Time out: Fitting your own oxygen mask before assisting others

I’m sitting in a cafe in Montmartre.

I’m taking time out from a hectic travel schedule. From my table at the window I look out at a Sunday market in the tiny Place Lino Ventura. A full length mirror is placed outside a clothes stall directly in my line of vision. A middle aged woman trying on a leopardskin coat transforms before my eyes. She swings it this way and that, coming alive in front of the looking glass. She isn’t thinking about the shopping, the cooking or the week ahead. Suddenly radiant in the light Parisian drizzle, I imagine she is thinking about where such a coat might take her.

Woman, time out, leopardskin, coat, Montmartre | See more at www.diywoman.net

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The Reluctant Grandmother

I have never been especially keen on the idea of being a grandmother.

Periodically my children would threaten me with it just for fun. I’m way too young, I’d say. Turns out I’m not as young as I thought. Or as immune to the lure of a newborn: first born of my firstborn, unwitting trailblazer of a new generation of my family, tiny repository of untold hopes and dreams.

black and white, baby, newborn, feet, grandmother | See more at www.diywoman.net
Photo by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

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