There was a moment on the way to Charles de Gaulle airport Thursday morning when I looked up to see Jerry laughing with a young black man on the train. He too was headed toward the airport. When we arrived Jerry told me that the man had leaned over and said something, Jerry said to him “That’s not French” and that’s when they laughed because he was speaking an African dialect. Jerry speaks an international language which is kindness. He always has but I love to catch it to remind myself how fluent he is in so many ways. Later while we waited to check in at our airline he helped a woman get to a plug for her phone and then in Dublin, he paused and helped security reload trays on a conveyer system while I put my shoes on. It’s these small moments I’ve witnessed for the past forty years.
And it is
exactly forty years this month since we first met. It was 1983 in Naples Italy
and he and Tommy D. Strickland came bursting through the computer space where I
worked. Tom was part of the command I was stationed at, and he and Jerry had arrived
on the same flight and had attended intercultural relations (ICR) class
together. ICR gave you a review of Italian life and culture, some language, taught
you how to ride the buses and trains, etc., I’d been in Italy since March and
had a few acquaintances, but Jerry and Tom and I became good friends, and then
another, Kathy, came to our command in February. That was our core, for a while
and then Mary Jane arrived, and we had a nice group. One of our big events was when
we drove North in two cars to the National Park of Abruzzo and camped.
I knew Jerry for a good while
before we ever started dating. And Europe is always the backdrop to our life.
Jerry likes to say, “What are the chances that someone from Joseph Oregon, and
someone from Moundville Alabama will meet in Agnano Italy, and fall in love?” So,
it is good to go back to Europe, had I been thinking more clearly when we decided
to go away for Christmas I would have chosen Naples. But Paris is always a good
idea.
On this trip, we stayed in a small apartment in the 7th arrondissement. We had ten days and no agenda aside from being. Being with one another and being in Paris. The 7th arrondissement includes the Eiffel Tower and the surrounding gardens. [Small note: On Wednesday the 27th, it was the 100th anniversary of Gustave Eiffel’s death; the workers at the tower went on strike.] There was a concentrated effort to visit places we had never been: the Rodin Museum, the Paris Flea Market, Place Bastille, the Pompidou Center, and Montparnasse, etc., I’ve been trying to get to Eugene Delacroix Museum for a while and we were blocks away and it is temporarily closed; c’mon! We found the oldest church in Paris, the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés; I took Jerry to the Luxembourg Gardens, the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, and to a small park next to the bookstore. From there we went to the Pantheon and into the church of Saint Gertrude, the patron saint of Paris.
