paris (part one)

i hate to be cliche, but there really is something about paris in the spring. not that i have other seasons to compare it to (yet). my trip was simultaneously all that i had ever hoped for and so much more than i dreamed.

my hotel, familia hotel, was amazing. when i go back i will again stay there. the staff were great, and all the rooms have these amazing sepia murals on the wall above the bed of different areas of paris. the hotel is in the latin quarter, and somewhere in the back of my mind, i had decided long ago that if i ever did get to paris, the latin quarter was where i wanted to stay. sometimes i can make good choices, and the latin quarter & familia hotel are among the examples of this anomaly!

the seine and all the bridges that link the left and right banks together captivated me. on more than one occasion did i feel a wave of envy sweep over me as i saw parisians sitting on the banks of the seine eating their lunch. as good as my imagination can be, the credit river will never be a substitute!


every morning, almost like a touchstone, i walked through the busy streets of the latin quarter, amongst the parisians going to work, school, fathers taking little children to daycare or wherever french children go when their parents go to work, up from my hotel to notre dame. the man at the front desk of my hotel said it takes ten minutes, but an odd thing happens when you walk through the streets of paris, time ceases to matter. or at least for me, it ceased to exist. there was only me, and this beautiful incredible city that seemed to have everything bathed in a pinkish sort of light, making it all more beautiful. anyway, back to notre dame, it was almost as though i had made a deal with myself no day would start without seeing the beautiful cathedral. apart from my hotel and the rue des ecoles on which it was, notre dame was the only thing i saw every day.

on friday a friend asked me if i would ever move to paris, and without hesitation i answered, 'yes.' i cannot explain it more than to say that from the first moment the airplane landed, and for some unexplained reason tears came to my eyes, paris felt like home. even as i sit here in the apartment that has been my actual home for more than three years, i know that somewhere east of here exists a place where my heart truly feels at home.

gertrude stein said "america is my country and paris is my hometown." while our countries of origin may be different, this same sentiment echoes through the parts of my heart that made the trip home with me.

blue

one of my many favorite moments in paris.

transparency

there is so much that i just don't understand.

beginning with myself, and the less than intelligent choices that i make with alarming frequency... most of which have to do with the annoying discontentment that seems to shadow me, and in those moments when my guard is down, and i'm feeling much like my life is just so much the consolation prize version of the life i wanted, then the sub-intelligent choices seem to make so much more sense.

the reality is that the reasons for discontentment will always be around, and will always be numerous. there will always be some unrealized dream or goal, some piece of life that just doesn't fit the way i want it to...something. i cannot control any of these things, and freedom comes when i start to remember this.

the only thing i can control is my response. it's okay that my unrealized dreams break my heart, if the death of a dream doesn't break my heart, then i can't have wanted it that badly. but broken isn't bad, it's just a place to start again. Brennan Manning sums it up pretty well in the Ragamuffin Gospel when he says:

"to be alive is to be broken. and to be broken is to stand in need of grace. honesty keeps us in touch with our neediness and the truth that we are saved sinners. there is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretent to be anything but who they are."

may i live to be beautifully transparent.

40

listening: city and color

today i turn 40.

in spite of the fact that i've been trying to prepare myself for this day for months, perhaps years, i don't belive i'm any more prepared to accept it today than i was any of the many yesterdays. it simply seems not possible.

but here it is nonetheless. and the reality is, if you look at my birth certificate, then it's true that i am closer to beginning retirement than i am the day i began high school. and the person who lives inside this four decade old body hardly seems a day over 21 most days...some days she even has the remarkable ability to revert back to an 8 year old, but we won't talk about that today. :-) 40 still seems foreign, not that it's bad, it's just an age, a season of life that belongs to someone else...perhaps someone with a bit more maturity...?

it has been a remarkable four decades, i must admit that, filled with so many truly spectacular memories and people and places...that if all i got was these 40 years, i couldn't begin to complain.

as humans, we have a tendancy to look for patterns where there could be none...and with that, i know where i stand today, the road behind me is more characterized by beginnings, and the road ahead will no doubt be marked with more endings.

but this one thing i know: that given all i've been given by God, and using history as a guide, i could never hope for an ordinary existence. so today, i will be 40. but i'll be 40 as only i am equipped to be, and i'll go to Paris in 18 days, and i will continue to laugh and grow and learn with the amazing people in my life, and i will continue to search out the beginnings and firsts that i can jump into wholeheartedly, and i will endeavor to embrace the endings that will surely come with all the grace i have within me, and some from beyond.

here we go...

humbled

talking with rhanda tonight i was reminded of something that happened recently that is forcing me to rethink some things.

a few weeks ago, i was on my way downtown to a seminar. let me start by saying the fact that i was running unbelievably late was all my doing, no one else to blame. and it was late, 8:54am to be exact, and the one express train that would get me to the convention centre on time was leaving at 9:08am, i still hadn't purchased my ticket...and there was not a parking space left at the clarkson GO station. i'd already driven around, and nothing. zippo. nada. nice try. i didn't have time to actually drive down & park & make it on time, so i was really out of options.

now, i've always held to the belief that if i'm going to bring something to God in prayer, it will be worthy of his time. secretly, i've always been a bit annoyed at people who ask for prayer for things like to help them find their keys, or for a test that they decided not to study for, but to go out the night before, or other things that i may deem trivial. seriously, i would think that God has more important things on his agenda than helping us out of our poor organization or bad judgement situations. seriously.

so, the frustration was mounting as i circled back around the parking lot, and as the clock turned to 8:55am, somewhere from the depths of my soul came the words, "God, i could use a little help here," as i was turning a corner. then, at that moment, right before me, there was a beautifully free spot, waiting for my little car.

what do you say at that point? the 'thank you' i incredulously said seemed so feebly inadequate, especially since i've always held that God was much too busy to have to deal with parking spots. i was suitably humbled.

may i stay there.

procrastination

listening: kelly clarkson :-) & train
reading: the rest of God (buchanan) still...

i realized today that it's been a while since i did any blogging (is that a word?) :-)

it's funny, most of the time i can find so many reasons not to write, even though i know that i need to, in order to keep from becoming a stranger to myself, to sort out the constant monologue running through my head, to just get it all on paper. sometimes my reasons for not writing are valid, like when i visited auschwitz, both times. even now, i feel so inadequate to write anything, and when i sit down to try, i am overwhelmed by the sadness and tragedy of it all.

but most of the time, my reasons are merely excuses, the most common being that i feel as though my words will never do justice to how i'm feeling...that incessant internal editor, that insists on writing nothing over writing anything less than absolutely perfect.

excuses.

guarded

listening: Jezioro łabędzie (Czajkowski)
reading: The Rest of God (Buchanan)

I've come to the conclusion that i do not always handle stress well. most of the time, it's all good, and there is no problem seeing the bigger picture for the forest of stressors. but then times like these come into play, and this usually fiercely independent girl wants nothing more than to go crying to her mommy.

In these moments of weakness, i have realized the very real danger in leaving myself unchecked. we have this crazy human tendancy when we (or our pride) are hurt or in pain, to give ourselves licence to do things we would normally never consider right. when provoked, we feel justified to take the filter off of our words and attitudes, unleashing them on those responsible for wronging us. we talk too much to people who have nothing to do with the issue, dragging others into our sad little foxhole. we throw all the things we have learned from Jesus out the window in the face of our situation.

telling ourselves that it's okay to lash out, to get justification, forgetting that in essence, we are doing the same thing (or worse) that hurt us and started us down this sad road, to others.

Tennyson summed it up pretty well when he wrote:

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your
thoughts.

And then there's always Proverbs 4:23,

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

May we always be on guard.