Familiarity

Place de la ConcordeHow many times do you have to walk by a place before it becomes a part of you? Before you begin to own it? I’ve started running along the Seine by my house, and very quickly each of the iconic monuments began to take a new shape as they became more and more familiar. I start out on the Pont Bir Hakeim (described in detail in a previous post), run past the Eiffel Tower, dodging tourists and traffic, and as I continue I cross the invalids with it’s long avenue of trees, and the Pont Alexandre with its four gleaming gold statues, next comes the Assemblée Nationale, and then the crowning glory of my half-way point, the Pont de la Concorde with the view of the golden tip of the Obelisk of Louxor, the Jardin de Tuileries, the Eglise de la Madeleine, and behind, the white domes of Sacre Coeur. The way home takes me past the Petit and Grand palais, remnants from one of the Universal Exhibitions, the gold statue of a torch above the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed, the Palais de Tokyo with its accompaniment of punk skateboarders, and finally the sloping lawns of Trocadero let me know that it’s time to start the final spring home. Each one of these places began as a recognizable landmark, seen on various touristing expeditions or on long walks through the city, but as I began to pass them several times a week, they were transformed by familiarity. Certain aspects became dulled, their shapes become less and less important, and I begin to only notice the parts that are important to me. The glimmering top of the Pont Alexandre, the height of the Eiffel Tower over all the other buildings as a mark as how far I’ve come. But most of all, each place accumulates the thoughts and feelings that go along with that part of the run. The Eiffel Tower is at once the pure joy of beginning ot run, the distraction of other pedestrians, and te promise of relief at the end. The Pont Alexandre is a burst of encouragement—I’m almost half-way there. And the Concorde, the immense plaza, the two fountains, the columned arcade, the greenery of Tuileries, is a welcomed sigh of relief, a smile, and a quickened pace as I turn around towards home. This is why it was so important to me to spend so much time in Paris instead of traveling, because you learn to see things in a different way when they belong to you, when they are part of a routine, than when you only see them just to see them. I wanted to know Paris as home, not as a destination. I wanted to see it through the dim darkness of a native, occasionally illuminated by a brilliant spotlight to show you the beauty of the place where you live, that you too often forget for the worries of daily life.