Woke up in the small hours, thirsty and dry after seafood and garlic and wine, I finally went and made some tea around four-ish, sat and chatted dozily, feeling happy and grateful, then went back to sleep. Came down about eight and picked up the news.
This time it felt less immediate, harder to take in. We've wandered and enjoyed some of those places ourselves of recent times. Finding we were short of toast bread, we changed plans, drove out to the bakers and added a couple of sugary things to the order to eat there and then. Watching the bright, friendly young men and women working, kissing each other's cheeks, giving bits of baguettes to the children, I suddenly found I had to bite back the tears.
Please spare me the 'even worse things are happening all over the world' bit, I do know. But I live here.
Too much looking at screens, slept in the afternoon, a thing I hate doing. After, we both got up and went out into the windswept garden, without saying anything, Tom with a rake, mildly grumbling, as always, about the mess the blackbirds make of the leaf mulch, and I with the camera, set myself to take perhaps a dozen pictures and post them, straight from the card, with the minimum of editing. Many flowers still, in this strange, mild November, among the dead seed heads and the hedge cuttings.
Back indoors, we leave the curtains open till after dark, the sky has been impressive most evenings of late. Tonight, on the edge of the storms which are sweeping in, it was strange deep lavender grey, the photo doesn't really show it.
Through a glass darkly.
21 comments:
Truly a shocking sad day. Eased by looking at your gorgeous flowers and garden, still blooming so late in the fall.
Fall and the onset of the season of death. The only response has to be compassion, those killers are damaged souls on an evil path, that we need to avoid ourselves.
I like your unedited photos, love the immediacy of them, love how raw the beauty. Seeing everything with a tinge of hope right now.
beautiful photos.
take care of yourself and cry if you need to. suffering elsewhere does not diminish yours.
{{{Lucy}}}
The world mourns for France today. So sad.
Lovely flowers, Lucy. A nice break from the heartbreaking news.
As others have said, lovely pictures. Yes, a sad day in Paris. The city will endure, as will we. It endured everything from the invasions of the Vikings in the 9th cent, to the Germans in the 20th. It will endure this, and be the City of Light we know always.
For what it's worth I was reminded of the visceral reasons why I'm drawn to France and have been for ever. The vox pops all had something to say and in an individualistic way; I was frustrated (but of course sympathetic) by only managing to grab hold of a few words before they were overridden by the English translation; wished they could have been handled as sub-titles.
Awfulness in the end is just a theory; what squeezed my guts was seeing and hearing these people - mostly youngish - and knowing that their very existence was random, that they could just as easily be occupying body bags in the city's morgue.
Then afterwards more theory. Hollande says this was "an act of war". Does this mean moving from our present passive mode to an active one? Boots on the ground in Syria? My whole being reacts against that and yet I also recognise that mere home defence is a nonsense and a shrugging off of responsibility. Armed soldiers on the streets of Paris are irrelevant when the enemy can kill anywhere and whenever. And are willing to die in the attempt. It's the scale of these events that could change national attitudes; lip service no longer works when the slaughter takes so many lives. At some point acts of terror must be seen as something other than tokens of violence and passivity can seem like an open invitation for the violaters to continue. Who'd be in charge?
Thanks all.
Should Fish More - welcome, and thank you. Reflecting more on what you say, maybe for another post.
Robbie - Odd how having someone articulate so well the thoughts in one's own mind, even when the conclusions themselves are not cheering, and the questions raised thorny, brings a certain comfort. You have said much more clearly than we've been able to much of what we, Tom and I have been saying and thinking between ourselves. Thanks for that. I've been wanting to tell you how much I've been enjoying your writing, at Tone Deaf indeed but also comments here and at other people's blogs; I tend to say I'll go away and think then come back and respond, but then time (and further posts) seem to overtake me! But I've been reading and appreciating, very much.
I think RR has said it all, Lucy. My feelings and additions will be superfluous after his ariculate comment.
"ariculate" seems to have lost its first "t" - blame a morning's convalescence from a periodic migraine!
I've been experiencing exactly what RR describes: listening to the many ordinary Parisians interviewed on the radio this weekend and thinking how I love the sharp intelligence of French culture and expression, how much it has meant to me all my adult life.
Love to you and Tom and thank you for the beautiful photos - going out to take some of my own.
wonderful photos
So tragic to read about what happened in Paris and when it happens close to home it is more shocking, more immediate.
Are these little dried up things the ones that are falling of the Capucines blooms or are they from the sweet peas? My sweet peas never bloomed. Next spring I will grow them near the fence where they will get the morning sun and where the soil is different.
Go and enjoy the remaining blooms, lucky you Lucy.
Lucy/Avus/Jean: Thanks for that. Often I feel I go on a mite too long and in other people's backyards, as it were. Like a cat taking advantage of newly exposed earth. And here I am again; indulging myself in simile. Practice (at writing) makes perfect I tell myself, mostly without an ounce of conviction.
Please let RR know that I ordered a truckload of earth.
And again.
Avus - yes, that's what I thought. Sorry about the migraine.
Jean - good to see you, I value your perspective. It's easy to forget to take photos, we tend to feel we've done it all before, but in fact it can focus the awareness, turn us outward.
CGP - thanks, of course. I've thought a bit more of this.
Ellena - no, those are coriander seeds. The herb (cilantro) always grows well here, but tends to run to seed rather quickly. I try to harvest as much as possible, to resow next year, or on the window sill in winter, or to use in cooking as seed.
Robbie - glad you tracked back. Your cat image made me smile but is unjust to yourself.
Ellena - sorry, darling, you've lost me there! But I shall pass on the message if I have the occasion to.
Oh, Ellena, I'm sorry, I just made the connection! Laughter!
"Please spare me the 'even worse things are happening all over the world' bit, I do know."
I'm sorry people are saying this. It seems a common response to many kinds of tragedies, a way to be dismissive and downplay horrible events, when in fact you need to mourn. I don't even understand the reasoning - the fact that other people suffer doesn't mean you're not suffering. It's not a competition.
Hila, thanks for stopping by. It's not so much people saying it to me personally, no one has, and I'm not trying to appropriate any of the pain of the victims. It's more some on-line stuff I've seen along the lines of 'the west knows nothing of pain or suffering compared to that of the countries where such horrors are commonplace', a sort of 'now you know what it feels like', or even 'it serves you right'.
Terrible news. Just terrible.
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