Day Four in Paris: Catacombs and Ice Cream

The fourth day we spent in Paris was perhaps my favorite. This was the day that we went to the catacombs. The catacombs are an experience that is hard to put into words. As you descend down a narrow, winding staircase a mile under the streets of Paris the mind can not help to wonder what it is that you have in store through the archway, warning you that you are entering the kingdom of the dead. Once inside the Ossuary part of the catacombs you find yourself surrounded by the bones of countless Parisians. Pictures of the bones do it no justice; it truly is a kingdom of the dead. What is most amazing about the catacombs, other than the sheer volume of bones, is the obvious care that went into arranging them down there. The remains were stacked neatly, often times in patterns of crosses or simple geometric designs. This careful arrangement along with the numerous marble plaques with poetry or quotations on them gives the area a respectful feeling and keeps it from being simply macabre. It is clear that the Parisians have taken time to make the catacombs something more than a tourist attraction or a simple pile of bones; it has become a testament to the struggle and death that Paris has endured and that it has finally come out of in this last century. As we walked along the bone-lined path (the only one opened to avoid getting lost in the maze of tunnels and remains) we read poetry on death and dying. What an experience to hear the words of Victor Hugo while surrounded by such scenery. I will post pictures taken while in the catacombs but let me stand assured that they will in no way capture what it is like to really be down there with them, to be so close to so much of the history of the city.
The second half of my fourth day in Paris was spent in the iconic Café de Flore where, rumor has it, Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre would meet to discuss existentialism. It is only suitable then that we spent the day discussing De Beauvoir’s essay The Second Sex, and what it means to be a woman while dining on delicious French ice cream. The group, composed primarily of female grad students (with the exception of two brave men) had varying ideas of what it is that defines a woman. Is it simply a womb that makes one a woman or I there something more, something deeper that determines what you are? The conversation was made more interesting by the various age groups and lifestyles of the collected students. I, being a life member of the “no-baby club” had a very different idea of what it is that being a woman means. Others in the group discussed motherhood as the ultimate goal post for femininity while I struggled to refute that it is merely biochemistry that causes that feeling of correctness with a new child and that mothering is more for survival of the species that a definition of womanhood. In the end, like with many Socratic discussions, we came to no real decision on what it means to be a woman; I think however, that that was the intended outcome for the discussion. Not to come to any real answer, but to instead look at the question from all possible angle and learn more from our inquiry than by any real solution.