With the crisp fall air swirling around my mostly housed-in head, I have been feeling the urge to write again. To reflect, speculate, bedazzle and proclaim.
~How I FEEL about Paris today~
I still dream of Paris. I still long for Paris. Especially NOW as the last time I was there was this time of year, a year ago. The last time I was there I bought my brown trench coat and wore patterned scarves. I ate beef tartare and drank a 13 euro bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape from the grocery store. I was certain that my life would be taking a different direction than it is now. I thought I was so set in my identity, my comfy, cosy, American, successful, working identity.
I was a red wine drinker, a connoisseur, a poet, single, short haired and fabulous. I had lovers but I wasn't willing to call it love. I was known for my alcohol drenched black forest cake and the various stamps in my passports.
This feels like so very long ago. For now...a year later, I am less than two months away from being a mother, of two children. I have had to give up fashion for comfort and red wine for pregnancy vitamins.
When I see fashionable women walking in clunky heels and flowing fall skirts around Casablanca there is a part of my heart that just jumps right out of my chest and into the middle of the on coming traffic. I long for that feeling so desperately. I long to feel sexy and have a neatly compressed waistline. I long to be stressed out from doing too much, lifting too much, stressed from working too much to bring home the bacon and the weekend dinner party and the friend drama and all of those aspects of normal people life that I have utterly withstood from for the past 8 months.
While this pregnancy and this time in my life is one of the most precious and wholesome transitions I have ever experienced, I am ready for what comes after. I am ready to show my husband that I am more than a 200 pound rolly-poley that can't flip my own self over.
Speaking of him...my god...what a blessing he is. In my eyes he is the only man on this entire earth that can manage to make me feel that I am still desirable while in this state.
Does he want Paris? He, like everyone I have ever loved, would move to Paris for me in a heartbeat. The difference between him and those before him is that he actually has changed continents for the love of a woman, he has lived in North America, the middle east, Asia and Africa. All of his own accord, all working and traveling and taking his cheesy smiling photos along the way. He has been in debilitating motorcycle crashes and had his entire kitchen staff conspire against him. He has opened restaurants and ended relationships and returned home to care for his mother. He has done so much. I am quite impressed with his life resume. I think he is my soul mate and I fear that he will be taken from me every second of every day. But I am so thankful that we have this time together and it is him who made me pregnant.
So yes...back to Paris, I have more faith in our ability to change our lives and venture out into the world together than I have ever had in any relationship.
All of that being said, I don't know if Paris is within my reach anymore. I don't know what kind of a job it would take, to get papers for a family, to rent an apartment for four instead of one. To make enough money to happily raise two children living in the city. I know people do this in Paris, lots of them do this everyday. I am not giving up completely, I am not saying it is impossible. I am just saying it seems a little out of reach. It was out of reach when it was just me but now it is me plus three.
to be contd...
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