Paris

We made a wise decision in Paris, at least one. The Louvre is large. It looks large on the outside, more than my eyes could take in, but inside, it is beyond my eyes and legs and mind. If there were not signs, we would have been lost forever and had to befriend marble statues of Diana the Huntress in order to survive. (She would supply food and protection, of course, from the rest of the bloodthirsty statues, really, you have no idea how many battle scenes we stumbled into).
On a sign we saw a picture of the Mona Lisa and an arrow pointing forward, and we veered to right instead.
"I'm not ready to see her yet," Sheila said.
"Neither am I," I said.
"You guys are funny," Miranda said.
We found a small convoluted section of something Greekish-statues and other things.(I'm sorry, but there have been too many museums and enough art to make a mottled pile of marble in the back of my mind).  Convoluted means small alleys and half levels and a final spilling out into the main section again. Toward Mona. We soon followed a crowd. They stood before her diminutive, serene, mysterious face, a dozen deep and many wide, held back by security guards standing with their hands carefully together. Our camerawoman fought her way to the front while I stood on the side and finally understood why people were there and why pictures are not the same. That smile still lives in my mind, a mystery. I envy da Vinci the time spent with the woman who smiled that smile. Paris was worth visiting to see that smile with my own eyes.
Now, to the wise decision. Our feet were sore, and we found a beautiful tall gallery, white tiles and green potted plants, a garden of marble sculptures.
We sat down on a wide white bench and drew and wrote and drew. (Two artists and an aspiring writer). I sat under the rearing gaze of a wild horse and its rider. The form was so living the mane seemed to fly in the wind, foam to arise at its mouth.
I sat and wrote, "The glass of Paris is full of my reflection." I wrote of living near this Louvre and making it know me as well as I wanted to know it and its marble arches, marble myths, marble love stories. I wrote tiny, barely-seen stories of three or four sentences. I could sit and not create, surrounded by the remaking of so many tales. I look back and wonder how I did not wish for Aslan to come and breathe them to life, but such wishing would be selfish, because many of the victims would rather remain stone, I am sure. I wanted the wild horse to live, just to see if his wild driver would ever contain him. He reminded me of Maggie Stiefvater's cople isce, fighting the call of the sea.
A woman sat beside us for a few moments, and when we began to talk among ourselves, she alerted us to the fact that she was from the States, in the south somewhere. Her last experience with knowing someone's language without their being aware had been entertaining but also more information than she wanted. She-an English teacher from Kentucky or Tennessee, there with a friend-showed us some pictures she had taken of sculptures-mostly of soldiers or gods carrying swords and wearing helmets and nothing else. Her invented captions were very funny, if a little crude, but most of the sculptures were that way, so I can hardly blame her for making jokes.
So our wise decision was to sit down.
I saw women walk through in four inch heels and I thanked my Maker that I never have to wear those for any reason.
I listened to an angry Chinese father trying to explain to his wife and children the importance of art.
I wished the horse would let loose with a thunderous trumpet and that Jesus would come back and shine through the glass roof. I wished that right now, anyway.
I did not expect this: to enter the Louvre, you must enter the pyramid in front and go downstairs. The museum begins below the visible museum. The three smaller glass pyramids are skylights to the lower floors.
I have not spoken yet of the crepes and pastries. Paris has creperies-special crepe restaurants- and they make crepes filled anything you like. The savory ones are nearly as good as the sweet.
And bread. The baguettes are perfect to tuck under your arm and take on a picnic.
We stayed with a friendly but strict lady, Cynthia. Her husband, Jean Christophe, was very kind, and her little girls shouted "Bonjour" every time they saw us.
We waited for a long time to climb the Eiffel Tower, and indeed, we climbed it. I do not know how many stairs, but it was worth every one. I saw the moon in the sky while I looked across the city, and I thought, "how small the world is. The same God loves us all, and gives us the same moon to smile on us."
People are the same, the world over. They have different faces, different hands, different voices, but their hearts are the same. They long to be warmed by the true God, and those that have been warmed let it out in kind, kind deeds.
We heard Holy Mass in French at the Notre Dame Cathedral. I saw incense and a crowd of hushed, shocked tourists, and I grinned, knowing they could not escape the presence of God there. They never can, but I am sure each one of them knew in their hearts, so similar to mine, that He was there.
Outside the cathedral, a lady gave us rice to hold in our hands, and small sparrows perched on our fingers and ate the rice grains. Now I wonder if they were kin to the lastavica, Island of the World, because they seemed to speak to me with their fearlessness.