Inspired by the nostalgia for a time when life felt normal, rituals anchored in togetherness, murmurs in soothing tones in a theater, the crowded places that seem almost unthinkable now, the ridiculous memory of ever having even one miserable moment in Paris, fitted jeans and a pink manicure muted enough to double as a neutral, leaning back in a hotel elevator, sitting at a breakfast table in a tight room, the occasional and unremarkable sneeze, squeezing past kindred strangers, eating pain au chocolat with bare hands, being physically affectionate in a sweet, unselfconscious way, and everything that is fresh, innocent, joyful, low key luxurious, precious, taken for granted, and missed. She held it all together with paperclips, eyelash glue, and optimism, not knowing what the world would be like on the other side but dwelling in the possibility that there might ever be another sweet, albeit fragile, normal.
