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This is my second blog, a friend upon reading my first one sent me a message quoting Henry Miller, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” On this easter Sunday I see the Notre Dame in new light. The explanation of when something will become important is a mystery we secretly hold somewhere within.

It was a cold winter day which was no reason not to wander around and explore. I was deeply in love with my husband to be which made everything even more romantic than it already was on that strange and early snowy Paris February evening. Rarely does it snow in Paris nor do I travel to a destination if it isn’t for work. This time I accepted to be the kept lady accompanying her boyfriend on a business trip.  The snow began to fall at a rate that extended by eyelashes into heavy feathers. I followed the most beautiful path possible, the one that had a freshly laid blanket. Killing time until my boyfriend came back from work I didn’t argue that my freezing wet feet kept moving, they apparently had somewhere to go.

In order to keep my camera dry I only took it out at the most obvious of moments. Unexpectedly at what I thought was a bizarre moment, I was standing in front of one of the most impressive churches in the world. It was quiet, the first hours of snow has a habit of doing that. The people were motionless just like the sculptures in the park. Images were happening everywhere. The stairs that descended to the Seine river formed perfect rectangles and the branches of the trees gave the organic shapes needed to frame the perfect scene. I shot away even though the water was now rolling around on my focus screen and the lens was all fogged up. The best hour to photograph is the whitching hour and on this day the glow of it´s navy blue light mixed with the snow illuminated the tower on top the Notre Dame as a silhouette shaped like a gigantic arrow shooting into the heavens. Little did I know that a year and some time later the photographs I took of that arrowing spiral would become even more important to me than before.

Photographing the Cathedral that day would be the last time I would see her before its horrific tragedy. As gothicly ironic as it may be its history has once again burned into another dramatic tale. I don’t watch much hard news anymore in fact I hardly ever turn on the television due to the abundance of sensational news, so upon the news that this magical tower was burning I decided to preserve my memory to that very special moment I had that strange and early snowy February evening in Paris.

Life can be just like that, here today and gone tomorrow. Maybe it all does happen for some reason and to some higher ground. I would rather believe that we are given lessons to learn appreciation and respect for what we have. Sometimes it is when it is lost that we admire and value its significance even more. Hard but true, when the tower was burning up in those dramatical ravaged flames, it then became more important, not only because of it’s history and culture but the artistic world it represents.