I was getting in my car to go grab a bite for lunch and I saw this girl across the parking lot sling her purse up onto her shoulder. It was a yellow leather bag and the color caught my eye. Wasn't anything super special. Didn't match her shoes or her belt. Didn't really match anything at all truth be told. Just a cute bag. That was yellow.
POW. Yellow. Shoulder strap. Up out of ... well, I'm not sure where the 'where' actually is (or was) ... this niggling thought reared its head, rudely poking me (more like an annoying pestering really) in the memory department. SNAP. I caught a flash of a yellow purse on my brain screen. Square-ish kind of shape. Bright yellow. Quilted. Something long....long..... forgotten. My curiosity was peeked. A square-ish, bright yellow, quilted, shoulder bag that I obviously had. Sometime. In this lifetime. Hunger pangs would have to wait --I had a mystery to solve.
I sat in my car letting the 'ole memory run a background check. I got a glimpse of some kind of pattern on the material. And the feeling it was from my high school days. Dig, brain, dig, because now I was definitely determined to filter through all the layers in the gray matter filing cabinet to try and figure it out. Like taking two hands and digging in the sand at the beach to find some hidden kind of treasure. Almost there.... just a few more seconds....getting the sense that I've almost unlocked the mystery and.....FLASH!! It was like I had a fuzzy snapshot jump off the page of some forgotten album, complete with old-style serrated edges and the words "In Front of the Eiffel Tower" written on the white border. ...and was that me with the haunting yellow quilted bag hung on my shoulder??!!?
Oh, my. I probably thought it was just the PERFECT accessory for my bright yellow canary coat that I took along as well on the spring break trip my senior year with a group of fellow French students, assuming (sorry, no cable Weather Channel existed then) the weather would want to cooperate and be pleasant because: it was the week of Easter; everyone puts away their dark winter clothes and reaches for wonderful spring shades and fabrics; we all want to think about blooming bulbs, blue skies, and warm sunshine. RIGHT? Well, let me tell you that would be everyone except the entire French population which, as I found out Easter morning attending mass at Notre Dame, thoroughly intended to cling to their drab putty gray and ugly nondescript brown overcoats well beyond that landmark Sunday. I'm telling you I looked like some poor lost canary surrounded by a herd (yes, a herd) of the somber old, dull morning doves. Oh, geez. Did I look just a little tiny bit out of place or what?
Well, let me make an announcement: Wake up, people!!! This is Paris -- You know: P-A-R-I-S. City of Light. THE the fashion capitol of the planet. Ring any bells!??!! Home to Chanel and Yves St Laurent. Hellloooo!!? I guess someone forgot to inform the natives. And, above all, we were celebrating the gift of eternal life. The greatest sacrifice given, the greatest love ever shared. Ever heard of it?? Guess not. And sober?? All glad hearts and smiles must have been prohibited by law. Oh! And don't forget to include bright colors in that as well.
Bet I made a big impression. Bet I shook their world. Nah. On second thought they probably went home and gossiped about the crazy American girl who must have been out of her mind. Wear yellow on Easter? Are you nuts? And happy? Who ever heard of that? Too bad I didn't have any marshmallow Peeps to pass out. That woulda drove 'em right over the edge, like lemmings to the sea. Talk about a Kodak moment worth capturing.
