Paris Will Hear Music Once Again

As I sit in the wake of the destruction of my home after a Thanksgiving celebration that was so sweet in its blessings, I can’t help but reflect on the catastrophe that was the Paris terrorist attacks fourteen days ago… and corners of the globe that are not feeling terribly thankful, for reasons that are understandable.

This one hit me hard. Upon hearing the first reports out of Paris, it occurred to me instantly that an old High School friend had just taken his lovely wife to Paris to celebrate her 40th birthday. I immediately took to his Facebook page and was relieved to see that they were safe … for the time being, as his wife worded it in her post.

Thinking about what was happening in Paris, I related to the concert goers. I was once a young person, in Paris, in 1996, taking in a concert of an American artist. I couldn’t, however, even begin to imagine what ultimately unfolded for them … they were faced with unimaginable horror when they were, one second, enjoying their evening of live music, to the next second being showered with gunfire.

It was only 10 days before these events that I took to my Facebook page to reminisce about that night I spent in Paris, seeing Alanis Morissette, and one of my idols, Taylor Hawkins. It was just 10 days before that my husband gave me drums for my birthday and it was that concert in 1996 that inspired me to learn to play the drums.

I spent the entire next day, after the Paris terrorist attacks, glued to the news and I wept for my Parisian brothers and sisters. Not long after I sat to listen to those reports, a flash of footage from the concert hall attack came on my screen and it hit me like 1000 tons of bricks. The Bataclan - the very same venue that I had been to see that show, on a rainy night, in March of 1996. I remember the hall as if it were yesterday that I was there. I remember where I sat – house right, upper balcony. I remember that I had friends attending that show who jammed out on the orchestra level below. I was so overcome with emotion when I realized this coincidence. I reached out to those friends and shared my realization with them. One of them pointed out to me … ‘we didn’t even know what terrorism was back then.’ It’s true. Since that time, we have experienced terror attacks on our own home soil. I was in Washington, D.C. on 9/11/01. I remember the feeling of total and utter despair and fear. We were under attack and who knew what the next target would be.

I write this blog entry for a couple of reasons. I feel connected to the people who fell that terrible night at the Bataclan. I know I can’t even begin to understand the horror of their experience, but I write because, I want them to know, cosmically, that people stand with them in solidarity. I write for the therapeutic nature of sharing my experience. And I write this blog post in the spirit of She’s Under Construction because, on that day that I was gifted the drums, I embarked on a new journey to learn to play this instrument that I have wanted to learn since March of 1996, when I saw Taylor Hawkins at the Bataclan - and I’ll play and remember that venue and those people who lost their lives and their sense of security at the hands of cowardly terrorists. I will also learn to play in the spirit of not letting them win. Someday, the Bataclan will have music again. That same day, Parisians and their brothers and sister in humanity will join them there … and they will be bonded by the music and they won’t let terror win.