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. Swimming 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 remember 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. A language exchange to Bordeaux one summer, washing dishes in the art museum and living with Olivier and his family. Learning to ski in the Alps. I remember nearly drowning in the sea off the Brittany coast, tossed through the breakers and dragged out by the rip tide. I remember 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