When I was sixteen I did my second semester in Paris studying at L'Alliance Française and drinking excessively. The Christmas before I left my parents bought me some flannel Victoria's Secret pajamas with poodles and the Eiffel Tower on them, they were the softest pajamas and pale blue and sweet and snuggly and I wore them every night I was in Paris (yes I washed them). There is something nice about matching pajamas. Something kind.
This weekend my horse had to be put down rather unexpectedly, we'd only found out he had cancer a week ago. I would like to clutch the cat and wear matching pajamas and not leave my bed because I am still very young and horses should never die. But the cat will not be clutched and I don't own anymore matching pajamas, I put my knee through the France ones the summer I turned seventeen, and work does not accept death of horse as a reasonable excuse. My little sister put fresh flowers in my field bottle on my desk and that will do.
Sanctuary is a word which here means a small, safe place in a troubling world. Like an oasis in a vast desert or an island in a stormy sea.
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