I had a wonderful fantastic vacation. Sitting in San Diego, where the weather is beautiful and where I have a second swing at summer time, it's hard to feel the forlornness that accompanies the back-to-work reality post-vacation. But France was so good.
In trying to come up with my single favorite part of the trip, it's really the totality of the experience that ranks as the shiniest highlight. It was in a word, (practically) perfect. I say that in light of watching a man die and feeling helpless to assist in his rescue. I feel compelled to mention the unfortunate incident because it was indeed a very traumatic and sad occurrence; to pretend it didn't happen denies the humanity of all of us that participated in the moment, and disrespectful to the man himself. However, France also offered this experience to me and for that I accept it and am grateful.
But I think a new standard for measurement of a vacation is going to be this trip. When the trip is a dream fulfilled, the end of a wondering and longing, and teaches the traveller something about themselves, that's a tall measuring stick. I feel the fullness of all those sensations, though. And I think the traveller in me is still in her infancy. There is more to enjoy in this world than I have here to fore dared to acknowledge.
One terrifically surprising revelation was that on any given day, I'd rather visit a church than a museum! It's the damnedest thing. I'm just not a museum person, especially an art museum. The art does not communicate with me. I respect the ability that allows someone to reproduce something that their mind intended, and I try to dissect the technique that could have been used to accomplish the art. But there is no emotional reaction to hardly any of it, and I couldn't really tell you what's good and bad, and what I like and don't like. I know that all that religious painting just irritates my sensibilities, and so I start thinking about how much I loathe religion, which is definitely not what was the intent.
And I tried out the art museums in France and Italy. In Rome, Ty and I paid 16 euro to get into the National Museum of Modern Art, but that was mostly to enjoy some air conditioning. What I took away from the museum was that I could probably fling my own feces on a white canvas and smear it around and it would be considered art. (In fact I've tried versions of this at work a couple of times, and it's just called a mess.) In Nice, I went to the Musee de Matisse, where I learned that Henri Matisse had an unhealthy life-long obsession with a modestly attractive Ukrainian woman who was not his wife. I found the Musee d'Orsay quite pretentious though it was the best of the bunch. And the Louvre was just overwhelming and underwhelming all at the same time. It wasn't DaVinci Code good, that's for sure, and I like IM Pei's pyramid a lot.
The funny part is that when I go to a church, or more accurately a cathedral, I feel the emotion intended immediately, despite the fact I don't believe in one iota of the dogma that inspired the desire in an architect to convey that reverent emotion to me. But it happens for me. I'm in awe that in the 1400's someone was able to build such a monstrous structure with beautiful stained glass windows as high as the sky. I'm immediately able to get to that place in myself where I simultaneously feel small, unimportant, and absolutely confident in my place in the scheme of things. I feel peaceful in those buildings, and connected to myself. This I think is more a credit to the builder than to the church. It's possible to admire a person's talents without admiring their motivations.
And so when I was in the Cathedral of Notre Dame and at St Peter's I really enjoyed myself. I didn't want to leave. I even thought about praying, but the fact that no one is listening on the other end ruins it for me. So I decided it was good enough to feel grateful for the moment and experience of it. It's the best that religion has to offer me, and I it.
There's so much more I could blather on and on about that happened in France. The food....the architecture....the people....trains, planes, music, hotels, streets, spontaneous tours, walking everywhere, wine, cheese, crepes, nutella... But those experiences were for me and for Ty. The fact that we finally did that together after 13 years and we did it well, did it the exact way that we wanted to, that is my most treasured experience of traveling to France.
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