My French Life by Diane Ogden

I saw this marvelous book at one of my clients homes. I gently took it from it's quiet resting place leaning on another book named Bloom. Humm, maybe that was a set up secret code from beyond (for me!) I opened it and found my eyes tearing up. I thought to myself, "what? What?" In more words, what are you tearing up about? I answered myself calmly. "I never had a French Life and I felt like I was looking right into one. Such an appealing sight as I stood alone next to the old English brick fireplace it was as though I should have or could have and still wished to." The tears were from a life of struggle and survival and not in France. Not said to draw any form of pity whatsoever because I have found and created my own forms of Life in France. I have always gravitated toward French Country when decorating. I am a total romantic whether its a white French mantel or a black iron chopping table. When a creative person such as myself cannot travel to the real deal, she brings the real deal home. I have created much in my life ......sculpting, sewing, making jewelry, writing, woodworking, painting, and drawing, all while raising the five children, working two and three jobs to get them all the things necessary for a pleasant family home. Always balancing where to put any leftover finances. I wont laugh at that statement and no one except a single Mom with five children would understand.
None of this to say I wouldnt like to be walking on that rainy day wearing black tights, black dress, black trench, and black umbrella just as in the picture......
While holding this book by Vicki Archer I paused to read a paragraph that caught my eye, or was my eye sent to this perfect page, perfect paragraph just for me this day. To set this up I will tell you She and her husband purchased a small 50 acre farm unseen....Below are her thoughts as they come upon it for the first time......

"The farmhouse in view was not in line with the one in my imagination: What stood before us was derelict and in total disrepair. My excitement never faltered for a moment - these were mere hurdles to be jumped. My son, Paddy, whispered, "This is it, Mum. We've found it" My heart was hammering in my chest, tears filled my eyes, my ability to speak vanished and the momentous truth shook me like nothing before. If you believe there can be a moment in time when everything in your life changes, then for me, this moment had arrived.

I felt that way when each of my children were born.... And once when I was fifteen I spent some time on a ranch in Jacksonhole, Wyoming and in the Ski Resort town of Pinedale, Wyoming. I have never lost the desire to live there....not ever. Otherwise no moments such as this family experienced. Their experience came through the book like a spiritual awakening directly at me. Thus the tears. Of joy, sadness, loss, hope, or maybe I lived in France on that farm (Mas de Barnard, a Provencal mas, farmhouse) in a past life! Yeah, that is probably it.