Crickets in the Underground and Dinosaurs Among the Medicinal Herbs
From the desk of the artist Alana Clohessy, in a small corner of Paris, on the Left Bank of the Seine.
Friday, 29th November 2024. 8°C and Overcast.
Tea in my cup: Twinings English Breakfast with milk, no sugar.
This week it was recommended I try Kusmi, St. Petersburg Tea. I have not yet been able to find it but as soon as I do, I will share a cup with you. In the meantime, if you have a tea that you love and would like me to try, please let me know. I will share a cup with you as I write my next letter. We are only ever one cup away from our next favourite tea.
The end of the year is barrelling towards us. My goals for 2024, that I set at the end of last year, are looking at me accusingly. By the time this letter reaches you, November will be behind us as the sleigh bells of December carry us through the last month of the Gregorian calendar. I will set new goals for 2025 but not yet. There are still four weeks left. Who knows what could happen. In the words of Lenny Kravitz, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”. So let’s see what December holds for us.
I went to the Christmas light display in Jardin des Plantes (Garden of Plants) last night. Jardin des Plantes is a 24 hectare botanical garden in the heart of Paris with 19th century greenhouses, various galleries of scientific study and a menagerie.
It was founded in 1635 by King Louis XIII, as the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants. It’s main function was to facilitate the training of apothecaries and future doctors but also as a garden for the enjoyment of the public. It is one of the oldest French scientific institutions. On the 10th June 1793, the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History) was established and took over Jardin des Plantes as both a museum and a research centre. To this day the gardens, galleries and menagerie remain under the purview of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. Since its inception, the Jardin des Plantes remained open to the public.
During lockdowns, I walked through Jardin des Plantes most days. The people of Paris were given one hour of outdoor activity, timed on a compulsory app through our phones. Police on foot and horseback, would carry out random checks.
I would make my way towards the hidden entry to the Alpine Garden - a protected microclimate growing over two thousand species of mountain plants from around the world, nestled below the pathways of Jardin des Plantes. There, I would sit on a stone bench under an old Pistachio tree planted by botanist, Sébastien Vaillant, in 1702. The very tree that was used to scientifically prove plant species have sexual characteristics. Sometimes I would bring a croissant. It was an escape from the world and the uncertainty that confronted us. The trees would sway and the stream would gently trickle past. Very few people ever came down there. When my 60 minutes of allotted time was almost up, I would regrettably walk home again, to sit indoors and avoid the statistics that bombarded us on the news.
The Alpine garden is busy again now. People have discovered the underground entrance. My stone bench is rarely free. Smiling couples and elderly friends sit and talk. Nod kindly as I walk by. I weave my way along the stone paths without time restriction. Hear the macaws in the menagerie over the wall. The wild green parakeets, the once exotic pets turned fugitives who have now made Paris their home since the 1970’s, flit through the branches above my head. Speaking of fugitives, crickets can also be heard in the underground Metro in late August early September, as droves of Parisians return to the city after their vacations down South, unaware of the hitchhikers transported back to the capital on their clothes and suitcases. I listen for them during the last warm nights of summer.
Places in times of hardship take on a personality, an energy only the individual who experienced it, can relate to. A walk in the Alpine garden for me, is to visit an old friend. A wise embrace. Who else in the past 400 years has wandered down the tree lined alleys of Jardin des Plantes and listened to the birds in the menagerie? How many have found cures to ailments and disease within the soil of the garden beds, as flowers dance above them in the breeze? What medicine, that is now common place, can we thank for being grown within the beds of the garden? What world events did the people before me endure and find solace within its walls?
Each year from late November to early January, the tree lined walkways of Jardin des Plantes are festooned with moving and static light installations based on a theme. This year the theme was Jurassic Illuminations or Jurassique en Voie d'Illumination in French. Based on recent publications and scientific evidence, the Jurassic Illuminations walk you through five paleo-environments showcasing the biodiversity of the Jurassic era, a time before flowers and grass existed. From the deep oceans and the giant creatures that inhabited them, to the dinosaurs that roamed the earth, we are given a glimpse of what the world looked like when birds first took to the skies.
All of this was accompanied by gurgling ocean sounds and what scientists have determined through modern technology, as the sound dinosaurs made. These were not the roars of dinosaurs that I grew up with but a haunting guttural sound that would stalk you through your dreams. I jumped while clutching my hot chocolate on several occasions. I looked around expecting young children to be crying in fright. They skipped happily along. I suppose it depends on what you are used to. It was the first night where I felt really cold. A chill wind blew in off the Seine and through the gardens. I like to call it balaclava weather where the only body part you can leave exposed are your eyes.
At the top of the gardens there was a wooden chalet selling hot chocolate, mulled wine and churros. There was also raclette. Myself and my boyfriend shared a bag of warm, freshly cooked churros and a tiny pot of nutella to dip them in, as we continued along the lighted paths. Our breath puffed white in front of us.
Smoke machines with step sensors dotted the paths. I heard the giggles of many a grown adult as they stepped on the sensors, the machines whirring into life, blowing smoke rings into the cold night air. To be immersed in a world of colour, light and sound under the night sky unlike what we have ever known, allows one to embrace frivolity and wonder at what could have been.
I found myself giddy by the time I left. Perhaps it was a lack of warm blood to the extremities or a sugar high from the churros but whatever it was gave me a sense of what it is to live upon this earth. An insight into how fleeting this existence is. Such huge creatures to have disappeared, their sounds lost. I walk around thinking this world and its buttery croissants will last forever but how long before another creature walks this earth wondering at lighted versions of us? Daffodils and roses long gone, illuminated under a night’s sky. An imagined recording of how our voices may have been.
Our writing allows a record to be left behind, as long as there are those left to decipher it.
I wonder at lost civilisations uncovered in the Amazon, the rubble of advanced cities overgrown with moss. Ireland has 5000 year old stone passage tombs dotting the landscape, aligned with the sun and stars, built by a people before the Celts. They no longer walk this earth, their DNA no longer detected in living things. There is no one left to tell us how they spent their days or why they built these quartz covered tombs - temples of spiritual, astrological, religious and ceremonial importance. We can only speculate.
All we know for certain, is this world is for us to live in now. There will come a time when only the stones of this earth, will be the ones to remember us.
Au revoir - until we meet again,
Alana x
This is my favorite post by you so far Alana, loved it! I've never seen a pistachio tree.