Simple Pleasures: Remembered Across Two Cities

(L-R) Floor plan of the Prado; postcard of The Mona Lisa by the
workshop of Leonardo da Vinci (c.1503-1516); and La Giaconda
(Mona Lisa) by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1503-1517)

Some gestures speak quietly but stay with you. This is one of them.

I want to thank a dear friend for thinking of me while she was away—moving between Paris and Madrid—and for bringing me back postcards of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and her counterpart from the Prado. It meant more than you probably realized—not just the images themselves, but the fact that, in the midst of your travels, I was somewhere in your thoughts.

That is a rare kind of generosity, and I am grateful for it.