The cherry trees at Notre Dame

I'm sitting in the little kitchen at an old table distinguished with a pale yellow table cloth bearing stains of my final meal with the family the night before.

Last night, Elisabet remarked that she doesn't like partings. She prefers it to be threaded into the day, without the long eulogies. Saying goodbye is like a sort of death, she reflected.

As the moments slip from under me, I try to keep my balance, to make the most of my last days in Paris. But no matter how much I reflect and walk the familiar streets in a desperate effort to imprint everything on my faltering mind, I feel like I'm trying to pin down a cloud.

You know when you start to be conscious of a dream but it's because you are about to wake up? And the dream is so uncommon and good that you tell yourself to keep sleeping which actually awakens you further. Five minutes later you're entirely conscious and the details slip away. Soon, all that remains is that vague tingle that something marvelous happened.

What rests is the memory of a feeling of a dream.