I remember how, after seeing Notre Dame in Paris for the first time, loneliness arrived without any warning. I was alone, my Algerian companion was either shopping or plotting with her comrades their own revolution, when I decided to go around the city, to visit sites that I initially thought to be too touristy. My first stop, Notre Dame, astonished me. A middle-aged lady from New Jersey said to me that she wouldn’t mind getting married there, to let the weight of the church become the symbol of her vow.
It was right at that moment that loneliness stepped forward and looked at me. Notre Dame became a summary of my losses, an alienating monument that evoked a desperate and frantic attempt to connect with former lovers, with people I’ve been with, with those who were close to me. Anything, anyone, just to deny that I am truly alone. It was Notre Dame at first, then Eiffel, Mont Mart, Arc de Triomphe: each one offering a testimony of sadness, each one telling me that the heart grows heavy before it breaks.
Which brings me to the point of this entry. Where I am right now is far from Paris, but tonight, everything – the ordinariness of cabs parked in the streets, the stray dogs scouting for a quick meal, the beggars – they are all saying that the heart grows heavy before it breaks.
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
– Elizabeth Bishop
