A City Girl

Funny how life happens.

I used to dream of living in a city.

I dreamt of being a City Girl, after being a Girl from the South, a "country girl".

I was a California Girl .. then I finally got to live in New York City.

So the next thing I knew, I wanted to live in a house with a yard for the children and to have a dog.

We went at that all backwards !

We were still in the city and bought a Borzoi .. yes, a Russian Wolfhound.

There was never a sweeter , prettier girl.

She loved my husband and he loved her.

But then I got pregnant and had a baby. And it was more than I could do to take care of babies and dogs the size of horses and have a husband who worked an hour away.

So the sweet dog went to live on a farm with a man who would keep her in bones for life ( he was a butcher) and we went on to live in a variety of apartments until we bought a house in a small town where we had a yard, big trees, a private garden and there was room once again for a pup to come live with us.

Of course by then, it was just the husband and I , the kids had flown the coop .

So we got Pup.

He became my baby, my companion and my heart.

Then my dreams turned to more far off locations.

Wouldn't it be fun if we lived in London? I would dream aloud.

Having grown up on stories about my great -grandmothers family coming to the United States from England, my great- grandfather being Scottish, which was supposedly why my mom had dark dark hair and blue blue eyes and I was white blonde with blue eyes.

England and Scotland.

I imagined living in London, in a flat , near a park.

Or better yet, thanks to multiple Miss Marple seasons, I started to dream about a village, picket fences, thatched roofs ..

I wanted to live in a town with a name like Chipping Norton or St Marys Meade or High Wycombe.

Then one year, we were in London , it was my birthday.

My husband took me to Paris for the weekend ... taking the Eurostar through the "Chunnel" and spending the hours walking... from the hotel on the Isle St Louis, past Notre Dame, over the River Seine, up and down Blvd St Germaine and on and on .. for 2 days.

I developed a raving migraine and finally sputtered to a stop and had to sleep.

But that tiny taste was all it took, that fall we went to Paris for a couple of weeks, celebrating our anniversary. .. and every year after that for quite a long time.

Eventually , after the years went by and we took our yearly and sometimes twice yearly trips to Europe, we decided to sell our house and leave the Northeast.

We moved to Florida . . we moved away from there one and a half years later... to Portland, Oregon.

Then .... we decided to celebrate our anniversary one November by flying to Buenos Aires for a couple of weeks.

And the rest is history.

I got my French home. I got my French views.

I got the City life, I am once again a City Girl.

I am struggling to become bi-lingual .

Although there are days that I think Pup understands more than I do and some days I think Pup is easier to understand than I am.

My husband and I are great as a team, we supply each other with words.. " blah blah blah, what is the word for stove ? blah blah blah, what did he say? " and so we manage .

If I feel bad about not being in Paris, I console myself with the thought that we might eventually be able to spend months at a time in France, or Italy or the US or wherever..

Until then, I must remember to just look out the window at that view and remember , I am home now.

And Pup is content and my husband is happy, therefore, so am I.