My mother always loved the French Impressionists.  She had actually studied art and instilled a love of the French masters in me from a very early age.  So for the chance to actually see Monet’s garden?  To say it was a dream come true would be an understatement.  The whole reason I had a little koi pond installed after we got married was because of my deeply rooted love of Monet.  I have three different types of water lilies growing and there is not a day which goes by and I have viewed it that I have not thought of my mother.  On this morning our guide picked us up and drove us to the small town of Giverny which lies about 50 miles west and slightly north of Paris, in the old province of Normandy.  The cultivation of grapes has been an occupation since Merovingian times and I was fortunate enough to have our guide ask if I wanted to stop at the village church.  It was Sunday and upon entering through the back as a service was being conducted I felt an extreme privilege.  No one glared at me as I stared in awe and very circumspectly studied the statuary and examined the ancient stonework.  Dating back from the Middle Ages, it was built in the Romanesque style although additions have been made.  Our guide may never have known how grateful I was to have gotten to go inside that church.  After I exited we made our way to Claude Monet’s house.  He apparently made up his mind to move to Giverny from looking outside of a train window.  In 1890 he had enough money to buy his house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint.  Some of his most famous works came from the archways of climbing plants entwined around colored shrubs.  The water garden was formed by a tributary to the Epte river, which feeds from the right tributary of the Seine.  It contains the now famous Japanese bridge, the pond with its water lilies, and the wisterias and azaleas.  I am a fan of weeping willows which is why I chose this shot.  I was told with appreciation by our guide that the pond was different in October.  I had never seen it in spring but I suspected it held the magic melancholy that October casts wherever she may be.  We spent most of the day here and I enjoyed placing a tiny snail we discovered into our little girl’s hand.  She shrieked and marveled at the tiny creature she held and it was a visceral reminder to me that life continues.  It began to lightly rain as we made our way to Versailles.  So late in the day, I believe it was absolutely the most magical time I had seen the chateau.  In the chill and devoid of the throngs of summer tourists, it became indescribable.  Our guide deftly led us in and out and of what few tourists remained, and we were treated to a tour of the deserted grounds that superceded the natural.  The last place we visted before the magnificent chateau closed was the main palace itself.  The Hall of Mirrors held a stately, yet subdued and welcoming light reflecting off the myriad of floor to ceiling mirrors while rain fell softly outside the windows.  Reflections of light were everywhere but not overly bright; rather they were somewhat incongruously soothing in their grandeur with the onset of dusk.  Versailles held a quiet feel that was at once comforting and almost sacred.  I have a picture of our child dressed in toile completely alone in Marie Antionette’s bedchamber which I will always cherish.  It is haunting but not in a scary way.  On the contrary, it felt welcoming but sadly empty.  We found ourselves in a unique position, wandering about the corridors in autumn’s early twilight.  I shall never forget it.  The French-German theologian Albert Schweitzer once said:

“The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.”

I am not suggesting Louis XVI, the last King of France, and Marie Antionette, the last Queen of France — who was never reported to have said, “Let them eat cake” when referring to the French peasants — did not have frivolity in their lives.  Most certainly they did.  But I believe there was an underlying compassion within them which led to the presence of what I felt on this day.  I have been in famous churches where I did not feel the presence of God.  And I have been in secular places in which I have felt God was present.  Who is to say that I am correct?  I have only my heart, and my love of God, to guide me.