Paris

I’ve loved Paris ever since I first visited in the eighth grade, even though at that time I could only dimly appreciate how unique a city it really is. Years later, when I started coming back (at least a dozen times since college) I came to see that the city, at its best, instills in you a belief in humanity’s capacity to create unspeakable beauty—in ways no other metropolis can. That’s why I love this picture so much: my daughter, on her tippy-toes at the window of an apartment we stayed in last summer in the third arrondisement, looking down on the street below, and soaking in that same idea: that people are capable of producing wonders. That’s the notion I am holding close to my heart in the aftermath of Friday’s horrific attacks. Our thoughts are with Paris.