February 28, 2013

My dearest,

We are standing outside the bookstore and it’s freezing. I remove one glove so that I can help you remove your lens cap. Your shoes are stamping the pavement to warm yourself or in frustration, perhaps.

“Take this shot,” I say, “from further away. You’re too close where you are now.”

Directions. Not only for photography but from the Métro and into the alleys, with my twice-and-thrice-folded Google Maps printouts. You heed my instructions, if only to admonish me later when I get us lost. If I get us lost.

We squabble. I take off the other glove to help you change camera lenses. You are patient. I am patient. Soon you will turn towards Notre Dame to capture the cathedral and I will enter my destination, this book lover’s haven. Soon it will snow, it might.

Till then we make for fine company, the two of us in the cold, trying to capture a single memory forever.

Yours, ever and always.