Seeking a way: memories of an encounter in Paris

I don't know quite yet where we will convene for Pesach, so I will wonder and wander among my memories. 

Among my fond recollections of yore is an encounter that took place in Paris, where I was to meet our first-born and return with her to Providence.  That day I took the metro to a familiar subway where as a student, I would join the subway seekers for onion soup with the truck-driver regulars. 

But even in Paris things change, and this time I came across a troupe of Roma. They brought their music and culture in the form of portable instruments, and I eventually joined them in a haunting and reflective song:

  "Le chemin Gitan is a grove of olive trees: but all the grass has been trampled under the feet of wonderers who have died seeking freedom and its pathways of liberty and have lost their way." 

Somehow these words sank in and affected me deeply. I learned them by heart and soul.  And as the troupe generously accepted me, it dawned on me that they too were seeking their way just as I was.  

MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) is a professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design.