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When I was young, my father would take me to the highest tower of Notre Dame precisely once a year. It would be cold. Freezing. But we'd stand there, and take deep breaths of air, and peer down, towards the tiny ants of people below. Down, towards the sprawling city beneath us. It was always winter, when we'd go. Always cold. Freezing, freezing. But however cold it was, and however dull and bleary the weather, my father would ask one thing, and one thing only: that we adhered to tradition.

"Lucie," he would say, with the fond smile and kind eyes I always remember. "Lucie, my peach. Whatever you become, and wherever your heart and mind leads you, you must always do for me one small, beautiful thing – take a handful of the sky, and place it in your pocket. Take a handful of the sky, and remember, always, that your feet need not always be imprisoned to the ground. Anything you could ever wish for, Lucie, can be yours – but only if you study hard, and always feel the freedom of the sky in your pocket; in your heart."

The sky was pale-pink, when he jumped. Pale-pink, touched with gold. I recall stealing all of his coats from our wardrobe and his office, and sitting cross-legged on my bed, carefully sorting and folding each one – searching each pocket. Inside. Out. He told me he had a lot of sky. I found none.