This post is brought to you by Edith Piaf.
I have these fleeting ideas that someday I’m just going to pack up all my things and become some traveling vagabond. There is a romanticism to the idea of having nothing but the clothes on your back and making your way around the world. I have these dreams of traveling to far away places like Budapest and Fiji. I would learn just enough of the language to get me by, before moving on to the next place in the world.
I’d love to just live in France for a year, sit at a cafe and drink tiny cups of coffee and bottle upon bottle of wine with little slivers of yummy cheese a top fresh baguette. I’d listen to Edith Piaf as I’d sauntered down the roads yelling “bonjour!” like Belle in Beauty in the Beast and cracking jokes about “À boire ou je tue le chien!**” Or at least that’s what I imagine it would be like.
Ole! Oh, crap.
As I child I desperately wished that I was born in the early 50’s so that I could have been a flower child, going to Woodstock and really giving a damn about the world around me. Of course that is all speculation, I have no way of knowing who or where I would have been doing (That came out so wrong, but I’ll just leave it in.) had I been born to a different generation.
But, there doesn’t seem to be any room for being impractical in this day and age. I had these ideas when I was younger and now I have found myself, an adult working a nine to five job and counting down the hours until the weekend. I desperately want that part of me that seeks the adventure and thrill of the world, back. I don’t think I’m too old to still have it, is any one ever too old?
The truth is as nice as I would be to just leave behind all these material things and becoming some sort of hobo, I am much to dependent on things like my Nordstroms card and 3G service. So all I can do now, is spend my days finding pleasure in the little things in life.
The way my husband cut up my steak for me when I get sick or the way a single calla lily blooms next to my doorstep every spring. The sound of my dog’s tail against the hard wood floor and the scent of Dove body wash on my skin as I drift off to sleep. I may never make it to the ends of the earth tomorrow, but I suppose it’s not that bad here.
*”Being alive serves no purpose if you have to work” from Nadja, by Andre Breton
**Bring me something to drink or I kill the dog! Both translation are from random website I stumbled upon. I am probably butchering the language. I never said I spoke French, just that I wanted to live there.
As a very American person once said, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
Should have listened to you, Mr. Prez., Mon Dieu!
The Megnacarta 