This, too, I like

I forgot how smoking is still socially acceptable here. Not as bad as then, when I’d come home reeking of it, even though I’d spent the day in the bowels of a café prep kitchen.

This, I like. Today’s level of passive smoking. Nightclubs and pubs thick with it, yuck. But when a bloke is hunched in thought over an espresso and his exhalation floats over to me two tables over – this, I like.

It reminds me that his woes are my woes, his joys, mine. The waft of fragrant air stands for our connection. Our oneness with the all. This, too, I like.

Bistro Mon Rêve, Paris.