A Single Great Truth
Travel in a foreign country asks the traveler to adapt. Humans can be very adaptive. Or frozen, by patterns of past experience, those impossible expectations paralyzing the mind, and then spinning like a top, after energy is spent, wobbling to fall over.
It is Sunday morning, I compose these lines at the end of the bar in the lobby of the Marriott Bonvy Charles de Gaulle Airport. Our departing flight yesterday was cancelled by American Airlines. A re-booking method, and turnaround time is unknown presently. After all it is Sunday the normal day off for employees that could assist us. So, remind self to be calm, enjoy this accommodation that we received at the expense of American Airlines. (The going rate for a room at this four star hotel starts at 251€ per night.)
We walked across the street from our hotel yesterday evening to the Roissy village summer festival. The small town is adjacent to the hotel. There were several stages where live music was being performed. On the main stage a rock band was holding forth. We stood and soaked up the music for about forty five minutes. We loved a French/English cover of I Will Survive a tribute to Gloria Gaynor.
On balance life is good and I am fortunate. Problems, obstacles are a feature of the landscape. We will engage each, one at a time, and with the help of others.
I plan to write about our experience in France, especially about our time spent at Utah Beach, and the glorious final concert in the Sainte-Marie-du-Mont church, and the visit to Claude Monet flower garden and adjacent house. Those stories will have to wait though until I am satisfied that we are re-booked on a flight home.
My mind is made up to visit France again as soon as we are able. The French have settled upon a single great truth: elegant, tasty, natural cuisine builds community, music builds community, art cultivates community melding differences of culture, of ethnicity, of individual emotional orientations into one mindful and grateful human family.
I am resolved to learn to speak basic French in intervening months before we return.
More later!
