On our college choir tour, we jumped off the bus for our free day in Paris – and ran hand-in-hand to Notre Dame, where we heard Sunday Mass with Duruflé sung by a stunning choir. Quite the spot for a first date, nineteen years ago in May.
Notre Dame has stood for centuries as a holy place, but also as a monument to mankind’s arts – architecture, painting, sculpture, music.
I can’t separate the place from the music, from the art. And I can’t separate it from the personal – from the magical day I spent there in 2000.
All grief is personal, and informed by our own experiences. So as I watched the arresting images of Notre Dame engulfed in flames today, the tragedy was made more tangible by the music I heard, by the architecture and stonework I saw, by the artistic beauty I witnessed firsthand.