this time of year...

always makes me want a big old east coast house with white columns and a chair on the porch and two ears of corn tied to the outside light on a wide wide street with trees and trees and red and yellow trees where a little car could drive up and let my family out. they could climb the two stairs to the front yard and the three stairs to the front door. i could take their coats and put them in the guest bedroom. bustle bustle bustle...wine and juice and jazz and "did you get your hair cut?" and "would you like a cracker to tide you over? the turkey is going to be another twenty minutes at least (i know how you get when you're hungry)" and "how is school?" and "do you like your new job, apartment, assignment...", "how was the trip?", "do not eat all of the pickles", and "what are you reading, making, listening to?"

and in this sweet house people listen to the answers...

it makes me want a big long table and old dishes to serve things in, and an oven for roasting and windows for fogging and a fireplace for poking and a rug to play jenga on, chairs to tell jokes on and guitars in the corner for anyone who wants to play. floppy place cards and just the right silverware and kids mixed in with grownups. and if you looked under the table you could see feet moving and restless at different speeds, to different degrees, some swinging and some swaying and some still, and their hands, the same...

gold and green and burgundy and mustard yellow. tweeds and tartans and wool. stockings and corduroys and brown leather, warm rosy-cheeked conversation. laughter and the scraping of knives and forks on china...a long walk after dinner and a nice chat on the porch for everyone else...

maybe not next year, but some year.

and this morning i stalked through the wet leaves and thought of these things and was just thankful for the trees and the river and brown leather and corduroy.

o garance!

well garance,

now you've done it. thank you very much. i keep toggling between this extremely long and boring court document that i am supposed to be translating and your blog:

which i didn't know about.

which i should have known about a long time ago.

and now, instead of sitting contentedly at my desk on the second floor of my office building watching the steady drizzle of november paris rain, i am considering charging down the street to colette or up the street to chanel, or around the corner to maria luisa just to slobber on the windows...i even have half a mind to take my phone to the tuileries across the street and take pictures of the passers-by and make witty comments about the way they are dressed.

not so long ago i was photographed in the street, sylvie and i were leaving a fifties brocante near bastille. i had just purchased a pair of beautiful christian dior glasses, bottle green with blue trim, no lenses, i was wearing them and i felt like a fashion star for a day (though i do still regret having finished my hot dog before she photographed me, i think it would have added a lot to the image...less precious).

anyway, every once in a while i am reminded that my life is just ever-so-slightly less glamorous than i would like it to be. when i try to block out the sound of the electric drill across the street, when i drink my senseo from my pink moomin mug every morning, when i accidently answer my cell phone: "cabinet d'avocats bonjour" or when the postman asks me if i'm "feeling sick today mademoiselle...?" these are the times when i wonder what i am doing with my life.

and then i remember that last weekend, after we finished our concert and danced until 5:30am i stayed in my little bed all day and when i awoke and threw my vintage raw silk balmain jacket with the poet collar over my pajamas to buy bread it had just stopped raining and i crossed the bridge from île st louis to île de a cité and the little man who sits at the end of the bridge was playing his accordion, calderon de la barca would have been in agreement, so would the 'row, row row your boat' guy and lewis carroll for that matter:

"life is (but) a dream",

i thought in that moment;

and it is.