Former Life in France

My grandmother grew up in Rouen, France. She moved here after the war with my American paratrooper grandfather soldier a year or so after D-Day. I spent some quality time there and did everything touristy I could possibly do in that town. I walked the town left to right, north to south, up and down for days on end and walked around trying to imagine my grandmother's life there as a young teen with Nazi soldiers all around. Then I wandered into this quirky little museum right off of the Place du Vieux Marche and wrote a bit about it here:

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

9:37 am - The Fifth Element of the Universe

So Joan of Arc. Jeanne D'Arc. La Pucelle. The Maid of Orléans. The first female renegade of the land. La terre, si tu veux. This town I've been living in is the site of her torturous death. They've got this fire pit and a cross in a plaza here, marking the precise location of her burning, the dungeon tower where she was held prisoner, a museum, a church built in her name. The fine arts museum features painting after painting of her battles, a high school, a major avenue, even a gift shop in l'éspace du Vieux Marché with Joan of Arc snowglobes. I have my Joan days, where I visit all of the monuments and learn about her life. I sometimes stop and sit to watch what kind of audience she still attracts. I've done the wax figure museum in three languages now. My favorite part is when they demand her to sign her name to the papers upon her trial and she will only sign with a cross. All the men become irate, fearful, impaired in judgment and it's a mere power struggle of the sexes. A story shrouded in mystery and skepticism, it's her conviction of belief in a God that truly made her the French heroine. It pains me that scholars try to defy these convictions, that modern psychology attempts to level out that mysterious unknown with mechanical human labels... I don't quite know what the balance is, maybe it is that of science fiction, only what art may reveal, but I do know that not much has changed since Joan of Arc days. We're still waging war on the consciousness of man. What else is going on in the world these days? Can't they just show us new puppy pictures on the news? The monk doing sand paintings? The kids playing Kick the Can down the street? There's something to be said about our daily creations and what fills our collective mind everyday, and somehow, if we could, just bring it down a notch, another notch, another notch, then things might not be so, hmmmm, intensified. On that note, I'm gonna go pick out a pastry at the boulangerie, sit in front of the Cathedrale, listen to the accordian some more and count the number of girls wearing cowboy boots. I seriously never thought I'd return to France to find fabulously frocked french fashionista cowgirls everywhere.