Archetypical French Girl

J'adore... the way Debra Olliver waxes poetic.

"The archetypical French girl is not the women you see on the cover of magazines or on the big screen. Nor is she the woman you see strolling the Rue St. Honore... She is an essence, a way of being, a mindset - and exists in us all.

She is the part of us that is free - and not bound up by the joyless strings of Puritan morality or guilt. She's that part of us that has a sense of continuity in life, that doesn't rush, that feels sexy for no apparent reason.

She is, more fundamentally, that part of us that does not want to live accordingly to what others think she should be. She is her own woman. Entirely."

In her books, What French Women Know and Entre Nous Olliver insightfully introduces us to the ocean of differences that divide the American and French lifestyles. Most importantly, she does so from a perfectly feminine perspective.

From her writing, I have learned that an alternate way of being, of thinking, of appreciating oneself exists. I think this is something that so many of us need, sometimes without even realizing it.

All I can say is, at the end of the day, I don't know of a single woman, on any side of the Atlantic, that does not like to have her options...

Photo: Flickr Artist