Strange Reflections

Isn't it amazing how fast one can get used to something? Start out doing something that you once would have thought not possible and BOOM - it soon is almost ho-hum, part of the daily routine.

Last week I was running for my train in Jouy-en-Josas, flying over the cobbled streets of this tiny village next to my new employer. I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of the boulangerie.

Is this really me? Coat tails flapping, trying not to trip on the round stones that pave the narrow lanes, what am I doing here anyway?

Not all that long ago I spent my days on suburban asphalt....in a car. Cell phone pasted to my ear, radio blaring, on my way to pick-up, drop-off or otherwise take care of kids, Costco, Target, Nordstrom.

Never and I mean NEVER would I have expected to fast forward a couple years and see myself reflected in that French boulangerie window.

And it is all so normal now. I am one of thousands of Parisian communters. I can push and shove with the best of them down the halls of the metro and train stations, permanently in a hurry. Versailles, yes THAT Versailles, is my daily stop, where I change trains to get to Jouy-en-Josas. Where, by the way, they invented toile de jouy, the lovely fabric design that decorators add for sophistication - I should know - I used to be one of those people........

................back in another life.

Comments

[Carrie Dern]

Hi Mary, I am just catching up with you! I am having a flashback- you and me in San Francisco pushing strollers (Katie and Lindsay, I think), observing those "professional women" with stress on their faces and hurrying to who knows where. Then I was one of them, and now you, but in Paris! A new life!