Boom!

Something I wrote a long time ago

I want to go to Paris.

I want to sip espresso in crowded outdoor cafes with the young gentleman I met at a museum that Sunday afternoon.

He will be tall and mysterious with dark hair and fuzzy scruff across his cheeks and chin. He will speak English with an accent and teach me poetic French sayings. He will love to paint. He will play guitar. He will have a deep, low voice and that tickles my ears when he tells jokes. He will hold the door open for me.

I want to smoke cigarettes on street corners with the wind whipping my breezy dress back and forth across my legs.

I want to wear black with red lipstick.

I want to listen to old music on even older record players.

I want to sit on the edge of an enormous stone fountain, chewing on a chocolate filled croissant and laughing loudly.

I want to drive a vespa.

I want to walk on cobblestoned streets that look more like alleys, lit by yellow lights strung from second floor balconies, the moon and the stars reflected in puddles from the rain the night before.

I want to make friends with a tall exotic looking woman with lots of freckles and bright colored hair who I run into at the fruit market. She will take me to wine tastings and trendy parties, let me borrow her heels and her perfume.

I want to live in a small apartment with lumpy, old furniture, with more windows than wall space, beads across my door frames, heavy curtains, subtle incense, paisley wallpaper

I want to wake up early and see sun sparkling on the Eiffel Tower

I want to feed pigeons on a cloudy Saturday morning

I want to eat dinner lit only by candles

I want to go out with a scarf tied around my head and big sunglasses sitting precariously across the bridge of my nose

I want a big dog I can walk without a leash

I want to make long distance phone calls to old friends who forgot the sound of my voice

I want to take artsy pictures with a heavy camera that hangs around my neck

I want to jog to catch a speeding taxi that I wave down with the gest of my gloved hand

I want to buy scented soaps that get wrapped up in tissue paper and ribbon even when its not a special occasion

I want to take a road trip with my new friends and acquaintances through the south of France where the houses are few and far apart. We will have a picnic lunch on a sunny hill, the sky like a stretched canvas above us, birds serenading our bread, cheese, and wine with soft songs they wrote especially for us. When night falls, we will eat dinner atop the hood of our car, kiss in the headlights, and dance dizzy circles around a campfire we built ourselves, singing loudly fun tunes I pretend to know the words to. 

And I will be reminded.

I will be reminded of camping trips with my family.

Of driving long days in the crowded car through desert and mountain, roads long and unwinding.

Of sitting huddled in a tent protected by forest and wildlife, reading aloud fantastical stories by the light of a dim lantern.

Of the soft breathing of three familiar lungs around me.

And I will miss home.