Paris Weeps in November

Paris weeps in November.  The days are cold, wet, and short. Lovers huddle close neath lovers’ covers.  The old pray and remember in churches, synagogues, and cathedrals. And on lonely park benches. Paris weeps for love, loss, and remembrance. 

On Kristallnacht I walked through the Tuileries and up the Seine to the Ile de la Cite, to call on lost friends at Notre Dame and the Deportation Memorial.  In the cathedral, an organist improvised in a minor key accompanied by a light show of popping camera flashes.  I wondered what medieval worshipers would have made of the brilliant play of flashing light.  I prayed that every photon capture a moment of holiness to be released like butterflies in Los Angeles, Kyoto, Nottingham, or Sioux Falls.  The light show added random beauty and mystery, as if Mona Lisa subtly widened her smile at my glance. I offered my poor prayers to those of the countless others who’ve worshipped there in the last 800 years.  Time slipped, we prayed as one for peace and justice; absolution.  Time regained its traction and I was back in November 2011, just across the Seine from Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore, another place of meditation.

The Deportation Memorial, behind Notre Dame, is a place of remembrance for the Jews, Roma, homosexuals, handicapped, resistance fighters, and others deported and murdered by the Nazis and collaborationist French government.  An old man docent searched my bag for explosives on entry. Nobody took flash photos. The place was empty in the rain.  I prayed alone.  Paris wept in shame and sorrow for her murdered children.

Shakespeare & Co. displayed the new biography of Hadley, Hemmingway’s first wife; the “Paris wife” Hemmingway betrayed, degraded, threw away, and never stopped loving. Paris is love, loss, and remembrance.  Already overweight and over budget I considered bringing the 40 Euro book home anyway, but realized that the story is too poignant to read. I’ll stick with Hadley’s own epitaph for their marriage, “I got the best of him.  We got the best of each other!”  She had that one right; but she had the worst of Hemmingway too.

Weary, I boarded the Batobus to pass time on the river watching Paris drift by in warmth and comfort. All the wonder of the city arises from the Seine. The Musee D’Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais, and Les Invalides paraded by in antique splendor.  My destination was the Jardin des Plantes, one of Paris’ many vast island sanctuaries for plants and animals.  Parisians understand the importance of supporting the ecosystem within their city.  Birds, dogs, and children roamed the great garden notwithstanding the soft rain.  Diminutive cowboys and Indians darted among the lanes; young parents joined their children on the carousel.  Spirits of deported, lost children drifted in the fog among the living.

Throughout my ramble, I admired many fine street bikes darting like swallows along the avenues.  When Ms. Raleigh and I lived in Paris she was a configured as a bare naked bicycle; no derailleur, no luggage, just bones, brakes, and a saddle:

Two wheels

                                                            One cog
                                                            One speed
                                                            One God

I wished Mr. Raleigh had been able to join me in Paris.  We had some rare old times in the Bois de Boulogne, a city cyclist’s paradise.  It was time to ramble home to the green pastures and rugged coast of West Cork. 

So long, Paris.  Howdy Clonakilty.

Late August in West Cork

Sketching an Adventure:

I dreamt last night that I was in heaven, rolling along celestial byways with Ms. Raleigh.  At first we were among glowing pastel clouds, but as they dissipated I could see that Paradise was West Cork and we were cycling gently along her coastal boreens, going toward Drombeg Circle on our way to Glandore.  St. Murph, Clonakilty’s venerable bike mechanic, remained floating on a nearby cloud surrounded by a clutter of tools, bicycles, and paraphernalia. He was speaking in tongues to an ardent group of followers.  All the roads in Paradise are gently downhill.

Time passes and summer seems to be slipping away.  I have a plan to cycle the new bike path from Westport to Achill, called The Great Western Greenway if you want to give it a Google.  In the meantime, I’m still cycling around West Cork which remains as lovely and mysterious as she did a year ago.  Maybe I am in Paradise and just haven’t yet clicked to it.  If so, it’s an act of grace.  I don’t deserve this beauty and wonder.

Meet Lady Jayne:

I christened my new, sleek Folbot Cooper Kayak a few days ago, naming her Jayne and paddling out into the cove at Dunnycove.  The day was warm, the sea calm and Jayne fairly flew over the water.  We poked around the kelp beds and inspected sea caves accessible only by water.   To my delight Jayne paddles with ease backward and forward, cutting a clean line in either direction.  Then, I saw a plastic beverage bottle bobbing near me and, obsessed as always by tidying, I leaned over to grab it and, doing so, discovered that Jayne can roll.  Jayne christened me as I slipped from her cockpit into the chilly Celtic Sea.  In the drink, I swam along with Jayne’s painter in my hand until a thoughtful father and daughter in a rowboat gave me a hand in the final 100 meters of my cold swim.  I kept the bottle as a souvenir of our first paddle and reminder of my mortality.

Another Day:

Today I cycled over to Rosscarbery and along the way stopped at Red Strand.  It was about 11:30 and the beach was empty except for a single family.  Dad was waist deep in the shore break teaching two of the five children to surf.  He’d push them along as a wave came and both, a boy and girl, were making the right connections.  On the sand, Mom, three other kids, and three dogs were romping around with beach toys.  I said a prayer for the lot of them; a lovely family.

The fuchsias are blooming and I’m happy to report that the honey bee population of Dunnycove prospers.  When I step outside my door I can hear them working. Blackberries again line the lanes.  I must find the time to pick some for freezing.  I will, of course, eat them first.  Why take chances on tomorrow?

Springtime in West Cork

It’s spring in West Cork and an old man’s fancy returns to cycling and other first loves. Daffodils bloom in door yards and early Daisies grace the lanes.  Wildflowers of every color reappear in the forest paths at Castle Freke and will soon find themselves among the tendrils of young girls’ hair.

Have you ever thought about the Christian notion of “grace” ?  What did our old ones mean when they said things like “There but for the grace of God go I”?  I’ve struggled with this from time to time and come up with “undeserved love.” Maybe “grace” is a loving act done without quid pro quo, price tag, or expectation of return; some stranger rescues your drowning dog and walks away unidentified.  Is that act grace?  I’m not sure.  Grace seems more ongoing and durable to me than a single selfless moment.  Grace endures. And somehow this thought leads me on to women.

Every man should contemplate grace because some are loved by a woman. No man deserves this love, this grace. A woman just decides one day that this guy’s the one for her and, against all reason and accountability[1], she takes him to her heart and that’s that!  If you’re one of those fellas, go to church today and light a candle.  That woman brings you the grace of God.

When blackberries lined the lane

You brushed my hand and

Hold it yet as winter’s tide

Tops the reef at Red Strand.

Black stained lips still

Kiss mine with urgency

From time to time

Echoing that first embrace.

Will I love you less for wayward

Gray I sometimes find

Or lines which sun paints

At the corners of your eyes?

I who by your grace

Find beauty in every breath

And yet thrill to your smile.

---

[1]  In the Jack Nicholson movie, “As Good As It Gets,” a nubile receptionist gushes up to the curmudgeonly romance fiction writer played by Nicholson and asks him how he can write so truthfully about women.  To this Nicholson growls, “It’s easy.  I just think of a man and take away all reason and accountability.”  The line is good for a laugh, but the script writer was onto something. 

Goodbye Elfreda

Are you familiar with the Zen concept of a koan, a question which cannot be answered within the confines of ordinary logic? For instance, "Why is Pi?" (My personal favorite) or "What is the difference between a duck?" (A Zen joke, suggested response: “Both legs are the same.”)  I'll open this chapter with the thought that friendship is a koan. Since everything we create, including friendships, is pregnant with its own dissolution, why do we “friend?”

I cycled to Rosscarbery last Saturday morning taking the route along the beaches in a roughly northerly direction. Puddles from Friday night’s rain had become icy patches in spots the sun had not yet reached.   The tide was out and there was a clean reef break at Red Strand; an even 6 foot surf at Long Strand.  I day dreamt of my beach rat boyhood.  That reef break, a couple hundred meters off shore, captured me.  The morning sun illuminated the spume flying off each wave's crest.  They seemed somehow too perfect to be "real," another koan.

As a child I was very open about fantasy, so much so that my parents became concerned at my "lying" about the events of my day.  My mother read me the Dr. Seuss book "To Think That It Happened on Mulberry Street," a story about a boy who makes up fantastic events.  After that reading, mother would ask me "Frankie, did that happen on Mulberry Street?" when she thought I was fabulating.  I had no problem acknowledging Mulberry Street. I knew adults too believed in Mulberry Street. Jesus walking on water and Mary's ascension into heaven, for example, clearly happened on Mulberry Street.  I kept this knowledge to myself, however, already guarded in my interactions with grown-ups and their “real world.”

As an adult, I accept that dreams, waking and sleeping, are as real as the "real world" which we Westerners think so important. Why do we so prize the world of pollution, robotic weapons, terrorism, and perennial armed conflict; the world where children starve and friends die young? I prefer Mulberry Street where life is gentler, people are kind to one another, dogs speak, and pigs can fly.  Mary, Jesus, Krishna, and Siddhartha are my dearest friends and teachers on Mulberry Street.  Given the choice, who dares say I'm mistaken?

Coming home from my Saturday adventure, I went through Castle Freke and Rathberry, a hamlet a klick or two inland from Long Strand.  A light rain was falling and the setting sun created a rainbow over the castle.  Horses grazed on the castle lawn and I wandered off down Mulberry Street.  Cycling takes me there.  While I was out I stopped for a chat with my Airedale pal, May.  She gave me a kiss and I gave her a biscuit. 

   

My dear friend Elfreda, who called me “Dad,” died unexpectedly last night.  That rainbow over Castle Freke was her angel path.  Elfreda’s lottery dream was to open a home for Down’s Syndrome children.   She didn’t want a Lamborghini or a yacht, just a loving place for discarded children. I shall miss gentle child Elfreda and wonder if I can sing “The Parting Glass" ever again without a tear for her.

The sun is shining on the Celtic Sea; life and friendship are insolvable koans. Today I embrace them in all their beauty,  mystery, and wonder.