November 17, 2015 – Paris

Listen to this post:

First a note: This took me a long time to write. It felt like there wasn’t anything else I could write about today and be real. And yet, I feared saying something, in some way, that would offend someone. If I did, I ask for your forgiveness. We are all finding our way through.

Friday I was with my mom in her office after the Friday group had all left, when I got a text from Carla, our bookkeeper: “turn on CNN.” There’s no TV in the office, so we went to CNN.com and saw Paris – the staggering violence being unleashed in this city, that holds such a special place for so many of us. I just came back from there – a month and a day earlier. We never were actually in any of the locations that were attacked – we stayed and visited to the south and west, but still. My loved ones told me they’re so glad this didn’t happen when we were there. I am too. Seeing how the violence in Paris has struck people all over the world, being so close to the epicenter, the impact would have hit us so much harder. It would have been an entirely different experience, and we’d likely be traumatized by having been right there. (As well, it could have bonded us in a way that we weren’t otherwise.) And we would have come home.

My thoughts and heart are and were with those directly impacted – those who were killed, injured, and witnessed it directly – and their loved ones. And I’m thinking about my friends – among millions of Parisians – who live there, for whom this is not just a special place, but home – where they sleep, and get groceries, and go to work and take their kids to school. I went to a dinner party my last Saturday there at my friend’s apartment, that was walking-distance to one of the places that was hit. For them, there’s no other place to go home to. One of the women on our trip has an adult granddaughter living there, who went right by one of the restaurants on a moped and was a block away, entering her friend’s apartment when the gunfire started.

Through my horror and grief, I’ve found myself wondering about all of it. What came up first was “why Paris?” Of all the big cities in the west that could have been attacked, why Paris – again? It could be that the French are part of the coalition that is fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but there are literally dozens of countries who are supporting military intervention against them. It could be that France is, as I read, “fiercely secular” (see this cartoon in response to #prayforparis) and the French society is founded upon free thought and free speech – some of which has been anti-Muslim. The attackers are religious fanatics whose point-of-view, maybe even their existence, is threatened by all of this. I’m certain there are other, more complex factors involved – France’s treatment of its Muslim immigrant population may be one. I’ve read of more than one young man who became “radicalized” in a French prison. I’m a meaning-seeker, and I have to wonder if there isn’t something – unconscious or not – about the forces of darkness attacking the “City of Light.”

I’m also wondering “who are they and what are they after?” I read about their leader and his life-long, seemingly single-minded dedication to reciting the Koran. But also I read that it was the chaos in the region, that has allowed men with his bleak, doomsday vision to rise to power. A related question I’m asking is “why are young people (mostly men) – even those from the west – joining with this vision?” Is it that there will always be some people who are disposed to align with darkness? What has a young, strong, capable man strap explosives to the middle of his body, to willingly end his own life? What kind of meaning-seeking compels him to do this?

Then I ask “where’s my place? Where do I put all of this?” Even though I love Paris and have people I’m very fond of who live there, I strangely don’t feel personally attacked. I’m touched by those who have reached out to me this weekend, because of my relationship with Paris. On Saturday morning, Joe and I came up to Tahoe – to the cabin we stayed in this summer. We’re here with no intention, other than to rest and just hang out together with our puppy dog.

I love to do jigsaw puzzles. I am a total addict, so I don’t let myself do them very often, or I’d not have a life! But letting myself get completely consumed by a puzzle, is just what this trip is about. When I was packing up to go, I found a puzzle of a Monet painting of water lilies, Joe’s sister had given me one Christmas that I’d never opened. The painting is in the Museé Marmottan Monet – I just saw this painting last month. Oh, perfect. While it snowed all day on Sunday, I matched colors and shapes to put his painting back together. I was intimate with the brush strokes, he laid down on this canvas a hundred years ago. In some way, even if it’s so obvious it’s a cliché – this was the right meditation as I asked these questions. Not a drab color on any of the 1,000 pieces – pinks, blues, greens and whites – of the lily pond in the garden he created in Giverny – we were just there too.

Yesterday we woke to sun, shining on the snow covering everything. It was boot-deep as we took a hike along one of the paths we take in the summer. It was all new, to see this very familiar place covered with white. I kept exclaiming how beautiful it all was – so much that Joe was rolling his eyes at me. It was very quiet too as the soft snow absorbs sound. Except for one man and his dog coming back just as we were heading out, we saw no one. Bo took to the snow like he’d been in it all his life. He romped, and ran, and sniffed and had a big party. It was all so peaceful.

I’ve not watched the news or followed what’s going on online. Joe has and has given me some of the highlights. Violence has been pledged in retaliation. We have to stop them. It’s not over, there will be more. None of this is particularly helpful to me. I’m finding myself more contemplative and gaining perspective. Violence happens every day, many days in far greater magnitude. We can’t imagine ourselves in a café in Beirut or Baghdad or even Tel Aviv. But we can if the café is in Paris. Even if we’ve not been there, we’ve dreamed of it. So, we feel the impact. Besides that it was Paris, a place that captures the world’s imagination like maybe no other. It’s a symbol of our way of life – much like New York. The terrorists get this.

We’re going to hike again this morning – it’s another spectacularly beautiful day. And then I want to paint. Roses. A painting that I started two or three years ago that has been waiting to be finished. I’d just finished one of the grapes and hadn’t sorted out what to paint next. So, I’ll work on this one. It’s what I do. I paint.

We live in a world that contains violence. And I’m very grateful for those who are called to step up, risking everything, to prevent and mitigate it as much as possible. And I hope in doing so, that the violence isn’t perpetuated. And I believe our world contains even more grace and beauty and love, than it does violence. It is evident – otherwise the forces of darkness would have taken over and life would not exist. Most of the response to the violence in Paris is filled with the forces of life, of light – connecting us to each other. Most of us are drawn to the light, to perpetuate life. It feels like I keep saying this – but I’m finding myself looking for the capacity to hold it all – the bloodshed and the snowfall, the violence and the beauty, the outrage and the compassion, fear and love.

With my love for all of you and for all our world,

Cara