Translated to English, lèche-vitrines literally means lick the windows. This is the French phrase for window shopping (sometimes the French can be so brilliant I could almost forgive them for their snobbiness!). If window shopping is licking windows, then here, I’m slobbering all over the glass. And if I could fit the door into my mouth, I’d do it.
The shopping here is beautiful. BOOTIFUL. I’ve never seen shop windows so painstakingly dressed and pampered. Beautiful lighting, great colours and mannequins styled so trendily that you can’t help but stop and stare. It’s like unabashedly ogling a beautiful woman who’s made of plastic. Barring Bourdain-inspired food porn, I’ve never been so lustful. I actually lust after these mannequins. I desire the brown leather boots under the spotlight. I want to cuddle that soft, curvy, oversized shoulder bag. I am a bundle of greedy shopping angst.
It is ridiculous.
Figuring out where I’d like to be and what I’d like to be doing next is kind of like window shopping. Actually, I’ve been lèche-vitrine-ing for the past year. I packed up my oversized shopping bag, hit the road and ‘tried on’ a bunch of new things. I wanted to see what else is out there. And you know what? There is just so much world out there.
There is camping through Africa for a month and not killing your boyfriend in the process. There is Italy in August, with grotesque amounts of gelato at breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is Vancouver in the rain. There is language school. There is bumping into familiar faces and feeling all warm and fussy inside. There is a chance meeting that turns into a business partnership. There is web design, there is tango, there is photography. There is the Vancouver Olympics and one of the most memorable moments of a nation’s history. There is crying and laughter and hopefulness. There is contract work, work for fun, work for play, no work at all and work every day. There is fear. There is excitement. There is a vast and open sea.
If licking the window is a show of lust for clothing, bags and shoes, then this nomad life that both tests and inspires me must be the equivalent form of sample sale-ing life. Try first, buy later. It’s like life on consignment: swap out the old, in with the new, always with some option to change your mind. A gap year on steroids. An experiment in mobile living. An answer to the itch that just won’t go away.
Licking the windows of life’s many shops has been trying at times. Lusting after the next adventure, the change of scenery, the new challenge, it has all been an incredible way to discover all the possibilities out there. But with the wanting, comes angst. And angst, like during the teen years, comes with its combination of goods and bads. Stimulation and exhaustion. Fullness and emptiness. Desire and fear. The ying and the yang.
Trying to both build something for the long term and seek experiences in the now can leave one in a state of seeming limbo. In between. Sometimes the window shopping has been amazing, other times I just want to give my credit card to someone and just buy something already.
And I ask myself, Why haven’t I found that perfect next thing? What am I waiting for?
Nothing. I haven’t found the next permanent thing because it hasn’t come just yet. And sometimes, in my search to find the next permanent thing, I lose sight of the ever changing now. Presence. It is so important to be present. And the present isn’t such a bad place.
There is time, there is space, there is freedom. There is here or there, for as long or as short as I want. There is writing and photography, or none at all. There are new projects and old projects. And there is always an opportunity to learn, if I am open to seeing it. Presence. Present. Both are blessings if we take the time to see.
So, while I’ve got the time, the freedom, the energy and the lust for peeking inside different windows and trying things on for a while, there’s no rush to make a big purchasing decision right now. Window shopping is just fine.
