(no subject)

Dear Gabrielle,

I write to you from the dock where I drink a peach Arizona ice tea and sit watching two little girls on the dock of a boat shading their eyes from the sun. I bought it from the market and did several bits with the guy who worked there. I accidentally did littering and it is irreversible.

Frankly, I am homesick. It’s been 3 days. I want to go home. But home no longer exists. I suppose that’s why I’m here in the first place.

I once wrote a character who went to Europe and was lonely, and aimless, he described it as “floating in nothingness”. I thought that would not be me but I think it is me. I do expect things to change as I spend more time here. But I miss comfort and friends and hugs. That feeling you have around people where you aren’t anxious at all, and can just be. I can just be by myself, but it’s not the same.

I see an old doggy in a bike basket. I hear people cheering, or booing, and motorycles—motorcycles are so loud!

Everyone at Cannes is dressed nice and weird and I am usually the nicest and weirdest dressed person in a room so it’s disorienting…

Today I ate a waffle that tasted like cardboard and a croissant that tasted like heaven. Fresh squeezed orange juice—mmmm.

What if this isn’t what I want? What if I don’t want this? This is hard. It’s exhausting. My feet and shoulders hurt. Two days ago I ran around the streets in the rain holding hands and kissing a boy I just met. And he was nothing to me. Am I lonely? Am I adjusting? Am I tired and hungry? I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I’m doing here. My dreams are so old and ingrained I’ve forgotten what they mean. Well, it’s beautiful. Beauty means so little without someone to share it with. Perhaps this is a journey to learn to be alone. There are so many people it overwhelms me.

Why did I save my money for this for the last 10 years? I miss my friends. I want home.

Okay—it is the next day. I begin again.

Gabrielle, mon chérie,

I was grieving but now I am happy. I saw three films yesterday and dressed beautiful and felt good. I met a girl from New York who went to my theatre camp’s rival theatre camp. After the show I saw a woman with blonde hair and a magnificent blue cinderella dress so I took pictures of her from afar. And then she talked to me and we became friends, she was an actress in a film at Cannes and people sent her too many beautiful dresses to wear herself!

I keep giving blue balls to the random french boys I kiss on the street and I do not feel guilty. There are only two but I expect more. I like to kiss but I think sex with a stranger I meet on the street might be going a little far.

Here is why I am happy: I decided to feed myself and sleep myself and I called Deven and Zach and my roommate and I are kindred spirits and we shared our souls. Today I floated and floated in the ocean and sang a hippie song “I release control and surrender to the flow of the love that will heal me” but that was a lot to say so I just omed. I lay on the beach and was happy. I lost my ring. I found my ring. It’s not often that one leaves the beach and comes back and their ring is there; where they left it; unclaimed; an inch into the sand.

Being alone is old-new and different. Old-new because I haven’t done it in a long time. I have no one to really rely on.

I lie on my monkey towel. Ants crawl on me. Get off!

I think I can do this. Maps are really a gamechanger.

Soon I will go to a café with wifi and write and work and that will remind me I am Sarah and I do exist.

Write back soon, mon amour, dirmi di tua viva!

I have started to think in French and Italian. I do not get very far because I am not very good. When I go to films with French and English subtitles I study. I am improving methinks.

Xoxo