Okay, it isn’t storming the Bastille, but it is my Americanized version of French life. The French are in the streets!! Right outside my hotel’s front door! They aren’t wearing berets; they don’t have angry looks on their faces. Some have the leather attire; some proudly wave posters “Macron likes the Rich”; some pound their small kitchen pots in appropriate unison with words coming from marchers’ words. “To the barricades”!! Well, not quite.

Imagine the Decatur Book Festival with a French political twist. Some are there to browse the temporary book stalls. Some are there to meet authors; some are there for the public debates. But…there are booths supporting all sorts of causes: free trade, Greenpeace, Support for Cuba, SOS Mediterranean, Equitable Wages for All Humans, Amnesty International, LGBTQ, and more.

No clashes between the marchers and the police. No loud shouts “Down with fascist Macron. ” No gas filling the air. No sirens from police vans rushing to the scene. Although I did see the police and para-medics help two people: one a young stall volunteer who collapses for some unknown reason, another an elderly lady with arm crutches who sinks to the ground ten feet from me. Fortunately I get a policeman’s attention who is nearby.

During this Via Francigena, I’m as interested in the world I pass as much as the world inside me. I may not understand much of what is occurring, but I can at least notice and wonder!