Libertine

I’ve been coming to France my whole life. Vivid early memories from trips with my family each year to Normandy. The friends made by swimming pools. Camping in house-sized tents. Paddling in the sea and eating sandy cheese on fresh baguettes. I remember being bitten by an Alsatian guarding a campsite that went for my brother, and can almost feel the sharp pain and fear. I recall climbing the streets and spires of Mont Saint-Michel like I could touch the polished brown stone this very moment. >> >>Then came the school trips. Learning to ski in the Alps. A language exchange to Bordeaux one summer, washing dishes in the art museum and living with Olivier and his family. Nearly drowning in the sea off the Brittany coast, tossed through the breakers and dragged out by the rip tide. Summers with friends at a crumbling chateaux outside Saint-Émilion, a broken heart and loneliness, and fires and fireflies on a little island on the river.

France