14 July
July 14, 2020. Happy holiday, France! This year I had planned to make one of my dreams come true – to be in Paris for the national holiday and to dance with the firefighters… well, it will be another July 14, not in 2020.
From the Day 1 of the blog, my love for French culture has been here in one form or another (even its name is French*). I am pretty sure this inspiration will always be present, and on days like the last ones in Bulgaria, I often think of the fighting spirit of the French people, the strong sense of defending rights and seeking justice, their readiness to protest (and strike) even in case of the slightest manifestation of irregularity or infringement of liberty.
Today I decided to share a comment that appeared under an article in The New York Times after the attacks of November 13, 2015. A paragraph that captures and summarizes the essence of a culture, a way of life and that typical French je-ne-sais-quoi…
France embodies everything religious zealots everywhere hate: enjoyment of life here on earth in a myriad little ways: a fragrant cup of coffee and buttery croissant in the morning, beautiful women in short dresses smiling freely on the street, the smell of warm bread, a bottle of wine shared with friends, a dab of perfume, children playing in the Luxembourg Gardens, the right not to believe in any god, not to worry about calories, to flirt and smoke and enjoy sex outside of marriage, to take vacations, to read any book you want, to go to school for free, to play, to laugh, to argue, to make fun of prelates and politicians alike, to leave worrying about the afterlife to the dead.
No country does life on earth better than the French.
Photo: Martina Todorova
* inspiratrice (fr) – inspirer
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