We were eating dinner with Caleb’s Uncle Thaddeus and Aunt Lisa at the Blue Stag Saloon in downtown Breckenridge. Thad and Lisa’s neighbor, Steven, joined us too. It was Friday night, November 13. The restaurant was hopping with people in heavy ski jackets fresh off the opening-day slopes.
It was a good time with good people, good wine, and good food. In fact, it had been nothing but a good time for Caleb and me that trip. The two days before we spent with my brother Eric in Snowmass.
During that time we spotted two male moose sitting in the snow at the base of the mighty Maroon Bells. We soaked in natural hot springs in the Crystal River. We walked through a snowfield speckled with the white Yule marble from the quarry in Marble, Colorado. We grilled out burgers on my brother’s patio beneath the blazing stars.
Indeed, it had been a good time, a good trip.
“And here we are, laughing and enjoying ourselves, and Paris is under attack,” said Steven in the middle of dinner. It was as if someone shut off the music and turned out the restaurant lights.
This is the world we live in, the one of tragedy against joy. Later that night as I sat in the dark by the crackling fire in Thad and Lisa’s living room, my heart burned with sorrow over the viciousness, the evil, of terrorism. And at the same time, it warmed with one of my fondest memories from when I lived in France.
It was 2011 and I was a junior in college, studying abroad in Angers for my spring semester. It was late May and I would be returning home to Tennessee soon. As our last hurrah in Europe, my friend Laura and I flew to Granada to spend a week with Laura’s friend from Ohio who was also studying abroad. At the end of the week I flew to Paris in order to take the train back to Angers the next morning. Laura stayed with her friend in Spain for a few more days.
I had visited Paris twice in the five months I’d lived in Angers, but not yet alone. Fortunately, I had no trouble finding the Three Ducks Hostel the evening I arrived in The City of Light. It was turning dark out when I checked in. But I wasn’t about to go to sleep. It was a summer’s night in Paris. In French I asked the hotelier which way to the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower was a 15-minute walk from the hostel down the Rue du Commerce and Avenue de Suffren. The air was warm with a nice breeze waltzing through. Many people strolled the streets. I stopped at a small épicerie on the way and bought a two-euro bottle of Bordeaux and the only corkscrew left, which cost much more. When I reached the Parc du Champ-de-Mars I found hundreds, if not thousands, of people picnicking in the grassy field that spreads from the École Militaire to the Eiffel Tower. The people were packed in groups on quilts that covered nearly every blade of grass. Picnic baskets and Brie cheese and baguettes and bottles of uncorked wine were strewn about the quilts.
I walked along the gardens lining the park until I stood beneath the Eiffel Tower. The light projectors streaming up the iron monument made it glow yellow in the darkness like the grandest and most elegant nightlight. The street vendors hanging around tried to sell me Eiffel Tower key chains and bottles of wine, but I showed my Bordeaux and shrugged, as if to say, “Thanks, but I’m all set.”
After that it took me several minutes to find what must have been the last patch of open field on the Champ-de-Mars. I sat down in the cool grass and opened my bottle of wine. The Eiffel Tower soared in front of me. I sipped from the bottle. The wine was cheap but great. And I was happy. So very happy to be where I was that I didn’t even realize anything missing from my happy event until a Parisian boy my age came up to me and asked if I wanted to join him and his friends sitting not far from me.
“Non, merci. Je suis contente de rester seul,” I said. No, thank you. I’m happy to be alone.
The boy left and returned to his friends, and I thought that was the end of that. But then the whole group started, in the gentle French way, to wave at me to come over. I considered the invitation a moment then thought porquoi pas? Why not? I thought. I raised my wine bottle to them then walked over and sat down.
The group consisted of three boys and two girls, all from Paris and all students at La Sorbonne. The girls wore floral-print dresses and the guys wore dark jeans with button-downs. The group shared a bottle of Jack Daniels and I told them, overly proud, that this was the whiskey made in my home state of Tennessee. My American accent amused them as I did my best to communicate in French. I mainly spoke with the boy who invited me over. I can’t remember his name now, but it was very French. Étienne, perhaps, or Yves. Anyhow, Étienne or Yves helped me to better pronounce the guttural French “R”, and I taught him how to say “y’all.”
Bright lights sparkled up the Eiffel Tower on the hour every hour for a solid five minutes. The lights were stunning, mesmerizing, better than fireworks. When the clock struck one, the night’s final light show illuminated the sky. The crowd clapped and cheered then packed up their picnics. The group I’d been sitting with invited me to a discothèque down the street, but I told them, “Je suis trop fatigué pour danser.” I was too tired to dance. The five Parisians kissed me on my cheeks and I gave them the rest of my wine as a parting gift.
“Au revoir!” They called to me, raising the cheap bottle of wine as they walked off into the night.
“Au revoir, mes amis,” I called back. Goodbye, my friends.
It was heartbreaking to hear of the attacks on Paris that night as I dined in Breckenridge. How I wish I had the power to end the nightmarish things that have been going on. At least I can remember the good things, the beautiful things, like my night in Paris beneath the golden Eiffel Tower. And while memory cannot bring peace on earth, at least it can offer a consoling light in darker times. So, Paris, Je me souviens in all its brilliant light and lovely people. Paris, I remember.