Memories of Nice
Nice was my first experience of France, where I finally got to be out of Indiana, out of the US and somewhere exciting and new. I had dreamed of it for so long and it was everything I thought it would be and more. I was mistaken for an Italian I don't know how many times, made friends with a grocer who sold me the most amazing pear I've ever had in my life, serenaded by a French psychic who would greet us every morning, and shared a meager dinner of bread and water with Michal our first night there because we were too tired and amazed by the place to do anything else. We sat on a bench on the Promenade des Anglais sharing a baguette, watching the sunset, listening to the waves lap that unmistakable beach.
Now I’ve seen pictures of so many bodies scattered across the promenade we walked dozens of times. I keep wanting to burst into tears because I don’t understand; it feels like these beautiful places that are so important to me keep getting ripped away. The memories irreversibly warped. Lives, so many full happy lives, celebrating in a beautiful city on a beautiful night for a beautiful tradition, cut so short. Will I ever get to share the beauty with my family? Will my memories be confined to a steel cage of fear, and France becomes like Somalia, Syria, Iraq... one of those places you just don’t go.
T and I went to Paris after the attacks; I was more anxious leading up to it than actually being there. And I was looking into a trip to Nice next year since the Caribbean and Mexico aren’t options while we try to get pregnant. I don’t want to be ruled by fear and not go, but it feels like we need to be doing better. As people, as the human race, in educating each other. Spreading the wealth and spreading the love.
Tonight I will be praying for France, praying for the victims, praying for our leaders to be better. We just need to be better.
Sometimes when I’m sitting in my living room, and I’m giving thanks for the thousandth time that I have a roof over my head and food to eat, I wonder what the world would be like if everyone had what I had. If we each just had a home, a safe place to live our lives, a safe place to sleep. If every person on earth had this level of security and comfort I can’t imagine why we’d ever have another war. I want so badly to find a way for this to happen. I want so badly to never see “huddled masses” walking across a desert looking for water, to see a parent grieving for his child or brother or mother because there was no “home” in which he was safe. Why does he get that life and I get this one? So I’ll be praying for us to be better. Not just our leaders, but all of us. To favor reason over fear, and always respond with kindness and love.
