January 21, 2025

Good morning!

It’s Tuesday. I was in the Luxembourg Gardens yesterday, sitting in one of their green chairs and knitting stitches for the sake of feeling yarn move through my fingers. It helped for a while—until I looked around and realized Bear was nowhere to be found.

No matter how frequently I remind him to stay close so we don’t lose each other, he keeps getting distracted and wandering off. So I gathered my things and began hunting for him.

I checked the tennis courts, but they were locked. I checked the puppet theater, but it was closed. I checked the place where the pony rides begin, but the ponies weren’t out. I checked the carousel, but it wasn’t operating.

Just as I was starting to get nervous, I heard a tiny voice in the distance.

He was here, on the grass, trying to make out the words on this sign.

“What do they mean?” he asked when he saw me.

“Keep off the grass,” I said.

“OK,” he turned and lumbered back towards me. “But what do they mean?”

“That’s what they mean,” I said. “They mean ‘keep off the grass.’”

“Ohhhhh,” he nodded slowly. “But why?”

“They want to keep it nice and pretty for everyone,” I said.

“But then where are we supposed to walk?” he asked.

“Over here,” I said, pointing to the wide pathways of compacted dirt.

“We have to walk in the dirt and can only look at the grass?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Doesn’t that seem strange to you?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” I admitted. “But we’re in a big city with lots and lots of people. If everyone walked on the grass, it might get trampled down, and then where would we be?”

He looked at the grass for a while. Then he nodded and raised his arms for a lift back up into my pocket.

“Once we are bound together to our brothers by a common good that is outside us, then we can breathe. Experience teaches us that love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through unity on the same rope, climbing towards the same peak.”

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Onwards we go,

Clara