The photo below may look like an ordinary view of a man and a woman jogging on a bike path in Paris, but there’s something extraordinary going on here.
They passed in front of me as I left my building. They were walking at the time. I walk just behind them to the end of the street. At the corner they stopped, smiled at each other, recited the final lines of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”—Well, shall we go? / Yes, let’s go—and set off on their jog.
I took this picture just as they pushed off, the man two steps ahead of the woman.
They appeared to be 25 to 30 years old and looked well enough together to be a couple enjoying the weekend together, or perhaps a brother and sister. But no matter the relationship, what’s most surprising, particularly viewed with American eyes, is that they were together at all in these t-shirts.
I only saw the t-shirts from the back, as you do here. The man’s reads le monde a besoin de philosophes (the world needs philosophers) and woman’s reads oui à la vie (yes to life).
Oui à la vie/Yes to life (not to be confused with the British cancer support association of the same name) promotes itself as a traditional pro-life pro-family organization, while professing the world’s need for philosophers would appear more at home in the affirmative pro-choice camp.
If these were Americans, I would imagine the man as member of the graduate softball team at Vassar, and the woman on her way to a Santorum rally in Oklahoma. If they ever came to Paris they may have enough of a chemical or cultural connection to start flirting in the line to go up the Eiffel Tower, but I doubt they’d caucus long enough to wake up and go jogging together.
I don’t read into this any particularly virtuous tolerance on the part of Parisians. I’m simply struck that these two, in their somewhat opposing t-shirts, should look so happy to push off together after reciting the final lines of “En Attendant Godot” (“Waiting for Godot”).
Vladamir: Alors on y va? (Well, shall we go?)
Estragon: Allons-y. (Yes, let’s go)
But something held Vladamir and Estragon together, too, didn’t it?
I am reminded of another line of that play:
Voilà l’homme tout entier, s’en prenant à sa chaussure alors que c’est son pied le coupable.
“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”
(c) 2012 Gary Lee Kraut
Wonderful musing, Gary! It asks questions with no answers–we need more of these. And we need more of the sound of feet on the street and looks that say, “allons -y.”