I saw dead people

Maybe this makes me macabre, or dark, but I loved Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Sure, there were a few tourists, but I wandered for hours feeling completely isolated but surrounded by dead people. It was oddly comforting and peaceful, and a beautiful place. Like a little town all by itself, on a green and quiet hillside, full of sleeping families waiting for more loved ones to come home. The tombs and graves were all individual works of art, sculpture, and architecture. Some simply had inscriptions of the family names, and some had moving poems or messages.

First I visited the tomb of Abelard and Heloise, my number-one reason for visiting. If you don't know the romantic story of these star-crossed 12th-century lovers, go read it now. In short, Abelard was a philosopher who moved into the house of Canon Fulbert. He fell in love with Heloise, the Canon's niece, who was supposedly a great beauty and one of the most well-educated women of her time. However, she was 20 years younger than Abelard and her uncle forbade the relationship and they were forced to part. They secretly married, and she had his baby but had to give him up to her sister to raise. Their love scandalized their community and changed their lives. They lived the rest of their lives apart, never marrying anyone else, but their love survived in eloquent letters. Six hundred years later, upon learning of enduring love story, Josephine Bonaparte was so moved by it that she ordered both of their remains dug up and entombed together in Pere Lachaise. After wandering lost for a while, I finally found their final resting place, although it was covered in scaffolding for renovation. At both of their feet was a little dog, watching them, waiting for them to wake up. Something about the story and the tomb and the little stone dog moved me to tears...maybe it was the cemetery and all the dead people around me, too. So yeah, beneath my snarky cynical exterior I am a bit of a romantic.


After noisily blowing my nose and wiping my tears (thank God for enormous sunglasses) I set off to visit some more dead people...Oscar Wilde, Colette, Sarah Bernhardt, Edith Piaf, and Frederick Chopin were among my stops. I even saw some grave diggers and a funeral taking place...strange to be walking among so much history and stories but having real life keep going on in the same place.

And yes, I did visit Jim Morrison's grave. As Stephanie knows, some of his songs were an important part of the soundtrack of our college years. There was no one else there, which was nice, although I was a little disappointed I didn't to get a photo of the requisite dreadlocked white college kid at the grave site...

And on the way out, I even made a friend, because cemeteries are cool like that. Some random French guy asked me if he could show me around to his favorite grave sites (ah, romance, Paris-style!) but I had to say, "Merci, non," as I needed to get back home. But we did chat for a bit, and it was an interesting end to my day with dead people.

To you and with you, always my heart. -Me

Love is more poignant in French.