Saints and Other Sources of Inspiration

When I lived in Brooklyn, there was this place called the L Café, where you could get a sandwich called the Edith Piaf. I recreated it for this morning’s breakfast: A small piece of baguette with plenty of Brie cheese and thin slices of crisp Granny Smith apple.

When the bottom falls out in my life, before I fall apart myself, I let my mind wander to the lives of those who walked the Earth before me. The most popular practice to inner peace these days may be yoga and transcendental meditation, but looking towards the lives of others work just as well. And a good hagiography, for instance, produces goose bumps that can take a person out of him- or herself faster than you can say “Bikram” and roll out your mat.

Through the years, I’ve gathered a little collection of personages, whose lives I find especially helpful in times of need. And I will share them here with you.

My most important source of inspiration, especially for those times in life when the coffers are low, is Madame Marie Curie (1867-1934). This Polish woman lived out her youth in a garret room in Paris surviving on cherries and radishes before her genius blossomed into a flame, comparable only to that of radium, the element she discovered together with her husband Pierre. In Eve Curie’s book Madame Curie, we get to know intimately this beautiful scientist who remained, to her last day, shy and unassuming in spite of her legend. Madame Curie shines brightest when you need proof that the impossible indeed can be done. In order to extricate radium out of the unremarkable mineral pitchblende, she spent years stirring a cauldron with an iron rod nearly as tall as herself, outside a leaky shed turned make shift laboratory. “The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer,” said Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Fridtjof Nansen. Madame Curie is the very image of that quote. Five inspirational stars.

In need of hope in a seemingly hopeless world? Let me present to you Joan of Arc, age 17. Born a simple peasant girl in Lorraine, France in 1412, Joan left home to save France in its battle with the English in the Hundred Years’ War. Her career lasted only a few years, but during those she managed to lift the siege of Orléans, get Charles VII crowned, and inspire a whole country to rise to its feet. Unlike many other saints who turn inward and become almost inaccessible, Joan is open, friendly and easy to get to know. She doesn’t lock herself up in a cell nor does she refuse drink or food. She is out there on the field, she is busy doing. On the 30^th of May in 1431 she is burnt at the stake in Rouen, and her remains are thrown in the Seine river. Every year on this day in France, girls put white flowers in the Seine in her memory. Joan of Arc is the patron saint of France, but she is also tremendously useful to those of us who experience a lack in faith or feel slow to act in life. Five inspirational stars.

Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950) is perhaps nearly forgotten today. Nothing of him exists on celluloid, and as a dancer he wrote on water. Nijinsky was called “le dieu de la danse” and was as such the undisputed jewel in the crown that was the Russian Ballet. Nijinsky remains an enigma, partially because of a bizarre diary he left behind and partially because his exit from the public eye was so sudden. He danced until he was 27, and lived in obscurity for the remaining 34 years of his life.

Nijinsky is inspirational simply because of the special leap he was able to execute, in which, eyewitnesses say, he “remained suspended in the air”. When asked how he achieved this feat, Nijinsky simply shrugged:

“You just jump up and stay up there awhile.”

The determined passion needed to be a dancer seems to have been particularly strong in Nijinsky and is why he’s the perfect image to conjure up when we feel our discipline slacking or when it’s been a while since we visited the gym. The reason I am somewhat hesitant in mentioning Nijinsky as a source of inspiration, however, is because of his last and fatal misstep. The diary I mentioned above shows us that sadly Nijinsky danced himself into schizophrenia and subsequent madness. Four inspirational stars.

Joan of Arc (or Jeanne d'Arc in French) has been a source of inspiration to me since I was very young. When I was about 14, I made the pillow case above with her image on it.