“À quoi ça sert d’écrire sur les murs?”

[Paris] “Smile, Laugh, Breathe”

It’s hard to believe that two months have passed since I left France and stepped foot on Canadian soil again. I’ve already spent 6-7 weeks in Montréal as a full time summer au pair, and will resume my position with the family at the end of August for the next school year. As excited as I was to start on yet another new venture, I had a hard time settling in, and accepting the fact that I had to leave behind the country that represented the culmination of all my previous hopes and dreams – of living abroad, speaking a foreign language, and immersing in an exciting, inspiring culture. In fact, I think I hated Montréal for the first two weeks that I was here, it was as big, dirty, noisy, and lacking in charm as I had feared. After time spent in the French countryside, the weather in Montréal seemed dreadful, the humidity was awful and stifling, the pollution was detestable. Even now, I can’t help often comparing everything to “how it is in France.” But it’s not fair to compare, I know I arrived in France with stars in my eyes, France has always been a glowing pinnacle on the towers of my castle in the clouds. So I try to look at Montréal through rose-tinted (sun)glasses and try to be content with being Canadian again.

Recently, I met up again with some friends who had been on exchange in France at the same time, and we couldn’t help but chat over drinks about the things we missed about France – the pâtisseries, the trains, the food, the wine (and wine prices!!), the charm of historical buildings, or the accessibility of travel to other countries…and I started looking through the huge collection of photos taken in France/Italy that I still refuse to delete off my iPhone (hence why I have no memory space for photos in Montréal…). I came across several images of graffiti, street art, window displays or vandalism that had delighted me at the point of their discovery, whether it had been with the brazenness or with the wisdom of their messages, and thought that I would make a post of them, as a way of remembering yet another aspect of France qui me manque.

[Cahors] One of the first photos I took in my first days in Cahors. Shoes thrown over a wire is a common sight back home, and this image made me smile as I realized that some things don’t change just because you cross an ocean and leave one country for another.

[Rue des Soubirous, Cahors] “In your mouth, idiot.” Down the street from where I lived in Cahors, an abandoned medieval structure was boarded up and scrawled upon by some lycéens. The French vocab reminded me at the time of how I was well and truly living in a foreign place.

[Cahors] This one made me realize the extent of English that my potential students would have! (And of their typical teenage mindsets.)

haikus from a sunny sand dune in the South

pamplemousse rosé
La Dune du Pyla sablée
les insectes tuées

emergency pee
“are we out of the woods yet?”
damnit, no TP

sand in my black hair
the calm Atlantic in front
i’m without a care

shining, shimmering, splendid…& speechless

sweat. sand. shells. shorts. shopping. salad. sun. sailboats. snacks. smiles. waves. wine. warmth. wandering.

never have i ever said so little. words are inadequate. what can you say when it’s this beautiful at the end of October? “sorry, Vancouver”? “goodbye, Canada”?

do you have wanderlust yet?

it’s almost 2 am, and i’m sitting outside on my friend’s little balcony in a little town an hour away by train from Bordeaux.
the skies are absolutely clear, and even with a few lit lamp posts across the street, i’ve never seen a brighter Orion.
it’s a tiny bit chilly, but it’s the end of October after all, and this would be a perfect August night in Vancouver – i’m sitting outside in a t-shirt and my hair is freshly wet from a much needed shower (we did wheel our carry-ons and march with our daypacks for a good 40 minutes in the sun to get here).
i’m coming off of a happy white and gold wine induced haze. in the distance, i hear the echoing rattle of passing cars, and all around me are terra cotta tiled apartment complexes, all one-storey high, low to the ground, generous to the indigo skies.
i inhale deep, deep, deeply, like i am trying to suck in the beauty and fraicheur into my lungs, like i am trying to absorb the clean night air into the lining of my big-city polluted lungs.
everything else is completely still and silent.
i like knowing that there is a port nearby. it seems i always end up where there’s water, beaches, and quais. chanceuse.
tomorrow, i get to feel soft sand between my toes again.

i think i’ll sleep with the glass balcony door open tonight.