Someone Else is Living Your Parisian Dream

He wanted to see his imaginary cat under the table.

“Cat!”

“Where’s your cat, Max?”

“La ba,” pointing under the table.  “Down!”

“No getting down until you finish your food.“  I’m not normally a stickler, but he’s developing a tendency to forego food for play.   We’d gone through this drill at lunch earlier in the day, also.

“Maman,” he tells me, as he feeds me a fry.  Then he tries to feed me another. And another.  I refuse them, and eventually, he picks up a handful waiting for me to open my palms and drops them in. He points to his now empty plate enthusiastically.

“I finish!  DOWN!”

Score for Max.

Heard around the dinner table:

Max tends to swallow his food after a couple of chews. 

“Max, chew it. I’ll count to 10, and you chew 10 times. 1-2-3-4…..did you just swallow that?”

“The meat a parti!” as he points, astonished,  inside his mouth. 

The end of each long trip I’ve taken overseas, over the years, was punctuated with the thump of a rubber stamp marking my return on American soil, and a four worded song. “Welcome Home, Ms. ___.”  These simple words, which the man at customs throws around thousands of times a day, envelope me more heartedly since I’ve moved to France.  I’m rendered teary eyed and I feel a weight lift from my consciousness as I understand words, gestures, and the culture around me.  I  face the nice man in the ugly beige uniform with the same amount of gratitude as I would have if he really was happy to see me, hoping that my old parking tickets aren’t showing up on his screen.  

With a new president on deck, not just “Obama” as it was with Bush but my - OUR - President Obama, I look forward to a surge of  fresh energy, historic advancement and change - political and social -  that breezes in with him.  America hasn’t been this hopeful -Hope Full - in years. 

I am counting the days until my next trip to good friends, my family and the man at customs because while our exchange is brief, that “Welcome Home” is a blanket of love.