Sur le Seine
On my last full day in Paris, I take a boat ride on the Seine for an hour. I would like to ride a kayak, but I suspect you would need a permit for it.
Instead, after a day of roaming the city, exploring and offering prayers at churches, and eating a brasserie, I sit back, under the beating sun, and ride by the Louvre, and other sites, until finally disembarking at the Eiffel Tower.
It is a beautiful day, and I have not been to be on my own river in the last week or so, and thus I yearn to be in as close proximity to water as is possible. I relish momentarily ducking under one of the many "ponts" - or bridges, and smile as I recall a dear friend once telling me that you do Paris with a lover and wine and brie - not with a diaper bag! Those days are certainly behind me at least! (The diaper bag days...)
I think of traveling to Normandy yesterday to visit the landing beaches - Omaha and the others - and the cemetery for the fallen American soldiers - which was all at once - beautiful and sad and sobering - and a monument to so much loss. So many young men who lost their lives on D-Day and the days that followed...
Water gives life, and in some instances, it takes it away as well. Water can be calming, but also fearful and dangerous. Water has played just an important part in my healing process these last couple of years, but now, it simply is what it is - and I enjoy its presence...
Instead, after a day of roaming the city, exploring and offering prayers at churches, and eating a brasserie, I sit back, under the beating sun, and ride by the Louvre, and other sites, until finally disembarking at the Eiffel Tower.
It is a beautiful day, and I have not been to be on my own river in the last week or so, and thus I yearn to be in as close proximity to water as is possible. I relish momentarily ducking under one of the many "ponts" - or bridges, and smile as I recall a dear friend once telling me that you do Paris with a lover and wine and brie - not with a diaper bag! Those days are certainly behind me at least! (The diaper bag days...)
I think of traveling to Normandy yesterday to visit the landing beaches - Omaha and the others - and the cemetery for the fallen American soldiers - which was all at once - beautiful and sad and sobering - and a monument to so much loss. So many young men who lost their lives on D-Day and the days that followed...
Water gives life, and in some instances, it takes it away as well. Water can be calming, but also fearful and dangerous. Water has played just an important part in my healing process these last couple of years, but now, it simply is what it is - and I enjoy its presence...
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