to early-human clever, we must have realized that these constantly changing seasons were not random.  They had a pattern.  When winter was over, the leaves came out.  From there, only a Neanderthal wouldn’t put two and two together and realize, once the leaves started to fall, winter was coming back.  (That’s why there are no more Neanderthals, BTW.  Just sayin’.)  With that in mind, it wasn’t a Cro-Magnon leap of intelligence to figure out that, with a little planning, we could gather food and firewood during the good weather, store them away, and a smart cave family could sit out the winter in relative comfort.  Thus, instead of hanging out in the cave, shivering and getting skinny all winter, we had some leisure time to put that big brain or ours to work.  We watched the sun, we watched the moon, we noticed when the ice started to melt, when the birds came back and when the bear two caves over woke up grumpy, hungry and looking for a fight.  This was all important stuff, because the more we knew about the seasons, the more likely it was that we’d be around to see a few of them.

 

Unfortunately, climatology hadn’t been invented yet, and so humans simply filed all these various discoveries under “Mother Nature: Whims and Idiosyncrasies.”  But Mother Nature was real.  She made the flowers bloom, the warm breezes blow, and warmed up the sun.  So, when winter was over, it made sense for primitive humans to take a minute, be polite and say thanks.

These days, we don’t much care for Mother Nature.  After all, for the last two hundred years or so, we’ve been fighting with her for supremacy on this planet.  There are some who say we’re winning and some who say we’ve already lost.  Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t seem to give a damn, either way.  Our egos are so secure we no longer thank her — or anybody else — for our existence.  However, on a morning like this one, in the first sunlight of what’s going to be a perfectly gorgeous day, I tend to get a little caveman-humble.  I hear the birds putting on the brag, see an ambitious green sprig forcing its way through the sidewalk and maybe — just maybe — sniff a sweet change in the air.   And it all tells me something special is happening again this year — and it’s going to fantastic.

 

Thanks, Mother Nature!