While flying home I was quite sick. It was hard to think. All I could do was listen to Half Mile High and watch movies. It was November 4^th; I tried not to think about the next day. And I dreaded how I was now one of the ones coughing.

I remembered too how it began. I was sitting on a Viking bus heading somewhere. It started with one cough and a cringe. And then another and another. “Oh my, I must put my mask on”. But forget it, by day 3 it’s a cacophony of frogs coughing. No safety in numbers, just a scratching annoying noise, and now it seems I have been overtaken by a recent variant apparently out of Germany (June 2024, XEC) – Just my luck, eh.

So it was in this mushed, catatonic, and cathartic state that I, like many others, watched and felt the shift that occurred on the 5^th of November.

My mind drifted back to Bordeaux. What was it that I picked up on, something. I kept thinking of Bruno.

Of all the guides we had on excursions not one could match up to Bruno. He was so coy yet amusing and challenged us to search our brain cells for answers to historical questions we should know just having chosen to come all this way. I didn’t blame him. Do you know where you are? Do you realize what happened here 80 years ago, 400 years ago? 2,000 years ago? How about in the last 20 years? How about right now?

He was tenacious and irreverent in cajoling us. As a quasi-student of history at one point I felt as an apprentice, at another, utter anguish, how could I not have known this or that fact?

Paris was now passé. The coolness of wandering the streets of Bordeaux, no cars, outdoor cafes. All of the limestone buildings cleaned to a sparkling white or beautiful beige. Easily walking or riding bikes along the Garonne River everything so well done, so beautiful, so striking. “So Bordeaux”, Bruno would exclaim.

And at low tide along the river you could see sunken vessels, ships the Germans sunk purposefully as they fled occupied territories. Creating quite a nuisance and a clogged river that would take years to clear as money was tight after the war. And even then, some still remain today in 2024.

We heard stories of everyday people who did amazing things to stifle the Germans and quietly assist those fleeing. The Resistance was a compilation of everyday people who did amazing things, who quietly took risks helping others. We heard too of American spy, Virginia Hall, her story told in the book and soon to be film, A Woman of No Importance. In 1942 she was considered the most dangerous of the Allied spies wanted by the Gestapo.

Now sitting numb in front of a TV. I turned it off, I was tired of the noise. I didn’t want to hear anything else about it, the shock was enough. I long to believe that I live in a country in which I can believe in.

A song for the times… American Dove by Laura Nyro

I really liked how proud Bruno was. Even as skeptical and ornery as he was about certain facets of the history of France, even going back to the time of the Romans – you could not help but see how proud he was of his own city having been restored to greatness by those intent on living there now.