Happy Valentine’s Day

 

I couldn’t wait for Valentine’s Day this year.  Because I actually had the perfect picture to post: a cheery, happy heart… made of skulls.

This picture came from the first month I was in Paris, when a friend and I went to visit the Catacombs.  This was an absolutely incredible experience.  These expansive, winding tunnels run for miles and miles, right underneath the streets of Paris, and they are filled with the bones of more than 6 million people.  The tunnels are actually former stone quarries, which were repurposed in the late 18th century when the above-ground Parisian cemeteries started overflowing, contaminating drinking water, making people sick, etc.  So they came up with this idea.

After descending 5 or 6 flights of spiral stairs, followed by a few hundred yards of slowly descending pathway, we entered the ossuary.  All told, we must have walked for a couple miles underground with these walls of intricately laid out bones on either side of us.

After a while, I began experiencing a number of simultaneous reactions.  1.) Fear: obviously, the emergence of Bone-Zombies could be a huge issue down there.  2.) Claustrophobia: we are underground, in a tunnel, filled with bones (and potentially bone-zombies) with no easy exit.  3.) Awe: as in, it must have taken an awfully long time to position 6 million people’s bones in such an elaborate manor.  And 4.) An oppressive sense of my mortality followed by a liberating feeling of my current vitality.

I think what created this last emotion was the carved stone quotations posted every so often reminding passersby to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow… well, you get the picture.

The walls were full of such advice.  Horace encouraging us to live as if each day was our last; Marcus Aurelius reminding us that many of those who came into this world with us have already left; or my favorite anonymous plaque that simply said: “Death is waiting around every corner.” (Perhaps he knew something of the bone-zombies?)

Either way, surrounded by the remains of so many people that had come and gone before me was, in some odd way, a very life-affirming experience.  So, as my friend and I emerged back into reality, onto a sunlit Paris street that fall afternoon, we did exactly what we had been advised to do: We set out to buy some cheap wine, multiple pastries, and stretch out in the park to enjoy ourselves.

Eating, drinking, and being merry