I came to Paris to, as I simply describe, try finding myself a little, but not with a full on spiritual journey, but simply than that. I have learned that it may not have been the exact reason I came here, but more realizing what I want, what I don't want and learning to look at what I have, my life and all that it has with a more positive outlook. With realizing that finding myself is not this huge spiritual journey, that is not to say there isn't more I can learn about myself, things I love and things I hate, things I should appreciate more. Being in Paris has not yet given me a huge life changing realization sent down from the gods but it has made some things clearer. I should make clear that these more minor realizations and important thoughts came while walking, walking in two parks, Parc de Buttes Chaumont and Parc Monceau. Two writers, Thoreau and Wordsworth that evoke the idea of self discovery by isolation, and the idea of outside meditation, and nature were originally preaching something I used to not understand and shrug off as hippy stuff, but on my walks that changed.
Junior year of high school was my introduction to Thoreau. Some might consider that too late but I think otherwise. I think the core of his message, a message of finding something positive in loneliness is too deep or maybe to real to understand until you yourself can empathize with it. The message is not sad loneliness, but yet rooming oneself purposely from the very opposite, that being city life, full of people, full of social construct, full of social guidelines and expectations. In that he finds that there is something there in isolation, as if a forest where little happens has more than a city where everything happens. I did not understand this in high school, and even though I was only a few years younger than I am now, I understand it better now. To do what Thoreau did, a person must be willing to address how they feel about their setting, how that setting effects their life, and have no problem with realizing the negatives. Sure I agree with people who say “keep positive” but there is a point where if you don't find a sustained positivity in a place, a setting, than you have to accept that you need a change. Basically what Thoreau has done for me is underlined that when you feel you can no longer try adapting to a place, or a lifestyle, than look outside of that box. Junior year of high school half the year in an English studies class we learned the transcendentalist movement, eventually creating a project that would show and implement our understanding of different writers like Thoreau. So I am in tune with Thoreau's reason for leaving society, something I could and still can connect too. The emphasis in his works put on the fact the world (city life) he came from was never going to allow him to find himself, so walking and escaping that world to a quiet and open woods setting could make him realize something about himself or something greater than him just based on a setting, which I love.
Wordworth writes about the function of walking and how, similar to Thoreau, is a means for escaping the filled and crowded life we know too well.
"The earth is all before me. With a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about; and should the chosen guide Be nothing better than a wandering cloud, I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!"
-Wordsworth,The Prelude
People like Thoreau, Emerson and Wordsworth, preaching a transcendentalist type point overall are not shy to admit the refuge they find so much in isolation and complete lack of socializing. They are obviously happy with being away from people and social construct, but why? Is it a matter of fear or intimidation of being separated from something, not being part of something so much that you remove yourself t avoid being alienated socially?
All these type of self-finding authors like Wordsworth and Emerson who most famously said "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." It is the whole idea that you are better off finding what has not been found than something that has been discovered. For Wordsworth, the escape is mysterious, and finding this mystery is what he is set on. This is something I feel for in that, doing something you don’t know in life travel wise could end up a to better than going with the familiar choice, hence the reason I am in Paris for the first time, Europe for the first to add. This is getting to be something that has only been told by books though. The world now as we see it is known, going out and finding yourself like Thoreau is harder, there is more to escape and what there is to escape from is a world we depend so much on, a world of familiarity, technology and socializing. The nature filled land Thoreau loves so much is not upon our gaze as we walk by a park. That is a copy or natural nature, making it hard to appreciate it as much as a solid walk in the woods. When you think about it, its fucked up how society knows that tearing the natural world down and creating this flat industrial, skyscraper filled place is wrong, yet they will create this thing called a "park" to make up for it. Many people will fall for it and appreciate the park, which nothing is wrong with that, but in reality they are mocking earth, the earth that Wordsworth, Covereley, and Thoreau knew and used to benefit themselves, naturally. Now to do what they did people take short cuts, entrench themselves in media or zoo's, gardens and therapy, but there is also nothing wrong with using alternatives or falling for these things, because if you still get something great of them, out of yourself, why care.
The walks to those two parks did evoke some connection to this appreciation of nature through it evoking feelings and peace. At Parc Monceau I was not able to disconnect very well on this walk, not nearly as much as the last walk. The park did feel like the best place to lose myself and tap into a deeper level of thought. I understood the size was quite smaller than the last park but it still lacks. It was too man made looking and anywhere you went you could still see the city around you. With Parc de Buttes Chaumont, I did not even think it was fake till I started a second walk around looking more intimately. I needed this, head not being where I wanted it lately, and this really helped. By far was the best walk I have taken for years, regardless of whether that be because I needed it or not. I went in the morning and it was beautiful. It was not packed, although there were runners they usually never took the small paths that interested me, but the larger ones near the water. It was quiet, although getting a little louder in different places of the park still relatively quiet for being in the city. It didn't take long before the park started making me recall certain things through its nature. This went for Parc Monceau too. By the end of both these walks so many pieces of nature or statues made me remember certain places back home. At Parc Monceau I see a few trees that are identical to ones along my driveway. They take me back. I am reminded of the time it snowed a foot or more and I decided to push snow off the top of one of my dads cars, the one I believe he loved the most. I ended up scratching a lot of the top, which was found out about a month later when all the snow melted. My dad got angry and asked if I had dragged something on top his car, to which I replied no way! I preceded to blame it on the small tree that branches had been resting on the car due to the wait of the snow. I see a bush/plant thing that I saw at the Parc de Buttes Chaumont as well. I hate this thing usually but not seeing it here. I have wanted it gone for years, 19 years, but now if it takes me back home this much, I feel maybe I should accept and respect it. Even though I usually shit on this big bush/plant thing in my backyard,the bush that has eaten every ball from baseball to lacrosse to tennis ball in the world, I miss it. I also saw a statue thing that I believe has some spiritual context but that is also in my backyard, at least a very similar version. I never really look at mine back home but I stare at this thing for I would say 5 minutes, I don’t know.why, but I do. I remember lighting a candle and putting it inside the statues little open door but more remember hiding stuff in it because a tree and bush kind of hid it well. At Parc de Buttes Chaumont, minutes into my walk I was brought somewhere. The smell of plants, the fresh air just rained upon went into my nose but then into my brain. It was the smell of spring wanting to break through. Immediately I was brought to my farm in Virginia and a park near my house called Rock Creek Park. I smile, even though the french don't like it, screw them and there rules for now. I feel like I'm walking through the woods in Virginia on a brisk day, it is a great feeling. Now right now you could stop me and say well these writers weren't finding peace though recollecting about nature that reminds them of another place, but I disagree because if that place is somewhere they are fond of, and their personal goal is to better appreciate what they have, I find that their is no better way to achieve piece personally. I also believe finding peace is subjective is the way one goes out and does it, just look at all the different interpretations writers have spilled out for the last 150 years. The nature has its own way of assisting people, and me it seems that it is less of a present appreciation, but look back at somewhere in the past. Continuing, all the different birds floating around and chilling out on bushy areas around and in the pond brings me to another place. I am now transported to summer at my house in Marthas Vineyard and our pond, a pond that also has many different ducks and birds, swans (if thats not a duck) coexisting. It is reminding me of sitting and watching the pond for hours at times, the image of the moon hitting it, its like I'm there. I also start to notice the trees and how they are feeding into this as well, feeding into my memory pod. Many people talk about smells bringing them to places in their memory, upon my walk the trees and plants really helped bring me other places through this. I do not know trees or plants names but there were few that brought me back to my driveway in VA, a place I usually do not think too much about. Both days I went to these parks a little rain happened during my walk, but for the first time I did not care because I was not aimlessly walking and getting nothing out of it. Although one park was less beautiful it still was nice to sit-down and not look at streets. These places heeled clear my head, that is the first most important thing. My head is not easy to clear, but they did it, I let go and let what was in front of me be there, nothing more.
It is more important that I highlight the significance of all these different things like birds,plants, smells, and objects bringing me back, regardless. Maybe the authentic spirituality of nature lacks from an artificial park like this, but that does not mean I can't be better than that and find a way to pull out some kind of realization from it. And I did with using all of the aforementioned to take me different places. Honestly I now miss home, but I think thats a good thing, coming here and having that happen is a good thing. I am realizing what I should appreciate more, and that was the point of this, maybe I am not doing this on a huge scale but it is still important to me. I have not missed home, missed all I have back in the US (just talking about physical places, not people) for years, maybe since 2001 or 2002 I would say, and coming here missing it is a good thing because It is making me better appreciate what I have, what I would usually dust off, and take for granted. I plan on going home now and instead of going from the airport back to DC, the airport to my farm in VA because I appreciate it now, I miss it.
