When you think of the French Open, you think of the world's greatest tennis players and the clay courts of Roland Garros.
You typically don't consider security personnel toting automatic weapons everywhere you look, detoured vehicle traffic, two security perimeters complete with now-customary airport-style pat-downs, wanding and bag checks. The number of security agents is said to be up 25 percent from a year ago. Then there are the bomb-sniffing dogs.
Welcome to Paris, city of lights and heavy security, still under a state of emergency six months after the suicide-bomb terror attacks that claimed 137 lives.
In the aftermath of those November attacks that targeted such public venues as the Stade de France soccer arena, another sports landmark, many here in America and around the world pledged solidarity, "Je suis Paris."
As someone who recently cashed in airline miles for a quick visit, which included a day of qualifying matches last week at Roland Garros, it's difficult to escape the implicit possibility we may very well become Paris -- if only out of an abundance of caution.
And if this Grand Slam tennis tournament indeed offers a peek at the future and response to global threats, our concepts of public space, access and movement will be greatly challenged.
This isn't closing off streets just outside Wrigley Field for a daily block party in which the Ricketts family can expand the area in which it enjoys the exclusive right to peddle beer and hot dogs to Cubs fans.
It's diverting traffic so there's a buffer zone free of crowds, separating the general public and those cleared to attend whatever is going on at the ballpark on a given day.
In fact, it could mean less commerce outside the ballpark, not more, so individuals entering the safe zone can be more effectively tracked between checkpoints.
Even the way fans buy, share and resell tickets could be affected.
You can't get near Roland Garros without a ticket, and ticket holders this year are told to assign their seats to specific users by midnight of the night before attending matches.
They are required to bring official photo ID against which that assigned information is checked.
Then they are given a second ticket with another bar code to be scanned again whenever asked and upon exit.
It's less like attending a ballgame than clearing customs and passport control.
It's all very polite, but purposeful and grimly insistent.
France may not fully exhale again, or ever, but this is a particularly tense time, what with the Open and then the monthlong Euro 2016 soccer championship set to be played throughout France beginning June 10.
There's also the memory of relatively inconsequential but nonetheless troubling security lapses at the French Open's main court in recent years.
A protester in 2013 interrupted a Rafael Nadal match by getting on the court with a lit flare.
One fan got close enough to Roger Federer in 2009 to put a hat on his head, and another last year managed to get to Federer in a bid to take a selfie with the Swiss star after a victory.
Federer was not amused, telling reporters he was relieved he wasn't hurt, but "it wasn't a very nice situation" in which to find himself.
"Normally I only speak on behalf of myself, but in this situation I think I can speak on behalf of all the players, that that's where you do your job," he said. "That's where you want to feel safe."
Everyone wants that everywhere. At work. At leisure. Awake. Asleep.
The odd thing about heightened security, though, is it doesn't necessarily make you feel more secure even if you are. The more armed men and women you see on patrol, the greater the threat you imagine justifying the show of force.
But they're way past imagining in France, at Roland Garros and beyond.
Maybe we all should be.
Sports on 05/26/2016