Besides having a place to live, and having a rough means of earning my living whilst here, I don’t actually have a plan. No goals. No to-do lists. Just me, alone in a country home in the South of France.

I left Vancouver a little over two weeks ago for a three month long… exploration, adventure? I’m at a loss for the right word.

France was something that I put up on my wall about two years ago.

I printed off pictures and put them up beside my bed. I talked about it all the time. I don’t know why I did any of this. It was almost a reflex action. There was something about France that drew me inexplicably. A friend of mine once shared a German word with me that captured the sentiment exactly. Fernweh, meaning ‘Homesick for a place I’d never been’.

I didn’t want to go to France because I wanted to travel, or to be a tourist. I don’t feel drawn to explore landmarks (although I will definitely check out the Eiffel tower… I’d feel I’d cheated myself somehow if I didn’t).  I wanted to go, because I wanted to hear my name pronounced the French way; the way I’d heard it pronounced when I was a kid. That sounds like such a silly reason, but honestly… that’s what it almost completely amounts to.

I also wanted to travel here for the solitude.

Nine hours ahead of everyone back home. When I wake up, nearly everyone I know is going to bed. I didn’t know what that would mean to me until I arrived. Now I know: for the first time in a really long time, I don’t feel behind. I’m able to dedicate my mornings and afternoons to me, without feeling like I’m letting someone else down.

I can write.

I feel emotional just writing those words. Here, in the quiet of the mornings (all alone in a beautiful home in the country) I can write for me. I can pour myself a cup of coffee and, without even a shimmer of a thought towards my other obligations, I can write. I can delve into stories that my fingers have been itching to tell, the way they’ve been itching to tell them. I’ve felt empowered by my words. I feel proud of what I’ve been writing. It’s not strained. It’s effortless. The prose has been flowing easefully… almost magically. I’ll read what I wrote the next morning, and am continuously surprised by how little I change. A punctuation mark here, a word there… other than that, it’s exactly what I wanted to express.

I’ve also been reading.

For pleasure. I’ve been losing myself in my books for hours and hours. Laying outside on a towel, smothered in sunscreen. I’m in a secluded home in the country, so I read in my birthday suit. Butt naked with my book. Breathing deeply. Completely oblivious to anything real happening outside the pages. When I come up for air it often takes me a couple of seconds to collect myself; remember where I am; remember who I am.

Right now I’m reading “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt.  I have a bit of a crush on this author. The night after I started reading this book, I was up almost until the morning tossing and turning with complete admiration for her work. Why did she choose to do that? Omit that detail? Include that sentence? I get obsessed with authors I love. Transfixed by the way they use language.

There were other reasons that I wanted to go to France.

I wanted to go because it made absolutely no sense to go. I just barely afforded it (especially since the entire trip came together in a little under four weeks), and my French is only satisfactory.

I’m living in Neoules. A small town in the South of France about a 30-minute drive away from Toulon. Few people here speak more than a word or two of English. It’s terrifying a lot of the time: not having the ability to properly express who I am and what I need; not always able to understand the conversations happening around me. The prospect of departing from my little corner of Neoules, the beautiful home I’m renting from my friend Patrick, was so daunting that after my friend left to return to Canada, I barely left the driveway for a few days. The simple ringing of the phone gave me intense anxiety. I felt so clumsy with the language that sometimes I even stuttered, tripping over the same sound three or four times in a row.

But eventually I did leave my home. Went for a 3-hour bike ride to swim in a lake that I never found. And yesterday morning, rode up to the main village to buy some bread for my breakfast. One of the locals saw me get off my bike, and came right up to me. Said something in French I didn’t understand. I stammered “J’ai juste appris le francais. Je parle Anglais. Est que vous peu repetez?” Terrible? I’m not actually sure. What I was trying to say is “I’m just learning French. I speak English. Could you repeat what you just said?” He understood. We had a short conversation. He spoke slower. I told him I was from Canada. Vancouver. He’d lived in Quebec for a little bit and seemed pleased that I was Canadian. It occurred to me that he must recognize nearly everyone in the village. I must have stood out like a sore thumb. As I left to go into the little corner store, I heard him say “de Canada!” to his friends.

My French vocabulary is excruciating small. I hate that.  I don’t know how I come across. Donna Tartt actually expressed this really well in ‘The Goldfinch’ (no spoilers, don’t worry):

“It was interesting to see the change that came over Boris when he was speaking another language – a sort of livening, or alertness, a sense of a different and more efficient person occupying his body.”

Yes. I wanted to go to France because it makes no sense at all to be here. I’m here on a whim.

I’m here because of a frenzy of inspiration that led me to sell and give away all of my furniture, donate nearly all of my clothes (my entire closet now fits into one load in the washing machine) and declutter my possessions down to five boxes (which include ‘some’ books, a family photo album my brother made for me when he was 13 and I was leaving for university, and my journals) waiting for me in a friend’s storage locker at home. So many of my familiar comforts are gone. The comfort of being who I am is also starting to slide away… that sentence is probably a little confusing. I’ll write more on that later.

A whim is why I’m here. Because France won’t further my career. There’s nothing ambitious about my slow mornings spent immersed in a book. France is not another genius money making ploy. I’m in France because something deep inside of me told me that I had to be here… and I listened.

A beautiful sentiment. A true one too. But it’s also been F’ing hard.

I’ve had terrible nightmares. Several pregnancy dreams (a nightmare for me), one abortion dream, two death dreams (one of which was so disturbing that it preoccupied me for almost the entirety of the next day… It basically involved a suicide machine which someone close to me convinced me to enter, and I obliged. Sitting inside while this tank filled with water. No need to go further than that. It was horrible).

There have been moments when I’ve felt so lonely that staying awake seemed like too much effort.

There have been afternoons – several of them – where I’ve poured myself a large glass of wine to alleviate some of the pain. I’ve been buzzed, alone, a couple of times in my house. Fallen asleep in the middle of the day on the patio, the room delicately spinning. A different sort of behaviour for me. But without consistent internet access (along with a decision to spend a week away from Instagram and any prolonged social media access… I charge my phone once every 3 or so days now), I’ve discovered how difficult it is to spend time with myself without some sort of distraction.

A friend of mine pulled a tarot card for me on my decision to move here. “Romantic Union,” it said. That afternoon, I went to a corner of the last home I was living in, in Vancouver, and I cried. Sobbed. I don’t believe that I’m going to fall in love with someone here and get whisked away on some sort on epic romance. Instead, I think I’m going to fall in love with myself here. I had that thought even before leaving Vancouver. Somehow, I thought it would be easier.

Now that I’m here… ‘wherever you go, there you are.’ This is going to be a challenge. And I’m ready. I hope that wasn’t too melodramatic. I promise I’m also using this trip to ‘loosen up a bit’ and ‘not take everything so seriously’ and all that.