The Weight of Footsteps
Today we're taking the dogs to a beautiful Belgian town called Mechelen. (That's me with Miche, one of the lucky dogs who gets to go, just above.)
I've been there once before, so I already know one little thing I'll love about it. The cobblestones. Not because they're picturesque, although they are. Not because they photograph well, although they do. I love them because they have been walked on by thousands of feet for hundreds of years. Merchants. Children. Widows. Priests. Soldiers. People carrying bread home for supper. People carrying news they dreaded to deliver. People hurrying toward weddings. People walking away from funerals.
The cobblestones remember none of them individually, of course. That's not how memory works. And yet...sometimes when I stand in an old place, I find myself thinking less about history and more about continuity. Someone stood here before me. Maybe a king. Perhaps a famous poet. But also, just a person. Someone who worried about money, loved a dog, missed someone, wondered whether they had made the right choice. Someone whose entire life felt as immediate and important to them as mine feels to me.
I think that's why I love old places and why France feels newly magical every single day.
They remind me that history is made of people, not just events. And in much the same way that a village is not its churchyard, a road is not its stones.
A place becomes itself because of the ordinary lives that pass through it. Perhaps that's why I wrote Apricity. I was fascinated by the idea that everyday people still had to fetch water, bake bread, tend horses, and bury their dead while history was happening around them. Great events survive in books or art or even music, but the ordinary lives disappear unless someone notices.
So, for the next few days, I'll walk through Mechelen with two dogs, taking photographs and probably staring at the ground more often than is strictly necessary. (And eating those incredible Belgian frites avec mayo! Miam, miam (as they say here in France).)
I'll be looking at the stones and wondering who else has stood where I'm standing.
Notice things, my darlings. And, as always, feel free to comment with your own stories. I'd love to get to know you all.
~ Shannon ᭄᭡ ͏
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