Disconnect.

There is nothing so heavy about the concept of love.

Whoever made it so was foolish, because all lovers have some form of love. Ours was like the snow in the winter where we lived.

Light, leger.

It carried no weight, no responsibility, no burden.

We found each other brushed under the thin ice that coated the sidewalks,

melted the ice crystals off our skin with a burning love for Europe, our emotions heated for a continent in a way that they never would be for each other.

And perhaps

that was what we found in each other, l'esprit de l'europe.

Venetian canals, grapevines, gothic cathedrals. Perhaps it was through those things that we found some sort of love for another human being too.

We crafted beauty with the casual —

"de temps en temps," as the parisiennes would say.

It was through this disconnect, this unbounded territory, that we planted our roots,

not knowing what would become of anything we had, or if, in twelve short months, we'd even have anything at all to talk about over our glasses of Perrier and relentless insomnia.

Not knowing if you'd remember my face when I left,

or if the pictures of les montagnes et les compagnes on my wall would still remind me of the person who gave them to me.

We knew only that the fickle breeze of Bretagne would come by spring,

that it was only more beautiful

because it would end soon.