those of you who have held still several times while i take your picture only to be told that...uhhh, it's blurry...(why? well, naturally because i refuse to use flash in situations that demand it...) are probably thinking:"how did she ever get those animals to hold still long enough?"
well, alright, they're not moving, but the 'natural-looking' procession (à la Noah's ark) does give one the sense that the animals of the African savannas are heading somewhere,...if only out of the company of groups of screaming school children on class trips to the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle ! the grande galérie de l'évolution is a sight in itself; renovated in 1994, it was originally called la galérie de Zoologie and was inaugurated in 1889.
[why the history lesson? when we went there during pedro's visit, we found the building fascinating. the steel railings give the great hall the feel of an old train station except that it has been divided up into several floors so one can look down on the procession - as in the photo - or one can walk alongside the animals. facts never seem to grant me the same potency as more metaphorical trains of thought, but the space begged for more familiarity with its history, hence the facts i culled from the museum website...]
the entire complex, including the Jardin des Plantes has expanded and evolved since its first incarnation as le jardin royal des plantes médicinales created by Louis XIII in 1635.
there are moments when i almost feel i missed my calling to be biologist or primatologist or some other kind of wildlife expert whose work would someday grace the pages of National Geographic...alas, no,...but at least i can imagine the possibilities like any eager student on a fieldtrip, moved by the encounter with these silent, stunned beasts.
graduate students should take more fieldtrips.
what is still, what is in motion these days?
my euphoric sentiments of the first weeks in Paris have settled into stillness.
if one could call 'in motion' the aspect of my intellectual pursuits at the moment, i would be happy. being somewhat relative, the movement of my ideas these days might be said to be locked into evolutionary time. i believe dissertation-finishing-time is a bit faster, but i'm told one eventually gains speed.
i am reminded of skiing with julia last march - when we compared our methods of attacking a slope - i would often end up watching her graceful descent, weaving from side to side like an even, slanted script, and i lagging behind or maybe gathering courage to begin. why does one need courage to set oneself in motion? did i want to prolong the moment before the rush of speed made everything sweep past me or through me or both? or, was it rather the kind of delay that comes from considering a decision one must inevitably make with too much deliberation? after all, one must start.
and once started, the descent is pure joy...well, it can be...sometimes it is sheer frustration as one breaks rhythm and is forced to make do with a sloppy descent, which ends up being a humbling reminder of physical weakness, mental fatigue, or the sign that the day on the slopes should perhaps come to an end. once at the bottom though, who can resist the urge to go up one more time...
there were times when abruptly - almost without thinking - i would set off and let gravity do most of the work as my knees did the rest. this was julia's observation, but it comforted me somehow as i thought that perhaps i am not too afraid to start, only too accustomed to imagining the immediate future as if i could rehearse it. there are always necessary pauses or moments to 'take in the view,' but one goes up the mountain in order to come down.
in the little video i took of julia skiing down our favorite run, she starts out as a small black dot whose motion brings her closer, she approaches in an even slalom, with only a tiny wobble at the end. what i like best, though, is that you can hear her laughter as she swishes to a halt behind me as i film the snow before me.
it's less than a second, i turn and film her, and as i'm writing this, i think i'm misremembering: when she's laughing, am i filming her? there was the even descent, the way she passed me too quickly, my turning - a bit cumbersome? -, her laughter, her coming to a stop, or her laughter at the end??
i filmed it, so all of the sudden, though there was no script, part of me wants to take it apart - flatten it into a narrative sequence - and the other part, the one that yearns for that sense of motion is content to remember hearing her laughter
as if the mere sound was an echo
of our daring.
