Chapter Five
She experienced the rest of her stay in Paris as glimpses. She experienced everything differently after Sebastine. She felt colors more than she saw them, she tried to see everything in details instead of large pieces and she lived between the moments. In many ways she became a better artist after that night under the Eiffel Tower. She felt her drawings and paintings with everything inside of her, laying her soul bare on her canvas.
She never saw the young priest again, though she revisited his church numerous times. Another priest seemed to have taken his place over night and the only response to her questions were that he had returned to his father's home in the south of France. He had not left the priesthood, however, he had only gone to minister over his hometown's church.
The day before she was supposed to return to the U.S. she visited the Louvre. She had been many times before now, sketching Michelangelo's David, Rodin's the Thinker and Venus de Milo. Every time she came here she thought of Sebastine, wishing that he had come too. She thought she saw a glimpse of him, but discovered it was just another beautiful Parisian and not the priest.
Leaving France was like death to her. As she had been newborn from the heavens into France so she was taken back to the heavens at her death. She knew it was only the first of many deaths she would experience throughout the years. Any time she left France behind it would be as a knife plunged deep into her heart.
As the airplane rose higher, she caught one last glance of her beloved Eiffel Tower. She was not sad to die this way, metaphorically speaking. She was actually happy to be going back to Indiana. She had missed her family and her friends. She thought about all the friends she had made in France and how she would miss them also.
Wasn't that the way of the world though? You tasted sweet and bitter, sometimes you tasted both together. Sometimes you tasted perfection, as she had, and sometimes you tasted nothing at all, only what had always been. France tasted like a bittersweet spice on her tongue, full of sweet memories with a bitter undertone of reluctance to leave.
She knew, however, that nothing would taste nearly as sweet as Sebastine's mouth.
She experienced the rest of her stay in Paris as glimpses. She experienced everything differently after Sebastine. She felt colors more than she saw them, she tried to see everything in details instead of large pieces and she lived between the moments. In many ways she became a better artist after that night under the Eiffel Tower. She felt her drawings and paintings with everything inside of her, laying her soul bare on her canvas.
She never saw the young priest again, though she revisited his church numerous times. Another priest seemed to have taken his place over night and the only response to her questions were that he had returned to his father's home in the south of France. He had not left the priesthood, however, he had only gone to minister over his hometown's church.
The day before she was supposed to return to the U.S. she visited the Louvre. She had been many times before now, sketching Michelangelo's David, Rodin's the Thinker and Venus de Milo. Every time she came here she thought of Sebastine, wishing that he had come too. She thought she saw a glimpse of him, but discovered it was just another beautiful Parisian and not the priest.
Leaving France was like death to her. As she had been newborn from the heavens into France so she was taken back to the heavens at her death. She knew it was only the first of many deaths she would experience throughout the years. Any time she left France behind it would be as a knife plunged deep into her heart.
As the airplane rose higher, she caught one last glance of her beloved Eiffel Tower. She was not sad to die this way, metaphorically speaking. She was actually happy to be going back to Indiana. She had missed her family and her friends. She thought about all the friends she had made in France and how she would miss them also.
Wasn't that the way of the world though? You tasted sweet and bitter, sometimes you tasted both together. Sometimes you tasted perfection, as she had, and sometimes you tasted nothing at all, only what had always been. France tasted like a bittersweet spice on her tongue, full of sweet memories with a bitter undertone of reluctance to leave.
She knew, however, that nothing would taste nearly as sweet as Sebastine's mouth.
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