Es-Tu La Reine?

I paused the audio and thought back to the day of that recording. I remember being struck by the sovereign metaphor: the tiara, the ceremony. For several years prior, royal symbols had been manifesting in my consciousness. I'd close my eyes and see a crown. It was a recurring motif that I didn't quite understand.

Or did I?

My mind journeyed back to several years prior, inside a home nestled within Albi — a little castle village about an hour from Toulouse, France.

Benjamin was the CEO of the company that flew me out to speak at their conference. He'd taken a few days off work to show me and the other international speaker, Jake, around.

We were eating cheese and melons at his friend's place, which was stacked high with old records and vintage guitars. Benjamin was telling me about the startup scene in Toulouse — in particular, the French Tech Ticket program he was involved in. I'd just spent the last hour playing with his friend's five-year-old son, Nemo, who spoke no English.

Nemo was so shy, and so adorable. Once I'd earned his trust, we played hide and seek, and I chased him around the little apartment. He'd run and duck and giggle and talk to me in French. I couldn't understand his words, but we spoke the same language of laughter and fun. Afterward, we sat on the couch, and he read me a story about a moon from a French picture book — La Lune.

At one point, I was kneeling on the ground to get to his eye level. The little boy tilted his head to the side and looked at me with those big, innocent eyes. He turned to his father and pulled at his hand before asking him a question in French.

His dad laughed, and so did Benjamin.

"What?" I asked. "What's so funny?"

Nemo stared at me in wonder.

"He just asked if you were the Queen."

I chuckled. How odd. For some reason, his question seared itself into the archive of my memory with an asterisk placed next to it: * refer back later. Maybe it was the way the boy looked at me, or the fact that his words sent a bolt of energy running down my spine.

I looked up at Benjamin. "Just tell him I grew up in a little Australian town on Princess Street, so I was always destined to be a Queen one day."

Nemo didn't understand what was happening. He just looked at me again, as if he saw right through me. "Es-tu la Reine?" he asked. Are you the Queen?