Old Flames: Robin Lecat

Shortly before I turned 9 years old, my family moved to Paris, France. There, I became fluent in French, developed a taste for Camembert cheese, and fell in love with a couple exotic French men. Well, boys, actually - they were all my same age. The most memorable of my French crushes is named Robin Lecat. Oh, how I loved Robin. (Please don't mentally pronounce it Robin like Robin Hood. It is Robin like Chopin - like Robe-ahn.) He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a typically French horrible sense of style. (They say the height of fashion is in France. But I certainly didn't see any of that in my elementary school La Sante des Carrierres.)

I dreamed of Robin joining the church and marrying me. (Me dreaming of marrying people was a prominent theme of my youth, as you will see.) I didn't think too much about the logistics of the country in which we would spend our lives together, because at the time France was home for me. I didn't really miss America, although I missed things about it. Like peanut butter. Anyway, we didn't have a language barrier, so in my mind, there was nothing stopping our eternal bliss. And that smile...oh, it was enough to melt any girl's heart.

Of course, after my 2-year crush, we moved back to America and Robin left my life forever. But not my memory. No, no. I will never forget Robin and his beautiful smile...and his blue sweatshirt with the red sleeves.

Just to illustrate how deep my feelings were for Robin, allow me to share this picture I drew. I am clearly not an artist. But at one point, I wanted to learn how to draw. I studied Robin's face and then tried to draw it. It doesn't look a thing like him...other than the eye color. Spot on.