1936-09: (Perez Reflects on Her Encounter with the Citadelle — While Sylvain Wrote About Restoration Perez Reflected on Her Encounter with the Structure, Des…

1936-09: (Perez Reflects on Her Encounter with the Citadelle — While Sylvain Wrote About Restoration Perez Reflected on Her Encounter with the Structure, Describing the Largesse of “the Heroic Dream of the Black Heart Written in Those High Steps” Constructed to Watch for and Ward Off Foreign and National Enemies, Perez Recalling Feeling “a Previously Unknown Emotion” When Arriving at the Foot of the Structure and Looking Up — Humbled and Overtaken with Inspiration Gratitude and Reverence for the Fortress Whose Walls Reached 130 Feet into the Sky There Was No Other Place to Release the Valve of Her Emotions Except into the Future — So She Wrote a Letter to Her Four-Year-Old Niece): While Sylvain wrote about restoration, Perez reflected on her encounter with the structure. She described the largesse of the heroic dream of the Black heart written in those high steps, constructed to watch for and ward off foreign and national enemies. Perez recalled feeling a previously unknown emotion when arriving at the foot of the structure and looking up. Humbled and overtaken with inspiration, gratitude, and reverence for the nineteenth-century fortress whose walls reached 130 feet into the sky, there was no other place for her to release the valve of her emotions except into the future. So she wrote a letter to her four-year-old niece — the emotion was too large for the present tense, and so Perez poured it forward into a child who would carry it into a future the aunt could only imagine.