Reims/Epernay

So, I could've left France today, but decided to stay one day extra so that I could go to Epernay, even though as you know I'm not much of a oenophile and in particular I'm not a big fan of fizzy wines (don't ask me why, that's just the way it is!), because being in the Champagne region and not going to Epernay is a bit like having landed in Annaheim and not going to Disneyland. ;P

Anyway, Epernay, as expected, was not too exciting for a fizzy-wine resister like me, so I came back to Reims early and visited its UNESCO sites, including the Cathedral and its Palace du Tau, the bishop's residence and palace.

The Palace du Tau had some very interesting exhibits of the belongings of King Charles X, including spectacular royal mantels, crowns, necklaces, staffs, jewels, in sum, all kinds of sumptuous objects designed to mark and exalt one person above all the rest, as if they were somehow special, not because of who they were, or what they accomplished, or how they smiled or wrinkled their nose, even, but by luck and circumstance of birth.

Now, I won't go on here about how all people are equal, and how no one is of no more value than another, that every life is special, blah blah blah and so on and so forth. There have been too many things written about that already, and besides, that is a bit too obvious a segue, and I think by now you know me (I hope), much better than that.

What I did want to say, though, is that the day I find him he will be special and extraordinary and exalted above all others, not because of what he has, or what he gives me, or what he looks like, or what he has accomplished, even, but because I made him so, because it was I who chose him, because it was I who spent the time with him, because it was I who remembers him when he is away, because it is me who sees him when he walks in the room with a sunny crown around his hair, invisible to everyone else but me, and warms my heart with laughter so majestically every day just from knowing that I'll see him, because I made him, because it was I who gave him this "shininess" and extraordinary value, this thing that sets him apart and above all others: it is something that you can't just intrinsically have, you see, unless someone gives it to you.