“You are always eager to make everything useful, yet here is a useless plot. It would be much better to have salads here than boquets.”
…the bishop replied, “You are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful.” He added after a moment’s pause. “Perhaps more so.”
- Victor Hugo: Les Miserables
Just as we know something is rotten in the state of Denmark from the smell of it, so do we know something is glorious in the state of France by the feeling in our heart wholly unhampered by pesky doubts of questions. There are always plenty of finger-pointing reasons we can name when we are unhappy or out-of-sorts, but often that deep-seated sensation of pure unadulterated happiness just simply is, neither the need to overly-analyze or any clear cause and effect explanation.
But if I had explain why my step is lighter and my conversations more free-flowing with friends or strangers on trains or why I’m feeling like I’m crossing back over some bridge to my childhood contentment (un-adulterated), I could name a few.
Simplest is that I more or less jumped through all those irritating, exasperating, frustrating and sometimes downright maddening hoops I had to get through to come out of the other side to the leisure of “vacation.” Nothing much to do for a couple of days but wander and wonder.
But the greater uplift I believe comes from the sensation I often have in Europe. That soaking-in of the charm of the architecture, the cleanliness of the streets, the attention to well-cooked food, the human-scale of small buildings, some car-less streets and many parks. In general, the attention to beauty, to quality of life over sheer quantity, of long lunch breaks, long dinners with friends and family, stimulating talks about art and literature and language and history from well-educated people who know so much and are so interested in learning more.
By contrast, the American mentality has long reduced everything to dollars and preferred efficiency and usefulness to beauty, quantity of life to quality of life, fast over slow, surface over deep, now over lasting and all of that manifests in a landscape of extraordinary natural beauty being littered with billboards and shopping malls and highways with fast food chains at rest-stops. Ugliness is okay as long as the goods are cheap, reading is reduced to sound-bytes and stock reports and magazines about celebrity’s lives. Just today I got an e-mail sent through my Website urging me to “turn my interest into income.” No thank you.
Well, there’s a sure-fire way to darken my happiness! Bring up my deep disappointment and sadness in the way my country has been willing to sell its soul to the devil of usefulness and efficiency and distraction and get-rich-quick schemes. So let’s cork up that malevolent genie back in the bottle and return to the grace of happiness restored.
The day began in Paris with a quiche and coffee breakfast eaten outdoors in lovely weather, watching the Parisians pass by on their way to work or school at a leisurely pace, no frantic edge to it. We walked to the train station and boarded the bullet train south. Truth be told, the increased speed was useful and efficient, but I missed the more pleasurable sensation of a slower trip through the countryside. But thoroughly enjoyed the spontaneous conversation with an Australian couple around our age who were also heading to a short bike trip.
The second train to Bergerac was a more conventional speed and began with a woman sitting across from our friends Dennis and Gerry who suddenly put on some music and said to Dennis, “Let’s dance!!!” And after continuing to insist after he politely declined, he finally did! A short minute, but hey, that doesn’t happen every day on train rides! She then went to talk with Gerry (in French) about her challenges being an Arabic woman in modern day French society.
From the train to the hotel and out to wonder this charming city. I believe that’s when my happiness started to rise, soaking in the loveliness of it all. Stopped for an afternoon ice cream, peeked into a shop window with delightful wooden toys for children, another with handcrafted items including wooden spoons which Dennis convinced me to buy because I loved their sound playing them as a musical instrument, walked along the river a bit, sat down for a late afternoon glass of wine (we’re in France, after all) and then continued on to a delicious Vietnamese dinner where I taught my other six companions the cork trick (too hard to explain here), much to everyone’s delight.
One of the store windows had these picnic baskets and they captured everything I’m trying to express here about paying attention to the fine things in life. The exquisite woven baskets, the carefully-made places for real silverware, wine glasses, bottle openers, plates and more. No paper plates or plastic spoons and forks or take-out fast food in styrofoam containers. Things carefully and artfully made and long-enough lunch hours or leisurely weekend to take them out and lay out a tablecloth on a picnic table alongside the river with home-cooked food, fresh bread, fresh fruits and vegetables and of course, some wine or Perrier sparkling water.
So as that marvelous French author Victor Hugo said above:
“The beautiful is as useful as the useful… Perhaps more so.”
At the very least, it makes me happy.
