I visited Père Lachaise Cemetery.

The day was warm and dry, and the only signs of fall were brown crinkly leaves and chestnut seeds whose husks were opening in the dry air. I knew of the cemetery’s history as the resting place of many human remains, including those of venerable figures such as Chopin. I thought it was fitting to visit this tomb since I listen to his Preludes almost every day.

Recent articles had profiled how nature and wildlife rebounded in this cemetery, especially during the pandemic. A French language classmate shared an article about this in the spring. And here I was, to see the carrion crows and the large native pigeons. In fact, I badly startled a mixed group of these birds when I stepped past one tomb.

This place is beautiful. There are endless tombs, some of them tidy and some in a state of elegant decay. It is a nice mix of nature, history, memory, and tribute.

A visit to Montmartre

I biked from there to Montmartre. I headed up to the famous hilltop. On the way there, sections of Boulevard de Belleville looked like Cairo, Egypt, with all the immigrant men and women. Soon it will look like Lagos, Nigeria, thanks to ever-accelerating mass migration.

The famous Basilique du Sacré-Cœur looms over the city. Walking up the stairs with my bike made me feel like a pilgrim. On the way up, and at the top, and throughout, I found the crowds were unbelievable. Do the crowds ever abate? I think the answer is no. As much as I hate the sight of my Seattle parks being empty of people most days, it is also strange when you can hardly move because of the huge numbers. It is hard to move left, right, or forward when every park and street is like a 24/7 festival. August was not quiet despite people being off on vacation. September, with the return to school, is also not quiet. Paris is thick with people at all days and times. Which gives the city vibrancy but also makes you want to escape.

Amélie

A busker at a gate to the basilica did a tune from Amélie with his guitar. I biked past the Café des Deux Moulins featured in the film but saw that it and its patio seating were overflowing and skipped it. I had the idea I was going to visit during a quiet time in September and get a kir like the poet in the film. Unless I return sometime at early morning opening, this will not happen because of the endless dense crowds.

I had watched the movie dozens of times on DVD when there was such a thing as DVD special features. These showed the color enhancements and technical tricks applied to make the Parisian sights and moments look magical. The sights in the movie are not real, but they captured the enchantment of the city.

TikTok ice cream shop.

The next day I read an article about a Paris ice cream shop right along my route that day that was overrun with teenage girl TikTokers. The shop was run by an international duo who worked in restaurants and understood how to make their shop social media-ready. People swarmed the location, and some metal cups went missing. The owners and regulars felt overwhelmed and edged out. I can relate to the desire not to be in someone’s video that will be published online. The visitors felt disappointed that filming for TikTok/Instagram content was banned.

Frochot family mausoleum

Meanwhile, in the cemetery, the mausoleum of the Frochot family sat in albeit elegant decay. At night, it gets as cold as the ambient air, and in the recent hot summer, it got baking hot. Carrion crows and pigeons ramiers come and go, and in their brains, there is more complex and meaningful sentience than anything in the dusty and possibly forgotten human remains inside the concrete tomb.

On those steps of the basilica on Friday, a thousand people were meeting with their expectations of the place, each shaped by representations in film and media, which were themselves shaped by the physical places and by the minds of the creators themselves. The mix of memories and expectations and realities is a hallucinogenic swirl, rising up in eddies, being replicated and iterated upon, and endlessly reinterpreted and remade. All of this occurs within human minds, on artistic media, and in the world itself.

I won’t get a chance to drink that kir, but I will treasure the moment in film, and maybe grab one when I return to Seattle in two weeks.

About the photo

An impressive tomb from the Cimetière du Père Lachaise.