Another long Saturday, waiting for inspiration to strike while I do the chores and sing along to the radio. The cats keep me company, swirling in and out like the tide on their endless cat journeys through the house. Some band that sounds a lot like Roxette is playing now, and I think about how fascinated I was with Europe when I was growing up.
My earliest fixation was with the French language. I was in third grade (age 8) when I started pretending to speak it. I was such a loon! I wandered around the playground babbling pseudo-French. I had several classmates convinced. It was also around then that I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien and plunged into a lifelong addiction to British culture.
For years, my favorite afterschool activity was to play dress-up with my best friend Suzanne, wafting around her backyard or mine in long skirts and speaking in our best fake accents. We were fondest of being at a boarding school for orphaned ballerinas, though sometimes we played orphaned princesses or orphaned show jumpers. But no matter what, we were either English or French.
Once we turned 14 we solemnly agreed we were too old to play dress-up any longer. I hated giving it up, though. Happily, the next year I was finally allowed to sign up for French at school, so I got to practice my accent on an entire class instead of just my friends. I loved it, and I was good at it. I took Spanish, and did pretty well at that. I began to be interested in other European countries and cultures. I thought Scandanavia sounded especially fascinating.
The band, which may or may not be Roxette, finishes, and because the DJ is obviously on my wavelength, A-ha comes rolling out of the speakers with their perky, happy dance beat. I wince as I remember my youthful perception of what it would be like to live in Norway or Sweden. Real Hallmark-card stuff, with sleighs and skiing and colorful native clothing at all times. No notion at all of history or politics or socialized medicine, just blond, blue-eyed people climbing the hills above the fjords and speaking their lovely language. And maybe that's not such a bad thing to visualize. After all, the real world rushes in soon enough. Losing myself for the length of a song or a story has its own benefits.
After all, I grew up and became a travel agent. I know quite a lot about the history and politics of many countries, not just European ones. Reality hasn't dimmed my fascination with the Europe of my youthful imaginings. It's improved on it. I think kids know early on what is important to them, and if you let them follow through, they find their way to the things that make them happy as adults. That's my theory, anyway.
The cats arrive again, and wind around my ankles, making happy cat sounds. I listen to their private language, and dream of speaking it someday.