Overwhelmed by Beauty
Everything is beautiful on Planet Earth. Even what we don’t yet know how to look at. Even what we don’t want to see.
Picture this: I am standing on the beach somewhere in Florida wearing a big puffy coat. It is January. The sand is white and the water is turquoise and I am watching the mouth of the man I love tell me he wants to go to Peru. But not in a, and I’d love for you to come with me sort of way. But in a, I want to go to Peru and maybe never see you again sort of way. This is not at all what I want to be happening. But it is happening with or without my wanting it to.
No matter how many times I have been here before, I’m amazed at how utterly crushing it is to face the end of the world. We don’t want the world to end. But sometimes it does. And sometimes we have to sit alone in the dark and wait for a spark of a way forward. I had no idea what to do with myself, or my heart. The future was a late night television broadcasting static—it offered no clues or reassurance. I felt lost and inching my way dangerously close to hopelessness. And then, unsure of what else to do… I binge watched Emily in Paris. And as I watched her switch from one outfit, or entrée, or love interest to another, I realized that if one is going to be sad and unsure, one might as well be sad and unsure in Paris.
Suddenly there was a way forward. I needed street cafes and fashion and art. And most of all, I needed every conceivable type of cheese.
And so, I went to Paris…
It didn’t seem like it should be so easy. A relatively short journey and suddenly I was there, no longer in Florida. It’s a wonder our heads don’t explode for what is possible these days. A few clicks and a seat in the sky and suddenly I was being bathed in the sensuous symphony of French. Suddenly I was being drawn down enchanting streets teeming with ornate buildings and fascinating people and windows filled with architectural displays of edible art. Everything was art. I was so thrilled to be playing out my own scenes of Bethany in Paris that I forgot for a moment that my heart was smashed to bits. I was so focused on deciding which of the many sidewalk cafes I was going to commit myself to for the evening that I took an unexpected and much needed break from wondering what (or who) the man I loved was doing on another continent.
Bless you Paris for reminding us that romance doesn’t require anything more than a willingness to greet your streets, all senses open to receiving your amorous offering. On my mission for wine and cheese I had to go no further than two doors down from my Airbnb. I perched at a turmeric colored table adorned with a single red rose. I was a single red rose. And the beauty of that singular moment of surviving the apocalypse AND landing in this little paradise, rendered me a flashing neon “Open” sign. I am open for the business of pleasure. I am open for the business of life. Cue the handsome and charming waiter speaking French I didn’t understand but wished very much in that moment that I did.
How long would it take to become a woman who orders wine in French? How long would it take to learn all the French names for cheese? How long would it take to become a completely new woman?…
Paris makes me wish I smoked and wore perfume. Easy enough fixes. Paris makes me want to be a parade. An icon. A sculpture. My own work of art. I buy a dangly pair of earrings. For a moment, I am a queen. For a moment I don’t check my phone to see if he’s called. For a moment his absence is superseded by the presence of the whole world beyond him. Today, on this street, in my new dangly earrings, I am irresistible, utterly desirable, totally and completely lovable. Today, on this street, I am free.
Everything is beautiful on Planet Earth. Even breakups. Even swollen eyes the morning after crying yourself to sleep. In Paris I sleep so sweetly. I fall asleep wondering which croissant I will cuddle in the morning. A French pastry is a perfectly wonderful companion. It is soft and warm and has no desire to go to South America.
I find myself feeling less and less of his absence the more and more I fall in love with Paris. The more I fall in love with myself in Paris. I like the woman I see reflected in the windows walking by. She looks happy. She looks like she belongs here. A stylish woman in a stylish shop speaks French to me and I reluctantly inform her of my inability to understand. She looks surprised. In English she tells me she thought I was Parisian. The highest of compliments.
Paris is a good lover. Paris wines and dines me. Fills my ears and eyes with such endless beauty it is overwhelming. I am here to be overwhelmed by beauty. I am here to remember my magnificence as he does his best to forget it.
I meet a Russian woman who seems to actually glide through the streets. She takes me on a tour of Paris that only heightens the love affair I am having. She moves effortlessly between English and Russian and French depending on where we go and what is needed to facilitate our feasting. I start to glide with her, arms linked. We move through the city vibrating from the wine, giddy from the cigarettes she rolls, happy to be alive and alone together.
We return to the wine bar with the turmeric tables. Two single red roses. The handsome and charming waiter is there to receive our exaltation. He is generous with the pours. We stay well past closing. The Russian woman is dancing on the bar. I am telling the handsome and charming waiter that I like his wristwatch. He takes it off and gives it to me, says it is mine now. I look at the time. It is four in the morning. My heart is doing just fine.
Here’s the thing about devastation, if you’re lucky enough to still be standing, you get to choose how to feel about the rubble.
It is nearing time for me to accept my Parisian exit. The life I left behind is still there wondering what next? As simply as I arrived, I can return as if none of this ever happened. But it did happen. And it was wonderful. And I am different. And I am the same. I still don’t speak French, but I feel a new spark that is warming me from the inside out.
On my last day in Paris, among all the feelings I am trying to capture with the butterfly net of my mind, mostly I am aware of one sweet, simple truth—I am happy to be alive. This feels like a miracle worthy of a pilgrimage. And so, I ask my strong legs to carry my sacred heart up the many steps of Monmatre to the heights of Sacré-Cœur. Two hundred meters above the Seine, offering a panoramic view of Paris in all her glory, I am not the only one who had the idea to come here today. I am doing my best to enjoy what is miraculous without getting closelined by a stranger’s selfie stick. I am aware that what I was hoping would be an awe inspiring experience is mostly just an awful display of the human struggle to make sense of existing.
I wade through bickering couples and scattering families in their matching T-shirts all trying to keep it together in the midst of this overwhelm. People shouting and running around and looking at themselves in their screens—the grandeur of place blurred into a generic backdrop for their choreographed robot dances. We don’t know how to process this much beauty. So we filter it through our devices. We take photos to show our friends that we are really living life even as we’re not really sure how to. We take photos to look at later and remember that our lives are indeed magnificent. That we are in fact here. That we are beautiful.
In Paris there is priceless and ineffable beauty and you can buy a flimsy postcard depicting it all for one euro. Here, at the heights of one of the most spectacular places on earth, I am having a hard time accepting that I too am one of these awkward humans cluttering the scene. I too am a tourist irregardless of my urge to disguise the fact. My reason for being here is no more virtuous than anyone else’s. We are all here doing our best to participate in life. We are all here to affirm our hunch that we are lucky to be living.
Through the chaos of the spectacle I find the entrance to the church. It’s almost like a hallucination, that this kind of peace is one mere portal away. I step inside. You don’t have to be religious to feel that it is something sacred. The breath changes to enter. The heartbeat becomes audible. The breathtaking display of the human ability to bring heaven to earth. It only followed that I got down on my knees. Saying thank you is a prayer.
Thank you Paris. You returned me to myself. You were the splendor my heart needed to remember why we bother loving. Why we bother doing anything at all. Because sometimes wine and cheese and a stunning view make all the pain and turmoil more than worth while. Because beauty is its own reason for being. Because heartbreak no doubt contributed to much of the grandeur that is Paris. Real romance is the story of loving in the midst of our inevitable heartbreak. Wiping the tears from your eyes and putting on a dress and red lipstick and saying show me your worst life, show me your best. Show me ALL of it. I am here to be overwhelmed by beauty.
