I’m surrounded by people from around the world, coming and going and waiting and hurrying in an airport. It is everyday and normal. Like taking my belt off in public and hoping my trousers stay up. I’m waiting at a gate. And like all gates it is a thing to lean on or sit at and watch the world go by. And not much happens amid all that colour.

I think of traveling and wonder that if there’s a place that felt like my own first gateway to the world, it would be Paris. C’est la peche. It is my favourite city, for stupid colourful touristy reasons mostly. You watch the world go by there, but the world goes by there because it wants Paris – hoping its swagger and style and snarky commitment to lifestyle and individuality and world mindedness will rub off just a little. Me too. I can’t wait to go back to the city of lights. To the idea of it, like the daft ideas we each carry around behind our eyes like a lens in a clicky red photo viewer idea of how the world looks. Snapshots of feeling, colouring what we see. Sometimes a bit, like a romantic Instagram filter under some swooning begonias. Sometimes a saturating wash like a theatre gel, colouring the stage before we step into that light and act.

My feeling this morning is coloured by this: When my two year old godson opened his bedroom door this morning and saw me across the hall in the kitchen, he grinned and ran over to be swept up in my arms. Time to come home. x