Home at Last

Have you ever been to a place where everyone looks familiar? And with each person you meet you get the feeling that you've met them before--perhaps in another life?

That’s how I felt when I stepped foot on Ile d'Orleans—off the coast of Quebec.

This is the charming Camille. We met at the auberge where Dr. Thompson and I stayed during our visit to the island. She's in school and likes playing soccer, snowboarding, skiing, surfing, and swimming. We got to talking and I felt as if I had known her forever, as if I had time-traveled and was communing with one of my long lost French cousins.

I used to think that this feeling of being French was a fantasy—just a family story. I thought it was wishful thinking and I imagined that I was just living inside that old episode of I Love Lucy—the one where Lucy and Ethel are in Paris, wearing couture designs. Only, as it turns out, they’re actually burlap bags and this is just another trick from Ricky and Fred—squashing their fanciful dreams, which might just be a little too transgressive or high-falutin for the likes of these two quintessentially American housewives.

As a girl, my French fantasy included growing up to look like Bridget Bardot. The summer before seventh grade where we were allowed to take French lessons, my friend Joanne and I took to saying oooh la la! every chance we got. We would walk into the A&P and pretend we didn’t speak English. Everything on the store shelves was foreign and strange. In heavily accented English, we would ask the clerk—Pardon, Mademoiselle? What eees this? How you say—Kellogg’s Cornflakes? We don’t understand! Why? Because we’re French!

So in a way, I suppose this desire to be French was an effort to escape our current situation. A form of wishful thinking.

Creative Friends--is there a part of your identity that you have imagined, but never dared to actually embrace? Consider what your life would be like if you simply declared yourself an artist or an athlete or a gardener or an actor, a costume designer, an intellectual, a farmer, a chef or… French!

Yes, at the beginning, this might feel like magical thinking. You will might suffer from a case of imposter-syndrome. But trust me—if you are patient and brave, it will one day become true.

Love,

Jamie