Take your top off

Enlevez votre haut!
"Just take your top off, everybody is looking at us", he said with authority, though he was only 8 years old.  The child, visibly agitated, was begging me to attract less attention by removing my bathing suit top, while we ate lunch poolside at our little community swim club in the hills of southern France.   He was my little cousin.  I was here with him these months acting as his nanny, but it seemed like he was more in charge of me, then I of him.  However one thing was for sure; these were my breasts and I was 21 years old, not all that cozy with the idea of eating a ham sandwich topless in front of him.  Besides, I'd just noticed our mailman, who offered a brief wave and a crooked smile before he dove into the greenish water wearing an oh so small, black speedo.   Now there were two people I absolutely could not be half naked in front of.  That settled it.  The little boy would have to suffer through another day of me remaining in swim attire rather then out of it.  He was right though, I was standing out.  I looked around, noticed a woman contentedly slurping soup, watching as her unclothed, oblong breast narrowly missed dipping into her steaming gruel.  Ouch, that's going to leave a mark.

When I feel lost in my days, there is something I can do for myself - I can always go back in time and get lost all over again in my old days.
Today I'm in France, reliving my not entirely uncomfortable discomfort at being so very young and American, rather tall, with yellow-blonde hair and shaved armpits.  I had my incessant need to bath daily,  my white T shirts and coveted Levis, a talent for butchering the native language and getting away with it and an inability to simply go with the topless flow.   I have remarkable, vivid memories there for my convenient remembering.   On a day like this, it's a gift to get lost right here at home, inside myself... Merci beaucoup.  Je vous aime.
Thank you very much and I love you.