[Detail of a map of Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris. Taken from the Michelin PARIS Street Map which is part of The Green Guide.]

My last post did well among some of my readers. I would have liked to see a gazillion “LIKES” but it was not to be. That’s the life of a blogger. You write. You post it. You hope it will find minds out in cyber land that will read it and say: “Hey, that was pretty cool”.

But after spending the day (it was clear and 80 degrees Fahrenheit!) packing for our departure tomorrow for the Eurostar train that will take us from the Gare du Nord to the St. Pancreas station in London, I took a few minutes to reread the last post.

I found three major omissions in my writing. That’s not uncommon for me. I wrote the blog in the lobby of our hotel. The desk in our room I’m writing on now is small. I’m sharing the square inches with a coffee machine of some unknown make, a mouse pad, my Apple Watch charger and my pill container for tomorrows dose of whatever it is that keeps me from falling asleep into a plate of expensive linguine (with clam sauce…the shells alone would have torn apart my beard.)

And a can of Schweppes Tonic Water.

But I digress.

The first thing I noticed in the post was that I had made a comment about touching the letters of Charles Baudelaire and running my fingers over the faded red lipstick that nearly obliterated his name. The last time I encountered lipstick on a grave was in Los Angeles…a single lipstick imprint was placed just above the name of the person who was inches away, in a vault. It was the grave of Marilyn Monroe.

The second event we witnessed never got described. It was as we approached the center circular grass in the middle of the cemetery. I took it to be a memorial service. I did not photographic it for obvious reasons. A crowd of perhaps thirty people stood around a grave. Most of the women wore white. A pretty woman had just finished a reading. As we passed, I noticed that she was embracing an elderly woman with gray hair. We walked on. I wondered about the identity of the deceased. 

We walked on, searching for Baudelaire’s grave we stopped at an intersection of several of the main ‘roads’ in the cemetery. A black hearse had just passed by. But what struck me was that all the mourners, maybe fifty or more, were all walking behind the hearse. Some were alone. Some were quietly talking. No man wore a hat. It was quiet and it was moving.

I thought of similar events in America. Usually, there is a long line of cars at the cemetery, all parked partly on the curb and some on the grass.

But these friends of the deceased. These folks were there that day to say farewell and watch as their friend or relative was being lowered into the ground. 

The gentleman’s or gentlewoman’s final stop on their journey through life.

I apologize for these omissions. They would have looked better in the places where they belonged.

But that’s true of all of us, isn’t it?

[Overview of Montparnasse Cemetery. Photo is mine]

I unfolded my laminated map of Paris and scanned the green spaces. In three minutes I found what I wanted.

Paris has three large and notable cemeteries within the city boundaries. They are:

~~Pere Lachaise. Perhaps the most famous. This the final resting place of many notable French artists, poets, musicians and others. I won’t even attempt to provide a list of who lies in these hallowed grounds. Collette, (the woman novelist), Jim Morrison (yes, the Doors front man), Marcel Marceau (it’s very quiet there) and more than I can recall. Thus far, this is my favorite cemetery. It has a certain decaying melancholy, with scattered dead and dried leaves blowing over the cobblestones that appeals to my dark Irish side. You walk the streets and you are in a true Necropolis. One with cafes just outside the main entrance. I never tire of the place.

~~Montmartre Cemetery. This is located just down the street and around the corner from the Moulin Rouge. I know about the place with the famous windmill. I don’t know anything about this cemetery. I only glanced at it from a hotel window half a dozen years ago. Enough said.

~~Montparnasse Cemetery. What I have to say about this takes up the remainder of this post.

Today, May 30, 2023 was spectacular. Low humidity. Cool breezes and very few crowds. It was a day for wandering a cemetery. And it was only a short Uber ride from our hotel. We had never visited this place and since our Paris-time was running out, we harbored no second thoughts.

[A dusty lane between the altar tombs and above ground graves. Photo is mine]

Montparnasse is laid out in a sort of grid pattern (like most of Manhattan). Streets and lanes have names. The Sections are well marked. When you enter through one of the main gates, there are laminated maps with all the notable burials clearly marked (we had trouble locating only a few). At the end of your walking tour you are expected to return the map to its hook. I’m sure 99.9% are returned…after all, they really wouldn’t be very framable and wouldn’t go with most peoples’ dens or living room (or even in the Video Game Room).

We returned ours. We have enough stuff on our walls.

A Few Famous Interments

On the reverse side of our handy laminated map was a list of the more famous burials in the cemetery. Remember, we were in Paris, France so the majority of the names meant nothing to us. One would have to be well-versed in French history to know the 80+ names listed. But we found a few. Here is a slide show of the ones we knew:

~~Susan Sontag. She was an American novelist and essayist.

~~Man Ray. He was a modern artist quite famous in America. 

~~Guy De Maupassant. A novelist and short-story writer. A quote: “…A strange art–music–The most poetic and precise of all the arts. Vague and a dream and precise as algebra.”

~~Charles Baudelaire.   “I can hardly conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.”   Les Fleurs de Mal (The Flowers of Evil)

~~Jean Paul Sartre & Simone De Beauvoir.  The Most Famous Existentialists. They never married. They had a “open relationship” which they considered one of “essential love”. They had separate “contingent love” affairs with others.

A Few Random Photos:

[The grave of Paul Oster in a plexiglass mausoleum. He died 21 January 1895. Interior filled with cobwebs. Photo is mine]

[Neglected moss covered grave of unknown individual. Photo is mine]

[The deep sorrow of a woman’s loss. Note the fallen flowers. Photo is mine]

[Another woman’s grief. Photo is mine]

[Rust covered hands clutching a cross hoping for salvation?? Photo is mine]

[Cattails (?) covering a raised tomb. Photo is mine]

Bonus Photo.

[I photographed this at the end of our walk. The vertical green bar is hooked at the base. When it is swung it etches the stonework. I have no knowledge of its true purpose. Photo is mine]

Yes, it was a glorious day in a Parisian cemetery. Is there any better way to celebrate the day before ones birthday.

I sincerely hope you have enjoyed our stroll through Montparnasse Cemetery. I find these places ideal for memories and reflections of lives once lived, loves experienced and the tranquility of death…

[NOTE: All photos are mine]

My mother passed away on a sunny Easter Sunday morning. This is what she wanted. She had seen the priest on Holy Thursday and whispered in his ear that she had chosen the date. She was a good Catholic. The year was 1992. I had the night watch duty to stay by her side and listen to the pump. I was up all night (I recall watching The Robe with Richard Burton). I checked the clock. My shift was over and I was exhausted. As I climbed the stairs I brushed shoulders with my father who coming down to relieve me.

“Anything change?” he asked.

“She breathing steadily,” I replied.

Twenty minutes later, my mother passed on.

Several weeks later my father asked me to go through and discard any personal belongings of hers that any son or nephew or niece might want. I sat at the art Deco bedroom vanity and pulled open the top drawer. Swatches of fabric, buttons and knitting needles faced me from the drawer. I went to the second one and it too held little of interest to me. Then I slid open the bottom drawer and found myself holding a bundle of old cards. Each card was addressed to my mother and sported a 3 cent stamp. They were tied together with a pink ribbon. I opened one card and pulled it from the envelope. It was a “Happy New Baby” card. Little lambs and tiny birds decorated the inside. I read it.

“Dear Mary, oh, so happy about your new baby. I know its a boy but maybe next time you’ll have your girl.” They were heartfelt messages but they read a little like sympathy cards. I checked the post marks. They were posted on June 2, 3 & 4. I was born on May 31.

I saw and calculated. All this meant that sometime in the Fall of 1946, a rogue molecule or cell or whatever kicked in a Y chromosome…making me a male.

So, I was christened Patrick. My girl name was supposed to be Rosemary. I wondered how hard it was to be a girl. My situation was not without some advantages. By the time I reached puberty, I knew more about the female than many of my ‘girlfriends’.

An eighth grade girls rises from her seat and walks up to the nun…already in mid-lesson…and whispers in her ear. A nod. The girl was gone for ten minutes. I knew what was going on.

I’m not claiming to be unique in any way. Many of my friends had sisters so they were probably pretty aware of life.

I lacked the lipstick and lace, but I feel confident that my mother loved me without conditions. After all, on a family trip to Philadelphia, my dad and two of my brothers went out to the old Connie Mack Stadium to watch the Phillies. I confess I was a little disappointed to be asked to go with my mom to see The King & I at a downtown theater. In the end it worked out quite well. I could only think of the baseball field as hot and sunny, two conditions that I have a deep dislike for. But, there I was, weeping as Yul Brenner’s hand dropped off his knee…he died in this scene.

Here is what I learned from that day:

*I tend to be a little bit of a Romantic.

*I’m capable of crying in public.

*Memories stay with me whether I like it or not for a long time.

After a life of working with adolescents (I taught for nearly thirty-five years) I learned I had a very emotional side to me which I did my best to subtlety disguise my fuzzy exterior for a patina of gruffness…not frightening, just enough to keep the hounds at bay.

Family secret of sorts:

Now that I’m approaching the age my mom passed, I’m grateful for all my parents did for us…dad rising early to be off to IBM and my mom…forever cleaning the large house my dad purchased in ’45. But while my siblings excelled in sports (except for my eldest brother, Chris whose idea of a good time with a workout was to roam fields and backyards for arrowheads) I had within me a different set of rules. My mother, I now see, taught me to touch, to glance the feminine side of my being.

It’s no big secret that humans have these two forces, often at war, the male and the female.

I’m grateful to my mother for instilling within me a perspective that maybe, just maybe not all men are privy too.

I’m also grateful that my mother kept her from actually raising me as a female. And I’m glad I wasn’t given the option to wear lipstick. I could never find a shade that went with my boyish brown eyes.

I’m sitting at the dining room table in our house in Fort Meyers, FL. It’s probably 90 something outside. We were here before, about two streets over, back in November, 2014 to January 1, 20015. We were pulling a small RV back in those days. This time we own a small cottage which will be used to escape the brutal winters of the Adirondacks. Not much has changed here. The WiFi still is not strong but the pool is refreshingly warm (I don’t do cold water).

I admit that those winters drove us away. If you’re one of my many friends from FB, I agree. I should have moved south years ago. We took the car/train from Washington, DC to Orlando. It cut hundreds of miles off our driving time. Each hour that ticked towards darkness, swallowed us further into the heart of the south.

[The south drifts by at sundown.]

We got a good price for this place and the past several days we’ve Walmarted and Costcoed our own imprint into the place. All the posters of sand dollars and conch shells, Flamingos and periwinkle shells were everywhere.

Now we’re going to put our own shell posters and shadow boxes with shells wherever we choose.

And here is something I haven’t said in several years:

“Mariam, let’s go swimming.”

There once was a time when one could look down at my hometown of Owego. NY and see nothing but the green leaves of summer.

No more. Now you see red brick and white roofs.

It’s like a snapshot of the moment the instant the last leaves are gone but weeks remain between those last leaves and the first buds of spring. The Autumnal Equinox is a month away…not to mention the Winter Solstice.

It’s a long wait until the Begonias, and Tulips begin to appear.

Slowly falling snow, gently descending leaves and small buds waiting to yield a flower. The warmth of an august afternoon…with a kayak beneath your seat beats naked trees anytime.

I will arise and go now to Innisfree…

-WB Yeats The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I”m drifting off to sleep in the late minutes of March 17. I’m dreaming of Kilkenny, Sligo, Dublin and Galway.

What’s happened for me on St. Patrick’s Day? Actually, nothing that involved crowds and singing and rowdy behavior.

We cooked an Irish Beef Stew, listened to the Clancy Brothers, the Dubliners, and Enya and of course Van Morrison’s Raglan Road.

Then, we put on The Quiet Man.

We’re homebound. I feel so sorry for the Irish and all the others who are going through the same thing.

Such times, indeed.