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The Narrative Arc

My Grandmother’s Last Gift Keeps Me Warm in a Cold World

Bombs, bullets, terror, and the love we can’t lose

Ryan Frawley
The Narrative Arc
Published in
7 min readJan 9, 2025

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The Gothic facade of Strasbourg Cathedral.
Strasbourg Cathedral. Photo by author.

“Architecture is frozen music” — Goethe

It’s big

That’s the first thing to say about it. It’s the first thing you notice as you come around the corner from Rue du Dôme and see the red-brown sandstone bulk of Strasbourg cathedral, a clot of blood in the heart of the ancient city. The tallest building in the world, I read somewhere, until 1874.

It’s not just big. It’s graceful. The unimaginable bulk of the Cathedral doesn’t press down on the earth, even as it dwarfs the lovely half-timbered buildings clustered around it. Instead, it looks like it’s taking off.

You look at it, and you think, that’s nice. Then you move on. It’s background. I know from experience that the longer you live with beauty, the less you see it. Those beautiful snow-crowned mountains, that soaring Gothic spire, that shining eye and heart-fluttering smile become something you barely see on a rainy Saturday on the way to the grocery store.

We took our photos, and moved on. The Christmas market was just starting to open up, and we were on the hunt for the mulled wine we could already smell steaming in copper…

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The Narrative Arc
The Narrative Arc

Published in The Narrative Arc

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Ryan Frawley
Ryan Frawley

Written by Ryan Frawley

Novelist. Essayist. Former entomologist. Now a full-time writer exploring travel, art, philosophy, psychology, and science. www.ryanfrawley.com

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