Looking for Light, Thinking of Paris

This week has been dark, I’m not going to lie. Here in Seattle we’ve been in the midst of a huge five-day storm, complete with thunder, wind, streams flooding, and an immense amount of cold rain. My husband’s been in the hospital and I was worried about whether or not he would recover without dangerous surgery.

And then, the Paris attacks. So many of the victims were young; the venues chosen for attack were places where many young people hung out. I was only 15 when I went over to Paris as an exchange student, and fell in love, returning ten years later with my husband. My infatuation was with the art, the parks, the way of life, and the people (yes, the French can be as gracious and welcoming as can be) But the thing that Paris has always been known for is its light. I included the Arc de Triomphe instead of the Eiffel Tower because I wanted to remember that Paris has been through a lot of wars – founded, the story goes, by Jeanne D’Arc during a seemingly unwinnable war with England, slated for destruction by Hitler – and yet, Paris still stands.

I’ve been reading the Twilight Zone stories by Rod Serling along with Ray Bradbury – for research, on a project I’m working on, but it seemed strangely appropriate for this time when people are scared of the end of the world, where distrust turns people against each other (just read “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.) The end of the world was always in the mind of these two writers, whether from nuclear war or “Midnight Sun” or alien invasion. The method didn’t matter – the thing at the heart of these stories is our human reactions to the end, to desperate times. Do we turn violent, paranoid? Do we try to comfort one another with art?

One day amid the storms I took a ten minute walk alone in a brief minute of sunlight and managed to snap a hummingbird feeding at a stand of red flowers, still amazingly in bloom here in Mid-November. Does this fix sorrow and anger? No. But I hope it gives some hope that beauty abides, that light will return.