I had read somewhere that we write out of a desire to free ourselves. An ending to a story, a real chapter closed and our life moves forward in a new direction, a better one. But there are some beautiful and special things you'd never want to let go of, things you'd want to keep with you forever... .

It may be a broad smile, a cheerful hum, a hand on your shoulder pulling you back to protect you from a traveller too rushed to get on the bus. It can be little teases that you're always making a competition out of just so your cousin can amusedly tell you that they're not looking for a win, and that maybe you need some sort of protection for such conversations. And then there are those moments that you experience even when you don't expect them and that's why they're all the more wonderful.

I didn't expect to be in Paris, in a random metro, to hear the words “bagage suspect” and in the next few minutes everything stops.

When I realised that the metro wasn't leaving any time soon and we had to get off at a far too crowded station, A. bursted out saying :

- How could one be so stupid as to forget his luggage?

We stepped outside.The air was cold but bearable. We had no plan. There was no point anyway. A. knew that all the congestion wouldn't dissipate for another three hours or so. We were trapped in La Défense.But I didn't mind, I actually liked it.

I was quite surprised by the impression this business district made on me. La Défense. La Défense expresses the modernity of our days: tall, huge buildings with mirrored windows from top to bottom, whose architecture plays with geometric shapes.

If I were to go back to this Parisian neighbourhood again, I think I could point to the exact place where A. and I talked about the concept of normal life.

- Ninety percent of people don't have a normal life, he said.

Afirmația aceasta a fost revelatoare pentru mine. Nu pentru că era ceva nou, ci pentru că realizam că A. părea să fi acceptat acest adevăr mult mai ușor decât am făcut-o eu.

- Look, you see, he continued, I think it's preferable to have more troubles in life that make you strong, than to walk a smooth road and collapse at the first blow.

His conclusion had been one of those ideas that changed the direction of my thoughts to a new perspective. The same thing had happened to me a few days before when we were leaning against a pedestrian fence on the Champs Elysées. I had then begun to tell how much I had been impressed in Rome by the history that you see everywhere and anywhere, in every ruin.

- You can see history in Paris too, said A.

- Where? I asked, almost expecting him to tell me that the stones on the boulevard in front of us had been kicked up by the ancient Romans.

- Everywhere you look. All these buildings...

- You mean Trajan's column over there?

- No, Napoleon brought that one from Egypt. But if you think about it, it's not much of a history.

- Why do you say that?

- Because a lot of people died for what we see now.

Maybe A. was right when he said I seem to get attached to places. And yet, that walk through La Défense wasn't about the design of a Parisian business district that S. so brilliantly called a"mini Times Square."Nor was it about people in suits with briefcases in hand hurrying past.

On that early December evening there were just two people walking aimlessly laughing or talking about seemingly profound things, oblivious to the vastness around them. And I imagined that if John Galsworthy had heard A. explain to me that that gift-shaped bench was pure design and not made to fit as many people on it as S. had thought, he would have been in vain to listen to the sequel. And that was because the things told that evening had plunged us into a world that stretched beyond La Défense. La Défense.But if he still wanted to write a novel about that evening and that talk, it would have been worth doing so. 

Because we don't write just to free ourselves or just to give closure to a chapter of our lives. The truth is that some stories are too beautiful to leave unsaid. In the end, we write to taste life twice: in the moment and in retrospect. And whoever said that had a moment of brilliant inspiration.