Paris is Burning, Again

By Quan | 20 April 2019 | 2 min read

Notre Dame Caught on Fire as the World Held its Breath

Notre Dame during my first visit in 2007.

While growing up, my dad told me the side with the flying buttresses was his favorite side. Years later, I would be taking photos in front of it with him, the Francophile himself. It’s no different than the millions who have done so before and have shared since.

Upon seeing it in flames, that seldom hollow feeling when things go awry sunk in. Which led way to some reflection and other thoughts. Thoughts like why do so many care? Are they religious, Parisiens, or French? Was it the stories, the architecture, what they wanted it to symbolize? Did they regret on waiting too long or grateful for a wish fulfilled to have seen it? What else can they do with all of those donations? What of other places that have been destroyed or are gone now?

“Chacun voit midi à sa porte.”

For some dumb reason it made me miss seeing games at the Astrodome, finally being tall enough for Astroworld, and Huevos Rancheros at Las Manitas in Austin where you had to walk through the kitchen to go use the restroom. Places everyone has in their memories that are possibly gone or morphed into something else.

Notre Dame duing my first visit in 2007.

I then recalled the moment I stood in the Sofia Hagia in Istanbul and looked up at its immense dome and thought, how in the world did men build this?! Then you learn its history and realize how many times it was rebuilt through millennia. Such things are in context of time. Our lives in parallel. At best one can hope for 100 years. These places a bit longer if it works out. And in the end, when the sun gives way, it’ll all be gone. The physical is temporal. The rest lives on.

Guests inside Notre Dame

And now, we will live during the time when Notre Dame will be rebuilt again, which will come with its own familiar issues, for someone’s vision will be cast on its charred bones. There’s a French saying, “Chacun voit midi à sa porte.” It means everyone sees noon at their door. A thought along the lines that each person sees their subjective view as the objective truth. Beauty in the eye of the beholder perhaps, like the Eiffel Tower, the Pompidou and others, time will be the judge of that. Maybe long after we are gone.