Paris July 29-August 3, 2007

This my first extended stay without a group of novices to guide offered me Paris on a platter, complex and layered beyond the marvels of the must-see first time view. I avoided the throngs queuing to gape at the gothic majesty of Notre Dame, though I couldn’t resist photographing the portal saints
and the stately silhouette, and never got around to the Arc of Triumph or the Eiffel Tower. I was too busy wandering in the Marais where I stayed for my first time in a youth hostel, a historic monument immaculately cared for with medieval stone arches in the dining hall!

The open structure and flamboyant colors of the Pompidou Center captivated me; my favorite photos are the reflections of the colors in the building across the street. When Georges Pompidou urged Paris to demonstrate her presence in the modern world with 7 modern projects, the response to the President’s plan for this modern art museum in the stately Beaubourg quarter was outright horror. Of course, that was their reaction to the I. M. Pei pyramid in the embrace of the Louvre, and to the Eiffel Tower in 1889! The contrast of styles is indeed bracing, but like carefully chosen spices in a French sauce, the results are exquisite.

Another contrast in today’s Paris is the City, sweltering in summer heat (in theory!) and the Beach, where city dwellers long to escape for all the seaside pleasures. Paris’ mayor has brought the beach to the city to benefit all the citizens unable to leave. Paris Plage brings tons of sand to the city, creating beach volleyball, soccer, and rugby courts in the plaza in front of city hall and an umbrella-strewn beach along the Seine. Young and old cavort or lounge on the beach in their swimwear. No one seems to notice or mind the absence of water. The Seine slipping by gives enough of an impression to complete the fantasy.

Another successful effort on behalf of the Parisian populace by the local government is the rental bike program. All over the city there are locked racks of sleek, sturdy bikes accessible to anyone with a prepaid cared for half hour jaunts across town for a Euro. Only inaugurated two weeks before my stay, the bike rentals appear to have taken off in huge numbers. Then there is the French answer to commuting efficiently, called the Smart Car. Food for thought.


Parisians are already active, walking far more daily than the average American. On a stroll along the Green Way, a landscaped path atop the old Roman aqueduct east of the central part of the city in an area utterly new to me, I caught this sweet moment of a gentleman taking his mother for a noon time stroll. I wonder if this is a daily routine or a special visit, and guess from the casual comfort of their comportment that it is a regular part of their lives. Beneath us there is a little part tucked away, enjoyed by young

sunbathers whose children sit in the shade of the Roman arches on stones cut by young centurions, playing a video game. Hand in hand, the present with the past.
It is difficult to verbalize the awe that sweeps over me when I come into the presence of the graves of the great figures of French history. When I reflect on the most memorable

moments, I go back to the graves of Marie and Pierre Curie, to Big Foot Bertha and Pepin the Short, Marie Antoinette and Louis, to the carved likeness of Charles Martel. How unspeakably surreal it seems to me to stand beside the remains of these people whose faces and lives rise from the pages of history books before me. Marie Curie, who ran from her lab to find her beloved husband in the street, his head crushed by a carriage wheel; she carried on their work,


raised their daughters, and became the first person to win 2 Nobel Prizes, buried in the Pantheon. The younger Marie who died with such calm courage as a sacrifice for the failed tradition of the monarchy. And Charles the Hammer, Lord Mayor of the Palace to the Do-Nothing kings, who led the French army to victory at Poitiers in 732, pushing the invading Arab armies back across the Pyrenees and forever changing the face of Europe. 732. That was one thousand two hundred and seventy-five years ago. I stand beside his tomb in the cathedral of Saint Denis, stunned at my proximity to what once seemed like a distant past but which now is clearly an unmistakable part of my present.

The list of voices from afar includes those at the Père Lachaise cemetery, Balzac and Delacroix, LaFontaine and Molière, Sarah Bernhardt and Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Chopin, and Abelard and Heloise. I am stunned by the connection I feel with Pierre Abelard, whose book, Sic et Non, so touched me at the Scriptorial at Avranches. Here is the author, buried beside his beloved. I am reminded of this same awe when once before I stood by the grave of Leonardo da Vinci at Amboise, having visited his Last Supper in Milan. Back at Père Lachaise, this gentleman with his invention captivates me. What symbol would I chose to grace my likeness for all eternity?

The long row of grave markers to the victims of the death camps, each marking the burial of the ashes of those ghastly ovens, raises such a chorus of voices and images of families torn apart and devoured by brutality that the trees tremble. The beloved husband of our friend Paulette is here now, too, a survivor of the nightmare of those times that so scarred this land and her people. Paulette met us at the café near the Place de la Bastille, glad for the congenial visit, gravely willing to speak about the horror of her youth for the benefit of this generation. Her voice has been raised for those whose voices were stilled, for over 60 years, grimly recounting the truths of an unspeakable time to every possible audience. O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing! She is a blessing, a living voice that gives life to the past.
















As I rest for a moment in the gardens of the Palais de Luxembourg, I find a warmth of hope and familial bond, a sense of having walked into a family picnic. This grandfather and child exemplify the simple acts of living together well.

When I leave the children at play, I make my way to the Cluny Museum, a medieval collection housed on and beside a roman ruin. I sit in a carefully controlled dark coolness and wonder at the survival of this collection of tapestries whose iconic images are recognized around the world. Their story and symbols are intriguing, but the simple act of stitching such an enormous work stupefies me. In the face of that investment of time, what faith to just begin!

Ending and transformation occupy my thoughts as I look down on the Impressionist collections of the Orsay Museum, housed in what was once the central train station of Paris. What wisdom to preserve by way of transformation this place that once served as a hospital to those who had barely survived internment as enemy prisoners, and returning to Paris, could not do more than be lifted from the trains? I am transported to an idyllic visit to my daughter Katie and our overnight stay in an old school remade as a hotel. We watched a movie in the gym turned theater. If places can make such remarkable conversion, how can we not hope for and invest in the possibility of human change, beginning with ourselves?

Two other places that I visited for the first time filled me with wonder at their inspirational beauty. The altar of the church of the Madeleine took me heavenward, and the Marc Chagall ceiling of the Garnier Opera pulled me into a riveted immobility. Such gifts, these artists leave us! How can we honor them for their enduring gift but by transforming our lives into reflections of the beauty of their art?









Paris honors men who leave all forms of art, including Thomas Jefferson, whose legacy is enjoyed by all of mankind. This building, the Institute of the Muslim World, testifies to the diversity of Paris and her efforts to come to term with the changing face of France. West along the same bank of the Seine is the Conciergerie, once a fortress, then a prison, now a national monument. It was here that Marie Antoinette and her family were imprisoned, here also, ironically, that Robespierre spent his last days.

In addition to visiting places that I had never seen, I also returned to those Parisian haunts that mean the most to me. I am grinning at the young Japanese student who took this photo for me, but when I walked into the circular exhibit rooms in the Orangerie Museum, I sank to the central seat and quietly soaked in the experience of Monet’s Nymphéas. I was a teenager the first time I sat there, alone in the cool dimness of this sacred place. I have no memory of how I came here alone then, but I have a vivid image of my reaction, utterly still, spellbound. Monet painted the series of long murals of his water lillies and the weeping willows trailing over the soft blues, greens, lavenders of the pond in Giverny as a gift to France, a bouquet, he said, at the end of the war. He asked that it not be displayed until after his death; these exhibit rooms were designed and built to house them.

The Paris that I grew to know this week is many things, grand and sweeping, but most important, it is a story unfolding one Parisian at a time. This shopkeeper was overseeing his domain with a gusto for each client, a word to the regular passersby. I realized suddenly that this was a merchant behavior that I associated with a small town, and that I was surprised to see it in a city.

I remembered the moment in the small tobac where I stopped to get a newspaper with the Tour de France headlines for my cousin Jim, the intimate scene that I saw there of a young man taking his leave of the elderly shopkeeper. She added as she said farewell, “but you’ll be back, surely?” He shook his head and replied so sadly, now that his studies were complete, that he didn’t know where he would go or if he would be there again. She seemed to grieve as if he had been her own child, leaving home forever. No matter the number of the population around us, we carve out an intimate place for ourselves. We as humans have a need to be known, to belong.

I saw in the news when I returned home that there was a new volunteer organization in Paris, a group called “Parisian for a day, Parisian to stay,” creatively translated. Local residents give free tours of their neighborhood, sharing all the personal aspects, the behind the scenes tales, that take a visitor beneath the superficial snapshots of Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. I am grateful to Dr. Whidden for his assignment to do just that as a part of our coursework, and to Cornelia and Paulette, who put a personal face on this city. I have as a result befriended Paris, and learned to look differently at a city.

Saint Mâlo July 27-29, 2007

Perhaps the charm of St. Mâlo lies in its stone bulwarks facing down the ever-present threat of the sea. The winding streets, lined with attractive boutiques, the lace and ceramics, crêperies and seafood restaurants, certainly draw me in. The appeal is like that of the Mont Saint Michel, I think, all stone and sea and sky. There is a strength to this place whose history stretches back far beyond Jacques Cartier and encompasses the literary giant of Chateaubriand.

Yet for all its feel of invulnerability, Saint Mâlo was heavily damaged in the War of 1939-45, bombed into an unrecognizable rubble. From the debris rose a rebuilt city, carefully put back and replaced so that the original style was carefully maintained. A close look at the buildings shows where the rebuilding meets the original structures. In a culture that respects and values its past, monuments, literature, music, does the culture also value the people of the past? Certainly not to the extent that I experienced the reverence of the Korean culture for the senior generation, but more than our culture of newest always wins. Valuing endurance rather than the sprint is perhaps the vision of an older culture that is simply not possible in a young country. A Frenchman once said that to me this summer, that the US, not its citizens, but the country, was an adolescent. I agreed, and silently willed my land of the free to grow up.



In a public plaza I came across these 3 generations at play. Papa tosses his boule under the watchful eye of Grandpa on the bench. There is a moment when I see my Grammie and Grandpa Hyde’s shady back yard and the croquet field. Jimmy, Carol, and Nancy, uncle Jerry, my Grampie are all there. What an important part of shaping who I am! I am comforted to see these children benefiting from that family strength.

Chateaubriand asked to be buried out here on the little island that at low tide only is accessible to pedestrians. He wanted to lie where he would hear only the sea and the wind. It is the sound of the sea and the power of the wind that call me back to Brittany as if I had a place in it. For a Midwest girl grown in the cornfields, that seems inexplicable, but the ancestral line of women takes me directly back to the sea captains' wives and daughters and the seamen themselves. The voices of the past are not only around us, they are within us.

The Morbihan Region: Carnac & Vannes July 25, 2007

It is human nature to look upon those who came before us as at least slightly inferior, less advanced; indeed, we tend to consider our distant ancestors as uncivilized, if not downright savage. The mute testimony of the standing stones of Carnac, like the formations of Stonehenge, aligned with the magnetic lines of the earth and the stars and planetary bodies of the skies, define the prehistoric mind as vastly more capable both in vision and in technical skill than the stereotypical caveman.

Carnac’s alignments march across acres of flowering grassland along the southern coast of Brittany, tying these continental Celtic peoples to their brothers in Cornwall, Somerset, Wales, and Ireland.

The cairn is a remarkable monument to the dead, but the enormity of the broken menhir simply astounds even the most imaginative of modern minds. A passion of purpose must have propelled the architects and engineers of this dim past; contemplating that vision compels me to ask myself what my culture has built that will endure.





The point where the Gulf of Morbihan meets the Atlantic Ocean inspired our Villanova group to gather for a family portrait. The SEALs in training had another chance to commune with the sea before we boarded the coach for Vannes; I just stood in wonder on the shore and listened to the voice of the sea, murmuring, whispering, crashing as it communes with the land. Both the land and the sea are changed by that relationship, much as they are changed by and change humankind in our relationship with them.

When we stop for lunch, I am in an odd mood. I want the quiet nicety of the fine seafood restaurant overlooking the harbor, the polite adult ritual. I slip away from the college crowd as they debate the terraced cafés and their less pricey fare. I wonder at this need for refined rite, in light of my usual strong proclivity for belonging, for being a part of a group. Perhaps it is simply choosing a group of strangers sharing the fine dining ceremony rather than seeking solitude that motivates my choice. I consider the differences between occasions formal and casual, and come back to the reflection that I have made frequently of late, that American culture has fewer occasions that demand the rigor of formality, and that Americans seem to be less equipped to move comfortably in both.

The city of Vannes offers a telling contrast of modern life in historical context. A local skateboarder flies by the tourist child with his plastic sword, medieval fortifications loom over lots filled with parked cars and coaches. This poster sums it up, “A Living Look at History.” If we as 21st century men can come to grips with our walk as a part of the longer human journey, perhaps then we can turn to becoming a part of the earth’s journey, a voyage of all living creatures.

The Emerald Coast July 23, 2007

Clear green water gives this north coast of Brittany its name. Near the vital port city of Saint Mâlo there is an ancient fortress called Fort La Latte. It dates to the beginning of the 100 years war in 1340 when the Duke of Brittany, allied to England, wanted to facilitate the English landing in their assault on France. Vessels that required the deepwater port of St. Mâlo could shelter in the bay under the protection of the Fort’s guns while awaiting the necessary high tide to access the port. The violent winds and currents swirling around the base of the cliff have prevented any successful attack from the sea.

There have been 20 films shot on this location, including the 1957 Kirk Douglas film the Vikings, Lancelot du Lac in 1970, and Ridicule in 1996. The climatic final scene of The Vikings featured Kirk Douglas fighting on the top of the donjon – where the daring mother of Emily the Rock Climber left the timid behind and in a driving rain braved the ripping wind to summit the tower up slight stairs set into the wall, gripping the rope rail with one hand. The other hand, of course, held the Nikon under the plastic rain poncho (merci beaucoup, Jacob and Farzanah!)









Since the fort is built on rock, there is no well: water is collected in a cistern. Another unusual feature is the small heating chamber whose fire brought the cannon balls to red hot, so that when fired at a ship’s rigging, they would set fire to the ship.

When the culture of coastal protection moved beyond the fortress, it fell into disrepair. In 1931 the family who owned it gathered their friends and made a commitment to restore the fortress as a historical landmark.


Just up the coast is the port city of Dinan, fortified battlements overlooking highways, ancient defensive towers cozied up to modern apartment buildings, and a massive cathedral dominating the seaside park. The throngs of tourists seem out of place in their 21st century garb. That contrast lies at the heart of the character of Brittany: a thriving modern culture set among the reminders of a richly accessible history.