Oh, my mom could navigate her 70s convinced it’s time to slow down, stick close to home, be content to look back – a lot – at a fruitful life best enjoyed these days through the adventures of her grandchildren.
Well…no. My maman will have none of it. Racking up Air France miles, she is – jetting between San Francisco and Paris with a vengeance bred of the overwhelming need I’m guessing she lost at the guillotine: that is, to fly along rue de Passy in the rain on her way to the Métro, her shoes French flat, her handbag French-fine, and her part-French heart totally at home.
We miss her when she’s there, of course. But knowing my maman, with dad, is snug in her itsy-bitsy Paris pied-a-terre, which vacation schedules permitting we always are invited to share, is to thrill to my mom knowing a happiness – no, a bliss – that I hope one day to find for myself.
The day I was born, long before she became my maman, my mom named me Colette. I should have seen it coming.
In the next issue of The Good Life France magazine Colette O'Connor reveals how her maman moved to Paris at the age of 76 proving it's never too late to make your dreams come true...