I'm doing some writing at the coffee place that's up the street and around the corner from my apartment. Behind me is a couple. A mom and teenage son. They have plates with bagels and are sipping out of paper coffee cups. They are speaking French.

For a second or two I close my eyes. For a second or two I just listen to the way the words make little sense. And for a second or two I am not in Chicago.

For a second or two I am in France at a coffee place writing stories on my laptop.You know, one of those places where the chairs are wood and old and the grind of espresso beans echoes through the old buildings walls. I moved there because I got a teaching job then, of course, fell in love with some French guy--probably a writer himself... or maybe he's a doctor. Yeah-- a French doctor. And we live in this little flat that's in the city, but tucked around the corner in a neighborhood that has a coffee place that tourists don't know about and the locals rave about. Since he's a doctor he tells me: "Vous ne travaillez pas" because he doesn't want me to work so I don't need to work which means I can wander the cobble streets with my laptop or a journal or got to museums or eat really awesome pastries or smoke a little bit(because this is my daydream I can smoke without the whole I'm-going-to-get-cancer thing). And on the weekends we'd go to London because that's where the French doctor's sister would live and then on holidays we'd go to Italy and Greece and then on my birthday there would be a plan ticket to go to Egypt because that's like going to Mexico for us.

For a second or two it's not cold and it's not winter and I'm not worried about what job I'm doing this summer and I'm not worried about finishing this and I'm not worried about how I'm going to pay this month's cell phone bill.

But after a second or two I get a text message: "Let's have lunch this afternoon. I miss u." from a good friend that makes living in Chicago worth the winter and the snow and the temperatures that make your ears feel like they might fall off.

Sometimes it totally just takes a second or two to appreciate years of what you actually have.