Of sleeping spirits and awakening ones too

[sublimatedangel]

Sunday morning: it begins with a walk to a close bakery for breakfast. This will be our first day of sightseeing - exploring the Pere Lachaise Cemetary, the largest in Paris. I enjoy a croissant filled with melted butter and a pastry pocket of apple butter on the way to the Metro - I love getting breakfast at bakeries every morning.

The cemetary was beautiful - the continuity of time, passing, passing... many lanes of stone winding between old family crypts... the beauty of yellow leaves, clumped in the branches of black trunked trees, and drifting past the grey and black stone. The sky was cloudy but not foreboding, and we took many pictures of the art and architecture that is an old cemetary. Splashes of color made trails throughout, flowers in autumny colors planted in urns and beds, and the more varied florists flowers that people left for the dead. Of noted names, we visited the markers for Jim Morrison (and I ached to see nearby crypts of another family disgraced by graffiti just for being close to his gravestone, which had little room for signatures and lyrics), Chopin (simple and pretty, with a muse in white above), and Oscar Wilde (with it's Egyptian style angel and stone covered in lipstick kissprints).

Afterwards we ate lunch outside at a cafe, a hot croque monsieur which was fabulous for a cold day in Paris. We had planned to visit the Catacombes today as well, but I left my notes in the apartment and we could not find anyone who knew which metro stop it was. In retrospect I'm glad that we saved it for another day. My travelling companion was weary from the walking and so while she napped, I climbed the steps to see Sacre Coeur.

The Sacred Heart, a beautiful church in the north of Paris, asked politely that I not take pictures once inside. I'm not sure that pictures would have done it any justice, so perhaps it is for the best. Dusk was just beginning to fall as I entered the church, and all around me were the stained glass windows. Their usual midday fire was dampened - they were not the blaze of clear, light color that I am used to, but a smoldering glow of dark jewels, as if the glass was glowing from within. The simple passing of daylight through glass held no candle to this illumination.

It was kept dim inside, the only light coming from the candles, smaller votives and larger ones in red and clear glass. The light lay in pools scattered through the interior, red and white, like wine and water, like blood and bread, red and white. The mosaics of Christ's crucifixion were shimmering with restored color. Mostly I just let the images and experience wash over me, as I walked along with other visitors. Although outnumbered by us, there were still people praying and genuflecting - faith is always beautiful to me, and I was struck by how blind they seemed to the onlookers, as they focused their sight on a higher plane. The gift shop was filled with pretty pretty things, but nothing seemed appropriate for myself and my feelings. I left and wound my way down the many stairs again.

It was Sunday, which means much is closed completely or at the least, closed early, so I did not try to do much else. I picked up some bananas to take back to the flat. Stasha was awake and we watched ER dubbed over in French, Stasha translating the plot from memories of seeing it back home.