We have similar orientations in the secular world, too. Artists, stereotypically, seem to be always oriented towards Paris. This city is their Mecca, even if the Eiffel Tower is not their Kaaba.
In The Summing Up, Somerset Maugham writes about his first experiences in Paris when he was a young man, struggling to create a life as a writer. From the continent, and from across the channel, writers and painters and dancers and everybody seemed to converge on Paris. It turned out that much later in life, Maugham didn't find Paris to be the charming and alluring place it was to him when he was young. But, I would think that Paris did give him a frame of reference.
A neighbor has a similar Paris-orientation. Well, to all of France. The artist that she is, it is an annual trip that she makes to that part of the world.
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| The Dordogne ... yes, I was there! |
I wonder if that is her pilgrimage, as much as going on Hajj is to the devout Muslim, and like how I go on my own travels that are pilgrimages in the sense of how much they let me understand my place and purpose in this world. We all do what we can in our own ways in order to get our bearings and to orient ourselves in the correct direction.
A couple of evenings ago, when the sun was shining, I saw this neighbor heading to the river.
Bonjour, madame, I yelled out from my front porch.
Without looking towards me, and not even pausing to wonder who said that, and almost as a reflex, she replied, bonjour, monsieur.
And then she turned towards me and said something that sounded like "bzz bzzz bzzzz bzzzzz ..."
"Hey, I used up all the French I know when I said bonjour, madame."
"That's all you need to know and say, really" she replied with a smile, as she continued on to the rivière.
A little after that, an old friend swung by to have coffee with me. After six years.
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| The coffee I brewed, and the eats were from the store: salty plantain chips, pound cake, and amaretto cookies |
A lot has happened in those six years. C'est la vie!
Looking back, I am relieved, more than anything else, that over those years I didn't my lose sense of direction in life. My Mecca, my Paris, and my everything, are all within me? Merci!
