A Morning in October. An Evening in April

Our visit to Paris, 1999

We had arrived in Paris late in the afternoon the day before, so with the first light of day Mark and I headed out down the Rue Vieille du Temple, towards the River Seine. It was a long walk for me with my crappy feet. One and a half kilometers. And though the hotel clerk had told us it would take about twenty minutes, we spent about an hour slowly moving down that street. I had never been in Paris. It is profoundly beautiful. On both sides of the street we were walking down were buildings that had been built centuries before anything in Chicago. The gray stone of those buildings reflected the light of the morning. The sky was not sunny, yet it wasn't that drab slate of autumn that I was used to. As we approached the bridge over the Seine, a vista opened up revealing the grandeur of Île de la Cité, with the Cathedral Notre Dame off to the right. We continued walking, around the rear of the giant cathedral, in awe of the history before us. There were the gargoyles, the giant rose windows, and those flying buttresses. Eight hundred years of history right there, built before Europe had even known that North America existed.

When the news broke yesterday, my heart sank. Surely they can stop that little fire before it does too much damage. But as the hours wore on it became obvious that most of the history was being incinerated, and I couldn't watch anymore. With a knot in my stomach, I turned to a different channel. But I soon found myself turning back, this time to the English language channel from France. You could hear the sadness in the reporter's voice.

It is sad, very sad to see historical things lost forever. Sure, Cathedral Notre Dame can be rebuilt and recreated. Europeans are very good at that, having had to rebuild entire countries after two horrific wars. But it will only be a recreation, a Disney like replica of what once was. So sad, but I'm glad that I got to see it that October morning.