I feel it in the air

Paris seems prettier now than when we first came, maybe it's the cold war against this lingering summer warmth that ultimately soothes my worried mind. We spend much of the afternoon in the Luxembourg garden around the palace underneath glimmering cascades of yellow and red and crisp azure skies stretching into infinity.

He talks about his classes and the need for radical reforms (of everything), about summery Christmases in Los Angeles and early memories of his mother. Everything is tinted in pastel purple and pink, filtered through the passing of time and only deep in between the lines are those thin traces of bitterness and grief I've learned to discard as misanthropy.   

We stroll down the Boulevard Raspail to Le Bon Marché and look at multicolored trompe l'oeil prints from Mary Katrantzou. "I have a father somewhere" he says, "at least I think I do". Through it all he holds my hand in his and his ivory skin is soft and warm like cotton.