bohemian like me?

it's pouring outside and the window is open so i can take in the sounds and smells of the storm. i'm back to work tomorrow so for tonight, i'm enjoying a glass of wine before i put on the teapot and settle in to bed with my latest book, "playing with the grown ups" by sophie dahl.


i think i discovered sophie at the tail end of my college days and i was fascinated by her life. at the time she was working as a plus size model (whatever that means as she wasn't very big back then), and had not yet begun her writing career. sophie lived a very bohemian existence, at times against her wishes. her family is old english money and her grandfather was the children's author roald dahl. her mother regularly moved sophie here and there but she really just wanted to stay put with her grandmother at her family's estate in england.

and while i certainly don't come from old english money, i can relate to her life in a small way as i have had my own bohemian life, even if at times, i didn't realize it.


when i was a little girl, i carried around a little red cosmetics case filled with my paperdolls. these dolls were my escape from my crazy home life with three older brothers. i can remember going to ladies lunches with my mother and sitting at her feet with my paper dolls, perfectly content. life was good, i lived in the house that my father had built himself and i had no desire to be anyplace else other than where i was right at that moment.


my mother had a young friend named diane and she had long, dark, straight hair like ali mcgraw's and i thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. when i was older, i grew my hair out long just like hers. she also lived in the attic apartment of an old painted lady, of which there were very few of in the southwest. i dreamed of one day living in a place like this, and i even did for a short time.


except my painted lady was here in portland (no, this is not it--i wish!). i came to live in oregon when my parents uprooted my youngest brother and i and moved us to gold hill. oh, you haven't been there? ha, well you're not missing much. i was so upset with my parents and never have understood why they made us move but i guess it was for the best because, it later brought me back to my beloved portland.

after our time in oregon, we went back to the southwest where my mother insisted we would stay until my brother and i finished school. so we did stay there and i went to college there and then one day, my inner gypsy said it was time to move on and that's when i came back to portland. and now i've lived here longer than any place else i have ever lived for one time. will i be here forever? i don't know. i think i will always be connected to this place, just like i am to the southwest, but i think i have this inner yin and yang that governs my life. i like new places but i like stability. i'll take a risk just to go back to my old routine and habits.


i'll leave my steady job to give a shot at my fantasy job, like the time i went to work at anthropologie. just to come back to my old job, realizing it wasn't so bad after all.

so is this my kind of bohemian? wanting to toss it all in the wind, pick up and move away and then stay put for long periods of time? or is it just being a sagittarius?