I was eleven when I wrote my first book, which was on Christian Symbols.  It was not mass produced, but I was one of the very few in the state of Texas to become published at that age.  I have always loved church and I have many happy memories of attending each week with my parents.  My mother said when I was an infant she would turn me toward the huge quatrefoil stained glass windows in our old Methodist church, which is now an historic landmark, and I would stare at them through the entire service.  Embedded in my mind from that time are two distinct images:  one of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified, and another of Christ knocking at the door (which I believe represents the entry to our hearts.)  I have always loved Christian iconography in particular and have enjoyed learning the Latin behind some of the Church’s oldest symbols.  So, despite the fact that I am not Catholic, I absolutely treasure any time I enter an old church.  (For the record, I am Episcopalian, or “Whiskeypalian,” as I often like to joke.  In the United States and Canada “Episcopal” is a term used for the Anglican Church, or the Church of England.)  On this day I requested a guide from someone well-versed in Christian symbology who could take our family of three along tours of two churches I had always wanted to visit.  The first was Saint-Séverin, located in the Latin Quarter.  It continues as an active place of worship and is one of the oldest churches along the Left Bank.  Its bells include the oldest remaining in Paris, cast in 1412.  Built during the 11th century, it was reconstructed two hundred years later to accommodate the ever-growing population.  A 13th century Chapel of the Virgin Mary escaped later destruction and stands to the right of the vestry.  The Gothic stained glass windows of the chancel are intact and apparently date from the 15th century.  We visited early in the morning, and I felt right at home with all the the multi-cultural people and the vast array of bright colors … only no one looked upon us with smiles as we entered the church.  Honestly I was hurt by the underlying hostility we perceived amidst one of the oldest churches in Paris.  I would have loved to shop in the tents stationed in front of the church but we did not really seem welcome.  It was as if it were a private section only for Muslim immigrants.  The Juxtaposition was not lost on me and I left feeling saddened.  Next, we would journey to Chartres, a city in north-central France, southwest of Paris, known for its massive Cathédrale Notre-Dame; a Gothic cathedral completed in 1220 featuring two towering spires.  It contains flying buttresses, Romanesque scuptures, a pavement labyrinth, and elaborate rose windows.  However it is the interior’s blue-tinted stained glass which makes it distinctive.  Situated atop the center of the town high upon a hill, we found ourselves looking up in awe at the massive cathedral.  I can only imagine what it must have inspired in centuries past.  Our guide even managed to engage our five-year-old, and I was so thankful for his kindness.  She had been sort of overlooked in all this and he knelt, turning all his attention upon her, asking what SHE thought and pointing out various things he believed might hold her interest — never once talking down to her.  This was a special day for me, and I was grateful to both our Muslim driver and our Christian docent.  The American journalist Diane Sawyer said, “Follow what you are genuinely passionate about and let that guide you to your destination.”  On this day I knew I had followed my passion, and I fervently hoped my husband and child could feel what I felt … a destination with the divine.

The American satirist Tom Lehrer once crassly quipped, “Life is like a sewer:  what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”  The history of water supply and sanitation has been a logistical challenge since the beginning of time.  Where water resources, infrastructure, and sanitation systems were insufficient diseases spread, wiping out millions of people like wildfire.  Previously my interest in water was pretty much confined to nature and how prior civilizations managed to get it fresh and running to their cities.  The Ancient Greeks of Crete were the first to use underground clay pipes.  Their capital had a well-organized water system for both bringing in clean water and taking out waste water.  The Romans constructed aqueducts — beautiful above ground arches — which moved clean water through gravity alone along a slight overall downward gradient.  They supplied public baths, latrines, and private households.  Pompeii has always held my fascination, and the horrid erruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. left behind a freeze-frame of high-style living, thanks in part to the plumberium.  Pompeiian homes featured atriums with an open-roof design, underneath which tanks collected the rainwater that ran down the roof tiles.  In Santa Fe I have admired the old Spanish acequias (canals) that were engineered to carry snow runoff from the mountains to distant fields.  And the fountains of Versailles are an absolute marvel to me!  A hydraulic system still supplies water to the gardens and housing water on the roof of Marie Antionette’s grotto I find as incredible as it was ingenious.  In medieval European cities they had small, natural waterways for carrying off sewage and open drains, or gutters that ran along the center of some streets.  In Paris they were sometimes known as “split streets,” as the waste water running along the middle physically divided the roads into two halves.  The first closed sewer was constructed in Paris as far back as 1370 on Monmartre Street and was almost 985 feet long.  The original purpose of designing and constructing a closed sewer was less for waste management as it was to hold back the stench coming from the odorous waste water, according to George Commair’s book, “The Waste Water Network:  an underground view of Paris.”  The Paris cholera epidemic of 1832 sharpened public awareness of the necessity for some sort of drainage system to deal with sewage in a better and healthier manner.  I had heard on an earlier trip to Paris that people used to explore the city’s vast sewers in row boats but was told they put an end to that sometime in the 1970’s.  My husband and I decided years ago we wished to explore Paris’ underground.  We wanted to tour the sewers as well as the catacombs.  However with our five-and-a-half year old in tow, we weren’t sure if she’d be freaked out.  Despite her insistence to the contrary, I decided skeletal remains might be too much for the time being and so we decided to just try the Museé des Égouts de Paris; the Paris Sewer Museum.  We figured if she didn’t like it we could visit in shifts.  All I can say is were we ever surprised!  Clearly she is our child:  she freaked out alright — but in a good way.  She was absolutely FASCINATED and not a bit afraid at all!  We found our descent into the bowels of Paris to be (no pun intended) rather sanitized.  It was well lit and almost sterile with marked passageways and dark, aged areas cordoned off.  Display cases held many an interesting artifact from various points in time, ranging from a fascinating array of swords to a lady’s sequined slipper.  Our little one enthusiastically led the way and “explained” to us the mechanics behind it all … despite the fact that she could not read well.  She was extremely adept at studying the pictorial explanations, though, and quite a few tourists stop to listen, trying to hide their grins.  There was a gift shop and our sweet girl got a souvenir plush rat whom we named Gaspar.  Ironically, we completed our visit in time for Burk to use the facilities; luckily he did not have far to go.  Perhaps it was indeed what we put into it, but we all took something away from our time in the sewer.

Since I have gotten married I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to different cities, countries, and continents.  Although I have loved them all, I must confess I felt safer on several of our foreign trips as they were taken with my husband’s maternal family and friends in what, to me, comprised a rather large group.  As I have previously stated, this was our fourth trip to Paris (actually my fourth, my husband’s fifth, and our daughter’s third) and I have always felt as if Paris were my home.  It has never felt “foreign” or different, and I have never felt unsafe.  I have gotten pretty much accosted in the dark, dank alleys of Venice and I was ignored as a woman wandering the narrow, winding streets in Tangiers.  I have roamed over the ankle-turning, uneven cobblestone streets in Guatemala amidst abject poverty and yet never felt threatened.  And I have traveled along the coastal cities of Spain without any qualms.  For me being lost could be terrifying, or it could mean becoming happily immersed in a place with no plan or direction.  Once on the basin of a glacier in Alaska I felt lost due to “white blindness” and it was absolutely paralyzing.  It was like being in a pitch dark room only everything was white — I could not discern the sky from the ground and it made me feel incredibly disoriented as well as claustrophobic.  Milling about the streets of London never made me unsettled; it just didn’t feel like home.  Ah, but my beloved Paris; I have no words.  After the zoo my husband and I decided to spend a leisurely evening revisiting some of our favorite haunts.  Despite this being our little girl’s third trip, she was only five and a half years old, and she kept exclaiming with unbridled glee at every turn.  I realized THIS was really the first trip for her, and I pray she will always remember some of it.  For me, my little picture sums up the simplest and yet most treasured pleasures to be found in Paris.  We ascended all three elevators to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  Our little one held no fear at the steep climb, nor was she daunted by the throngs of people speaking every language imaginable around her.  A sweet young Muslim family shared their little girl’s snacks with her and the French TRULY thought she was one of their own with her deep, brown Gallic eyes, bow, and toile dress.  Afterward we rode the carousels, much to all of our delight.  She had done so twice in the past, but only her father and I remembered.  There are always many African vendors selling their wares underneath the tower.  The vast difference on this trip was that the French police had the entire perimeter of the Eiffel Tower gated.  So there was no more carefree traversing back and forth.  Still, she got this pink Eiffel Tower and we all treated our selves to some glacé au chocolat.  And no one, but no one, does chocolate and/or ice cream like the French.  My husband and I reminded ourselves how nice it was to have a small serving so we could indulge our taste buds rather than our waist lines.  We were never lost, but we did lose ourselves relaxing in the heart of Paris next to the Seine.  The famous American essayist Henry David Thoreau once said, “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”  I started to understand parts of myself I had never fully realized until my first trip to my beloved France.  I saw my husband starting to really lose himself on this trip in her language, history, art, and culture.  And our little one — the greatest joy of our lives — well, she was truly lost in Paris.

In Dallas while waiting in the Admiral’s Club for our flight to take off we met a delightful man who was taking his granddaughter to Paris for the week.  He was going for both business and pleasure and kept an apartment there.  We struck up a conversation with him, and our girls instantly became friends in the sweet way little girls seem to do.  We were surprised to see the two of them waiting patiently for us to disembark once we’d landed.  They wanted to invite us over to visit and then get out and do something together while we were all in Paris.  I must confess Burk and I are not spontaneous at all; to the contrary we are planners to the nth degree.  I realize that is not necessarily a good thing — it’s just how we are.  This precious man and his sweet granddaughter had offered us an unprecedented kink in our carefully laid plans.  Thankfully — for once — we decided to deviate.  And so, veering from our itinerary, we made our way to their apartment which was situated in a small, quiet courtyard in a lovely arrondissement.  We climbed the narrow stairs to the second level (which the French consider to be the first floor) waiting for our new friends to appear.  They welcomed us in graciously.  It was a Sunday and they had gone to the American Church in Paris that morning.  I found myself wishing we had attended as well; it is something we have yet to do.  As we were visiting, the suggestion came that we all go to the zoo.  Despite all my research, it had never occurred to me to take our little one to the ménagerie!  And so we set out via the Métro, the Paris rapid transit system, which is mostly underground.  Our train however would traverse a cool, clear tunnel with which I was unfamiliar that ran above the Seine.  As we made our way to one of the oldest zoos in the world I would also discover the Jardin des plantes (the main botanical garden in France) was just adjacent.  I recalled from a previous visit to Versailles the medicinal gardens had been transferred to Paris at the request of Marie Antionette.  It was an exceptionally hot day in June but our little group traversed with perserverance.  The zoo, which opened in 1794, looked extremely antiquated, but the animals were all small and were not in inhumane conditions.  Unlike many of its zoological predecessors, it was not all cement and tried to incorporate the natural elements.  I believe it must have been quite progressive in its day.  Of course my great love lies with wolves but the enclosures were too small to have them now.  I did capture this little beauty which is cousin to the wolf — the fox.  We had a wonderful time and parting was a bit sad.  The French novelist Marcel Proust once said, “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”  Walking around the Ménagerie and the Botanical Gardens of Paris with our new friends had definitely made our souls blossom; ironically we had already met them on our own soil — our charming gardners.

We were married in June 2007 and Paris was the place I dared to request, holding my breath, after my impossibly handsome husband-to-be asked where I would like to spend our honeymoon.  I have always been a hopeless, incurable romantic.  Once I even took a test and scored a 100 on a scale for romance.  It did not particularly surprise me, as I had teethed myself on historical romance novels from at least the age of 10.  I could not have known how I would love Paris so.  We were also fortunate enough to have gone to Venice.  What could possibly be a more romantic honeymoon?!  But I would immediately discover my heart was with France.  On the occasion of our tenth wedding anniversary this past summer; our fourth trip to Paris together, I had the unmitigated pleasure of watching my beloved fall in love with her just as he would with another woman — only I held no jealousy.  To the contrary, I was thrilled and my heart was bursting with joy.  I had known the language but saw how eager my beloved was to know it as well.  I watched him view the city with the same dawning endearment which I had learned within myself a decade earlier.  This was not someone merely obliging another on a trip; this was the great love of my life whom I saw truly delighting in the city I love with every fiber of my soul.  It is something which cannnot adequately be put into words.  We both love history, but that could have been Rome.  Yet with each trip I watched him increasingly absorbing and learning the history and culture that was my greatest passion.  I adore Mexico, and Mariachi music remains my favorite … but Paris is a special lady which stands on her own.  This would mark the beginning of ten glorious days in the most romantic city in the world:  Paris — mon amour.

We were all sad to leave Atlantis.  Our now like family member Mr. Damarius graciously took this photo of us as he wheeled our smitten little girl out along with our luggage.  I realized I would miss this man, so much younger than my own father but SO very much like him.  I noticed the way our little one loved him and it was hard not to lament the loss of my Daddy never getting to know his only granddaughter in this life.  Mr. Damarius, much like my father Marcus, was one of a kind.  He was upbeat, joking, and always positive.  I missed my Daddy so very much in that moment.  He worked with joy, just as my father always did and I found myself hugging him as we left.  With Atlantis behind us I saw reality and my childhood blending together in a flash.  Poverty.  Despair.  Hope.  Struggle.  I vowed never to forget my roots and I told my husband and child about them on the way to the airport.  It is so important never to forget.  Never to forget the hardship.  Never to forget the pain.  It wrapped itself around me like an old worn blanket.  And I tried, perhaps futilely, to explain it to my family.  Life for me had always been rather harsh, and I did not want my two beloveds getting soft.  I wanted them to understand the plight of most people, and how very privileged we were to have gotten to take this trip.  Because he put no expectations or pressure on us, I really missed my father-in-law when he left.  It became doubly hurtful when I realized how very much I still needed and missed my own father.  I knew we needed to stand alone, but it did not lessen the sting.  It was time; we needed to be leaving the city.

Unlike I suppose how most people feel, other than Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, whom I had always fervently hoped to meet, I love our apex predators.  We NEED them.  They have all been demonized for millennia and some are only now just beginning to be appreciated for the vital roles they play within our ecosystems.  If you have ever read one of my blogs you will know we live with wolf hybrids.  Blue sharks inhabit the deep waters of the world’s temperate and tropical oceans and have been referred to as the “wolves of the sea” because of their tendency to roam the Atlantic in groups.  I saw several different species of sharks thriving at Atlantis but I am not sure if they had blue sharks.  What I did see was a double-sided supercool “Mayan Temple Shark Lagoon.”  Down below visitors can walk right up and see them up-close and a Japanese photographer was so taken with the images of our tiny child juxtaposed with the enormous sharks he asked if he could take pictures of her with them and then send them to us.  He was so kind that we agreed.  You could see our four-year-old reaching up to the creatures as they swam languidly over and around her.  It was both a mighty and a humbling experience.  Paul Watson, a Canadian marine wildlife conservation and environmental activist, said:

“The shark is the apex predator in the sea.  Sharks have molded evolution for 450 million years.  All fish species that are prey to the sharks have had their behavior, their speed, their camouflage, their defense mechanisms molded by the shark.”

It was a real thrill to come so close to the wolf of the seas’ beauty, strength, and greatness.

There is something so enticing about the green-blue waters of the Caribbean.  I love a vibrant, vivid green and deep, rich blue.  When the two mix it is a beautiful display of light and dark — at once the revealed and the unknown.  I had never been past the Gulf side of the United States before.  The beautiful mix of the islanders’ skin was intriguing, as well as their names.  Our favorite guy was Damarius.  I had never heard that name before and I love it.  He always had a great attitude every time we saw him.  Then I noticed how the women of Atlantis all wore eyeshadow that matched their uniforms.  So each time we went down to our breakfast buffet we were greated by these beautiful woman wearing green suits and dark green, glitter eyeshadow.  In another part of the resort they wore a vivid blue in both dress as well as around their eyes.  I found green and blue continued throughout, from the people to the water.  The effect was both mesmerizing and mystical.  Speaking of which, they had a bar over the shark area and I discovered this delight you see pictured here.  I had no idea what it was even called — I just saw a man with one and said, “I’ll have what he’s having!”  It tasted even better than it looked.  Enjoying this drink in the shade as the sunlight glinted off the green-blue water was tranquil and transporting.  The American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”  Looking all around me I was surrounded by countless amazing living creatures — both inside and out — as well as water pouring and contained both inside and out.  Relaxing and inviting; wondrous and mysterious:  these were the thoughts I took away from this reimagined resort of the mythical city of Atlantis.  I would say it definitely magnified echoes of its spirit.

The next day we traveled off the island and ventured into Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.  Walking down the dock from Paradise Island to get to the ferry there were women offering to braid my hair.  I’d always wanted to have lots of tiny cornrows for the beach, complete with beads rattling.  But then something else I had wanted even more caught my eye.  There was a large native woman with kind eyes and a sweet face standing near the water deftly brandishing a giant cleaver knife.  As a vegetarian, this would normally have sent me running.  And then I saw it — she was holding a pineapple and proceeded to expertly pour all sorts of rum and heaven only knows what in it along with some ice.  Above the fresh-cut fruit the frozen concoction was garnished with a straw placed jauntily at an angle.  My eyes pretty much popped out of my head.  “Bahama Mama take care of you,” she said with a smile and a knowing wink.  Fortified with my rum we rode the ocean waves a short distance to shore.  With thoughts of rum (as well as actual rum) swirling in my head, we all decided to visit the Pirates of Nassau Museum.  Of course this was a more lively museum than a stodgy one, with jocular actors scattered about dressed in character to draw people in.  First we stepped into a re-creation of a typical period ship where everyone passed through in close quarters.  All along the walls were interesting facts about piracy.  They also debunked various myths about pirates including “‘X’ marks the spot” and walking the plank.  The Pirates’ Code of Honor was extremely harsh.  I learned about marooning, the acceptable practice of putting a crew member who had broken the code ashore on one of the many uninhabited islands.  The ship would never return.  There was definitely a type of honor in the Code, though; among them was that a pirate was never to hurt a woman.  The American author Robert Kurson said:

“Piracy was risky business, and injuries were commonplace; a single lost limb or gouged-out eye could end a pirate’s career.  To encourage pirates not to hesitate in battle – and out of a sense of fairness – many pirate crews compensated wounded crewmen in predetermined amounts.”

They had an interesting flag room, complete with the Jolly Roger, the infamous skull and bones.  I was also surprised to learn there were women pirates, too.  During Prohibition in the U.S. rum-runners in the Caribbean went from smuggling rum to Florida, to Canadian Whiskey, French champagne, and English gin to major cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago.  It was said that some ships carried as much as $200,000 in contraband in a single run.  Coming to the end of our tour our little one was now on the lookout for pirates.  And, with dramatic flair, we met up with one!  He gently swooped her up and pointed his sword at the rest of us, asking if we “be friend or foe.”  Rather than being scared she emitted a tiny giggle; her golden curls bouncing in the afternoon sun.  Our matey put her down after I’d gotten this picture and we had lunch in this adjacent tavern.  In keeping with our theme, I had a Rum-Runner.

When you first enter Atlantis one cannot help but look up in awe at the magnificent fountains, the giant pillars, the imagined murals and tapestries depicting former Atlantean life, and — most of all — the enormous circular tank full of sea creatures that swim all around you, fed by the ocean’s natural currents.  I do not normally condone animals in captivity ever.  Sadly, some places like zoos and wildlife preserves have now become our last bastions for trying to save and/or revive entire animal species.  With overhunting, overfishing, overpopulation, pollution, and flagrant disregard for land conservation and water protection, some of these “parks” ironically have become our final hope in many ways.  Wildlife needs wilderness; wild spaces and wild places for them to not merely survive but to thrive.  The legendary French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said:

We must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters.  That is what civilization is all about – farming replacing hunting.

That is exactly how Atlantis felt to me … like a great farming “civilization” rather than a hunting one.  I was thrilled to discover Atlantis protects their wildlife and has even pioneered breeding programs for some of the ocean’s native sea creatures there.  As someone who will never support places like Sea World, I felt Atlantis seemed to be for the perpetuation of species, and their breeding programs put sea animals back out into the ocean where they belong.  The next morning we walked down to breakfast through a winding trail of beautiful native foliage.  Dotted along the way were whimsical, mystical ocean touches, and even an open shallow pool for live conchs.  Right outside our window we watched the stingrays having their breakfast while we had ours.  I would like to believe such a civilization can exist … where mankind and animals live together in harmony and prosperity.  Like the the critically endangered red wolves, the rare black panthers, and the vulnerable white rhinos, I do not want to see our precious, priceless wildlife reduced for future generations into nothing more than mythical creatures.