Eastern Imagination

She was a pale, fragile, delicate porcelain plate from the West. She had dreams the size of the Eiffel Tower, the size of Big Ben; heck, the size of Europe. She was a thinker, an intellect, born an All-American-Girl by inheritance and not by choice. She refused to eat hot dogs, but requested escargot. Her clothes had a Parisian air to them, even gypsic in ways; flowing skirts, delicate tops, whiteandwhiteandwhite. She was better than the rest of us; she could feel the distance but never dwelled on it. She just assumed her dreams were what separated her from the norm. Simple dreams, that's all. Graceful, elegant dreams.

Boat rides in Venice. Ballet in Paree. Entrancing rainstorms in London. Flamenco in Madrid. She wanted it all, she wanted this foreign idea called culture to engulf her, to swallow her whole. She was sick of monotony, PB&J, and blue jeans. She wanted extremes, not borderlines. She wanted to come into her own.

(And then a year later.)

Once school was over she flew to London to begin the rest, or the beginning, of her life. She became a model at once- who wouldn't notice her Monroesque air? – and travelled Europe from country to country, capturing the styles of the season in her smile and in her soul. She was a star. The money she earned she gave to the poor, and the money she inherited she used to satisfy this enchanting reverie she called her life.

She was stunning. Beautiful, really, and unpretentious in every sense of the word.

As the sequence continues, she then married her Europrince Charming five years later, five years too soon; dark, tall, handsome, brilliant accent, financially oversecure.

Mr. Euro insisted she put away her modeling instincts to become his lifetime partner, his wife, his photograph. In a flash of undying devotion, she agreed; yet the immediate aftertaste of her vows stung with overwhelming regret.

Time passed- she hated time now. Faded and jaded, she became normal, something she had never been; jeans, deli sandwiches, drinks in the loft. Normalcy, like she witnessed so often in the states- this time in a tired, depleted style. She spent her evenings at home pleasing her husband or reading books, books that would take her far away from this confining reality. She became a mother too soon, passing on her gift of beauty and grace to her lovely daughter, who yearned not to stand out, but only to fit in.

For her, she realized after a chill on one breezy London afternoon,

For her,

the dream,

It was over.