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Time to treat myself
A Legacy of Boldness
Today is my mother’s birthday. Josette Daïan. Well, Josette according to the government. Because she firmly believed that name was invented solely to punish rowdy little girls. In real life, she renamed herself Josée. In fact, she renamed everyone. My father’s name was David; to her, he was Roland. If God had ever had the good sense to drop by her local bar on Rue Oberkampf for a coffee, she probably would have called him Gérard.
My mother was a character far too grand to fit into the boxes of a normal existence. She had left her native Normandy with the firm intention of not ending up stuffed and mounted between a depressed cow and three lace curtains. She wanted to design dresses at Dior, live in Paris, fall hopelessly in love, laugh too loud, eat far too many chocolates, and never, ever ask for permission to exist. Life responded with its usual elegance: grief, betrayals, a speakeasy, a grocery store, a few anti-Semites, and police officers convinced they had captured Pablo Escobar when they were actually just emptying the drawers of people who mostly sold cans of peas and bottles of Ricard.
In spite of it all, she kept going. She moved forward with her own highly personal way of viewing catastrophes as mere setbacks. Other people had burnouts; my mother just changed people's names and opened a new box of Suchard chocolate rocks, which she would inhale using a funnel. To each their own therapy. I think she even considered chocolate a vegetable. Scientifically, it doesn't hold up for a second. Morally, it is beyond reproach.
Today, she is celebrating her birthday in another dimension. I can picture her perfectly. She must have already convinced Saint Peter that the pearly gates would look infinitely better painted champagne gold, explained to a couple of angels that they must have bought their boring sandals at Bobbies, and turned heaven into one massive, cozy bar. Archangels are playing poker, seraphim are rewriting the world, someone is telling a questionable joke, and my mother is putting them all in their place. Eternity is anything but boring.
So today, I wanted to raise a glass to my mother. Because Patricia Blanchet probably wouldn’t be Patricia Blanchet without this woman who refused to have assholes, obligations, or characterless shoes in her life. I am pretty sure she’s still keeping an eye on everything from up there. And if you happen to order a pair of Patricia Blanchets today, don’t be surprised if they arrive with an extra dose of audacity. That’s probably just my mother meddling again.
