Ooh, good point. I did not cause Norte dame to burn down today. Winning!

I wonder if that kid will be super ashamed of their parents when they find out.

Is it weird that I'm still sad, but also kind of comforted by the knowledge that nothing lasts forever? I'm not sure how to explain it. Maybe it's that impermanence makes things precious.

I've thought about that several times today too, Cindy. Like how do you live with having caused that level of damage.

I've been feeling guilty on the hypothetical person's behalf, Laura.

Connie, my daughter and I were saying I think these might be those kind of incidents, where they're so horrific, you convince yourself it had to be your co-worker who did it. Who could live with that?

Emily, according to this article [link] it's a boy.

This one says the family hasn't revealed the baby's sex: [link]

Wow. Apparently, François-Henri Pinault (aka Salma Hayek's husband) has already donated $100 million euros to rebuilding Notre-Dame (part of Macron's speech was calling for a national campaign to fund the rebuilding).

Damn, I held it together pretty well reading various reports and seeing pictures and videos, but I just clicked on the video of the people in Paris singing. Too much.

I had heard that the north rose window was gone, but they're saying it was saved.

Is it weird that I'm still sad, but also kind of comforted by the knowledge that nothing lasts forever? I'm not sure how to explain it. Maybe it's that impermanence makes things precious.

No, I think that makes sense. It also sounds like most of it is going to be OK, which is also comforting. I mean, big-ass stone doesn't burn.

big-ass stone doesn't burn

I find this super comforting. And, yeah, taht was kind of the point of building with stone, wasn't it?

It doesn't burn, but it can shatter or destabilize or cook. Or fall over when the wooden frameworks burn.

But there are amazing pictures of the vaulting from the nave, still standing.

Is it weird that I'm still sad, but also kind of comforted by the knowledge that nothing lasts forever? I'm not sure how to explain it. Maybe it's that impermanence makes things precious.

One of the things that's stuck with me from Bhutan was the embrace of impermanence simultaneous with a deliberate choice to hold a permanence of memory. So many of their sacred spaces, they'd say 400 years. Oh, but burnt down/earthquake several times. This was rebuilt 20 yrs ago. Less a focus on mourning what was lost, more creating again with the same spirit. Not rebuilding, not making better, just imagining again.

I like old stuff, I like wondering about the hands that have touched, the physical clues left to another human, so understanding the Bhutanese mindset was a reach for me. But those spaces felt no less touched by the human hands whose marks had been erased by disaster than those that survived them. It's in the purpose, I guess.