My Life in Decorative Objects

So last night I had a profound thought (you know I have those every now and again).

I was laying in bed struggling to fall asleep (a usual occurrence as of late), and not feeling in the least tired I was looking around my room in the darkness.  On the wall next to my bed I have these decorative trivets with antiqued images of Paris landmarks on them.  There are three: the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, and the Notre Dame Cathedral.  I've had these things for quite awhile now...I remember buying them at Gordmans when I was like 15 or so; they were one of my more classy decorative decisions of that era, which also included a tie-dye wallpaper border and multi-colored bedroom walls.  Ever since then, I've had them hanging in a row above my bed at home.  I just brought them down here to Dallas after winter break in an effort to make my apartment feel more homey and sentimental, along with a bunch of other things.

I was mostly staring at the Arc de Triomphe, because it was the one closest to my head.  And as I was looking at it, I started to think how strange it was that I had stood beside the real Arc de Triomphe, that for four months I lived a 10 minute walk away from its chaotic home in the rushing whirl of Charles de Gaulle Etoile.  Looking at this trivet, I didn't just see the Arc de Triomphe; I saw beyond it, to the swirl of cars rushing around it, down the busy Champs-Elysee filled with tourists and dogs and Louis Vitton bags and designer shops and a Starbucks for good measure, reaching past Nicolas Sarkozy's governmental home at the Palais de l'Elysee and through the Tuileries Gardens, dodging kids with toy sailboats and children on ponies and lovers lounging in the shadows of elegant statues until you reach the glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, standing in sharp distinction against the baroque architecture and bidding art lovers around the world to enter into its mystery, before finally turning around and seeing the Arc de Triomphe looming subtly in the distance.  And just to your left you, the tip of the Eiffel Tower...

...the Eiffel Tower, standing sentinel over Paris, saved from destruction by its usefulness to radio antennae after the World's Fair, now a site of pilgrimage for tourists and French students from around the world, casting a shadow over the Champ de Mars with picnicking students and men playing soccer, and banking it on the other side the Seine, spitting the city in two, caught between stone walls and under exquisite bridges, with the BateauBus sweeping through the water, past the Grand and Petit Palais and the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre once more and the Conciergerie until the Notre Dame cathedral spire peeks over the curved rooftops...

...Notre Dame.  The Lady of Paris, not the biggest cathedral in Paris but the most well-known, saved from decay by Victor Hugo's story of a hunchback and a gypsy while today the Roma people still gather in its plaza to beg money from the wealthy tourists who politely excuse them in discomfort, Quasimodo's bells ringing over the city, for Sundays, for prayers, for Easter, for Christmas, to mark the hours of normal days as people line up along the side of the cathedral waiting their turn to climb to the top, to stand next to the gargoyles and touch one of the famous bells, while still others rush inside to see the rose windows cast colorful shadows on the marble floors.  Back outside, across the Seine is Shakespeare and Co., a twisting English bookshop with rooms that wind in and out of each other like chapters in a novel and not a wall in sight as bookshelves obscure them.  Around the corner, tourist shops, tourist shops, tourist shops and crepe stands and crowds until the alley breaks onto the St. Michel Fountain with its pink marble and bronze statue of victory over evil, and a few blocks behind the Musee Cluny, built in a former monastery that stood on that spot since the 1300s and hiding within its walls some of the few treasures that remain today from that time, and a little further up an alleyway the tiny 2-room cinema where my housemates and I went and saw "Lolita" together in our first weeks in Paris.

And now, in Dallas, in my bedroom, laying awake at almost three in the morning, thinking how strange it is that someone has condensed Paris into the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame.  Certainly, I was excited to see these things when I was there.  But now, what I treasure most about that semester is that when I think of Paris I don't see disembodied images in my mind; I see the city in three dimensions.  Living in Paris for 4 months, you kind of stop noticing the Eiffel Tower after awhile.  It's always there, and even though you catch it peeking at you from all over the city, you stop really SEEING it.  I know countless people who would kill to see the Eiffel Tower in person.  But for me, that's not what Paris is.  It's so much more.

Isn't it weird how special things stop being special after awhile?  I have no less than four Eiffel Towers in my apartment, decorating my new home with the quintessential Parisian icon, but when I was actually IN Paris it wasn't the Eiffel Tower that meant the most to me.  What seems special in dreams and ambitions sometimes isn't fully appreciated when those dreams are realized...and sometimes an enormous magnitude of prized memories become condensed into a few decorative trivets.

Paris still sneaks up to me every once in a while...when I bite into a piece of a crusty baguette or when I smell cigarette smoke on a chilly winter morning, I'm back in the city, if only for a moment.  The ordinary becomes extraordinary, because it recalls something that was once had but was lost.

My question is this: why must we wait until things are lost to appreciate their beauty and significance?  Why can't the ordinary be extraordinary in the present moment?  Why can't we appreciate and savor those moments when our dreams come true or we reach our goal without immediately rushing off to the next one?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said that the most important hour in the history of all time is the present hour - the past is passed, and the future is determined by our actions in the present hour.  I'm through with living in the past.  I'll take the past with me, in my heart always, but I'm tired of wishing myself out of the present time, wishing myself back to a different place or time.  People are composite identities.  Paris is a part of me like Transylvania University is a part of me like St. Louis is a part of me.  I need to focus on making Dallas a part of me as well...and appreciate the present like I now appreciate moments of the past.

Because condensing your entire life into a decoration is silly.  No matter how pretty it looks.