Re: Currently Listening to La Femme

McKenna Thurber

I have not heard the word Kiff but I like it very much. This chapter: Kiff. C'est le kiff.

I got wonderful shoes that Nicole Tchounga’s Nigerian auntie contributed 50$ towards because they were so expensive and so wonderful. One day I will be old and rich and see a girl in a shoe store and give her money for her shoes because she looks happy and lovely jumping around in them. These things happen in strange ways, and they make sense in ways that can only be cosmic. I met Mia Ochalek’s classmate from Wisconsin and tonight we’re going out together in the red light district. I think of you, your story, running around France like a live wire, kissing girls. I am comforted by this idea. I hope we are after college friends and not just college friends.

Goodbyes are hard. I hope the best for Barry. I'm struck by the impermanence of human connections, in college we see the same people again and again every day. Graduating and saying goodbye to people I realized I would truly never see these people again. Travelling is even worse in that regard, all these connections I make disappear as soon as I get on the next train. We walk in and out of each other's lives so easily. Well, for me, it's hard. I'm trying to make it easier.

The change is derealizing, like I'm falling through nothingness and I'm excited to hit the ground actually, just to know where it is, just to touch something, just to stand up again.

Travelling is hard, McKenna. I have wonderful times, and those are real, and meeting wonderful people makes it much better. But I am very lonely. I spend most of my days adrift, alone among people who are together. I sit by the boats on the canal and hope they'll invite me on. They never do. I try to conquer my fear of approaching people and sometimes that works really well! But it takes everything I have to thrust myself out of my comfort zone like that.

Comfort is few and far between in these parts. Sleeping in rooms with strangers that snore at night. I'm not even good at sharing a bed with a lover, I get so distracted by other people's breathing and being, I get caught in their reality. I have a permeable outer layer. When I first got here I was having crippling allergies, nonstop sneezing, my eyes itching and streaming with hot tears. Somehow taking in too much and rejecting it all.

Okay, now for the wonderful - the Before Sunrise moments, the things that have made it all worth it. Back when I was in Nice I re-met this Canadian boy with a kind and adventurous spirit, and we talked for hours on the beach about our lives, pasts, dreams, stories. He is a true traveller. He didn't try to have sex with me which was an incredible relief, to have someone who wanted to talk to me because they wanted to talk to me, not because they wanted to jab themselves inside of me. We climbed onto a forbidden roof and saw over the city, ran from the cops, met a charming friend group of French bums taking shrooms, and stayed up all night with the warm sea breeze, meandering around the cobblestone streets.

When I was at a music festival in Brussels, I saw this girl with tattoos and I liked her tattoos and I was drawn to her. She had this green haired best friend who wore a rainbow spinny hat. Can we bring those back in style? Later as I sat by the canal to decompress, she came and sat with me. She looked into my eyes, really looked into them, and I had to look away; it was so potent. She barely spoke English and I barely speak French but we made it work. We watched the sun go down and the moon rise. Spinny rainbow hat came by to translate for us. We ran through the festival holding hands and laughing. We kissed. And I left - I could have stayed but I left - I was afraid, I don't know of what exactly, the depth of my own desire? She felt so good it scared me. I stayed another day in town but I didn't tell her. I really must try to be braver. I was afraid of shattering an experience that had been so beautiful, I was afraid I would somehow ruin it. I wanted to keep it in a snowglobe.

I also met a gorgeous Italian girl and she invited me to sit with her friends and play guitar on the streets of Paris, and then to a basement rock&roll gig where we danced all night and I gave them all the weed I had.

So it is marvelous - it is - stumbling into music festivals, dancing in the pouring rain, mysterious men playing saxophone in the forest, me performing Amy Winehouse with a live band at a bar (?!), fairytale days in the French countryside.

But I am tired, McKenna. I am so tired.

So I am coming home. In 2 days actually. I'm coming back to stay with my mother and her boyfriend on Long Island, a 20 minute train ride from the city. We will dance and get dinner and walk for hours through the streets of the city. You and me in the city!

You message people and make friends - I envy your bravery. Rooftop parties! Rooftop parties! Moving to a city where you know barely anyone away from your family is so courageous. You inspire me.

It seems I will not be moving to New York just yet. I think I will in a year. I am going to stay in California for a while, and then Holly will graduate and we'll come. I was grappling with it a lot in the final days, giving up the first home I'd ever had, the deepest comfort I'd ever known, and ultimately I decided I don't want to go yet. I will go, I know that. But I am not ready.

I thought I was a tetherless soul and I would spend my life drifting and never really connecting, always alone in the deeper sense. I don't feel that anymore. I don't want to feel it again. I'm worried that is what New York would do to me, if I go alone.

I don't want to be alone anymore.

So now I get dressed and go to eat and maybe bike, wander as I do everyday, maybe get a new book. I am alone, but not for long.

Remember when you messaged me on GroupMe before we went to college? It meant so much to me. 5 years ago! Have we known each other 5 years? It gave me hope for a world out there with people like McKenna, a world I could be a part of.

Sending you all my love, faith and solidarity, may we make our movies and enter our post-college years with bounty, community, may the world see and hear us.

xoxo