Monday 2 November 2009

Role Play

This weekend was all about contrasts.
It made me reflect on how, as women, we spend a good part of our lives flitting back and forth between the different roles we have to play... often with little or no time in which to make the transition.
On Saturday, I spent the day alone in Montpellier. For a few hours, I was a single woman, lounging in cafés with a great novel, wandering round the shops, using my Visa card with the recklessness of a prisoner on day release...
I'm not ashamed to admit that it felt good. Dizzyingly good, in fact.

On Sunday, BB and I rode to the market on what has now become "our" bike. There was a street fair in full swing, and BB somehow ended up becoming the owner of a huge orange balloon dog.
It was as we wobbled back home that I thought: the transition is complete. The free soul of yesterday has become the woman riding her bike with a little boy and a heavy bag of vegetables in back... and a big orange balloon dog balanced precariously in front.
If the constant stream of smiles and waves we received from almost everyone we passed en route is anything to go by... I'm guessing we looked cute. And funny.

I found myself laughing too. For no other reason than the absurdity of the situation.
I love the woman I left reading a novel in Montpellier.
But I'm really getting to love this bike-riding, time-chasing, sometimes harassed Maman too.

1 comment:

AFG said...

No bikes or balloons for me (yet) but I definitely know what you mean.