I am still walking every step… no underground yet. Paris is not as big as you might think. Yesterday I passed several sites of this months terror attacks. They seemed like wounds being dressed to heal. The violence is still evident in the broken glass, bullet holes, and barricades but the whole of each place impacted by this violence is bathed in candles, piles of flowers, and thousands of messages to the victims, and to us. There’s healing underway. I think there’s a time when places of violence become shrines. Sometimes it heals quickly, and sometimes it remains an open wound used as a matter of resolve for the living. Paris has monuments to the wounds that would not heal all across its fabric. This sacrifice is not likely to be forgotten.
On possibly a lighter note, I went to Pere Lachaise cemetery, and visited, with many others, Jim Morrison’s grave…. In fact, it’s the most visited shrine in the entire cemetery, and that’s with some stiff competition ( pardon the pun) with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Sarah Burnhardt, and Frederick Chopin.
Oscar Wilde’s tomb covered with lipstick kisses
Pere Lachaise cemetery
Bronze crypt door
Jim Morrison’s nearly inaccessible grave
7millionsteps 