The More You Learn, The Less You

Most Of Us Remember Adolescence As A Kind Of Double Negative: No Longer Allowed To Be Children, We Are Not Yet Capable Of Being Adults.

It Took Me Some Years To Clear My Head Of What Paris Wanted Me To Admire About It, And To Notice What I Preferred Instead. Not Power-ridden Monuments, But Individual Buildings Which Tell A Quieter Story: The Artist's Studio, Or The Belle Epoque House Built By A Forgotten Financier For A Just-remembered Courtesan.

Life Isn't Just Addition And Subtraction. There's Also The Accumulation, The Multiplication, Of Loss, Of Failure.

I Was Initially Planning To Write About Grief In Terms Of Eurydice And The Myth Thereof. By That Point The Overall Metaphor Of Height And Depth And Flat And Falling And Rising Was Coming Into Being In My Mind.

This Was Another Of Our Fears: That Life Wouldn't Turn Out To Be Like Literature.