Jour de Bastille.
(Le Quatorze Juillet)
This is the National Holiday in France, that actually rivals my own birthday when it came to fireworks - apart from the ineviable July 4th fireworks that is.
How do you embark on a national holiday, that stood for freedom, for some -and doom for others- particularly the ones who lost their heads some 300 years ago. I suppose we could approach it with tactful sensitivity (if you were the plebian asking for antoinette’s head), or appropriate senility (if you were royal).
It could be a touch tactless to talk about another person’s national holiday, so i would be brief - the point to this, would be mostly about the commonality of having the entire nation (not the entire world, of course) being super Lit up in fireworks.
Every. single. year.
Sometimes, it can be slightly a thought that’s overcome with joy, or some other strong emotion unexplained, that demeanour of having remembered - and having been celebrated, or both. Or just the panic of having time slipped away - just like i suppose someone who liked their shoes in primary years, and outgrowing them, all of a sudden in the middle school years.
The last proper Bastille day, of any note whatsoever - was the 2016 one. A street party next to the french-owned bistro, was closed down for 6–2am mayhem, a DJ loudly blasting well-worn french records re-mastered in modern beats - and moderate drinking of overflowing punch and glasses of bubbly champagne - and lots of loud frenchmen singing loudly along in french drunken song, while students at the local insead were quietly engaged in quasi-intellectual conversations, was so far the most iconic. In other parts of France though, I would imagine it would be celebrated in pockets of villages and cafés in meadows, and farmers having family repasts and roasts all day.
There’s lighting up our lives from the inside, and there’s just highlighting things in the precipice of our time given to us - to help imagine why.
Why celebrate? :
- birthdays are about friends, and celebrating around their being present (here), as well as gifts to us (a blessing).
- knowing that there is a point to an anniversary — apart from the random drinking that adults tend to do around their birth anniversaries
- finding reason to celebrate -every year, you tend to take account around the time of your anniversary, not just the numerics or metrics of birthdays like that song, (in candles, in goals surpassed, in the benjamins you save in the knick of time), etc… , but really, more the qualitative factors in which you have improved, or levelled up your lives — year on year.
- because, this is the season to actually not really need one, it is literally a point of all-out personal pass for a party-till-you’re-knackered licence.
- merit-based citations: (you can fill in these blanks, on the numerous occasions that you were such a thrill of a human being - to you, your community, your ageing grandparents, the circle of friends that are dearest and nearest, to the workplace — and mostly, to others).
The French have an every-occasion is celebrated in moderation, that says until we actually reach the hilt and height of who we are, we need to tighten belts at all times. Which is a socialist -and soon, the world’s actual hush-down on being more-ish (what is the more is more nationals) - if there are still any in existence.
I would attribute this, on a light note, the fact that the iconic-electronique French duo Daft Punk, that has shut its music-making down (and like that beatles, disbanded) are now bowed to a kitsuné-esque mixing of their hits, whether they like it or not - as a tribute. Quite mixed about them -in the 90s they were quite annoying, but iconically, i was given a copy of “Around the World” in a goodbye letter skyped cheekily in 2009, and felt quite differently afterwards. Whatever happened, i quite liked the revival of “get Lucky” & thanks to the magical stylings of Pharrell Williams, revived the duo quite on their “Random (albeit nerdy) Access Memories” album.
And quite likely i would be found in my favourite French bistro, having a quiet latté as i read, & as i smell the steak frites in the bistro kitchens next door at sundown.
Call it encasing a spiritual purge, call it a prodigious account of being by all means practical, or because, we are being environmental anarchists at heart. There is nothing romantic about poverty -i suggest we tread lightly, on that occasion, with the reason why the Royals lost their heads, in the first place.
And realise, that this, is why we are in the now - mostly, because of a feigned (or *failed not) attribute of a tomorrow, that everyone is keen on achieving, and becoming - whether you are still around to actually see it, or not. But, keep in mind (even if you’re not a failed genius economist) that, a cost of a hydrangea from the supermarket then, is not the cost of a hydrangea in your vase later, and definitely not the same as the cost of a hydrangea 20 years ago.
Glum story, as is the very strong, stormy weather outside the window, as this goes to publish. But also, very apt.
