Re: Watch Breathe (2014)

Holly,

I can relate to a lot of what you say, but more in regards to men than women, as you observed. My female friendships have been less obsessive and tumultuous than my relationships with men. I pondered this in the shower this morning. I think it is to do with the divide and war between men and women. It manifests in a push and a pull, a love and a hate, a fascination and a fear. I've always attached to men in a more violent and turbulent way than to women, desire, fear, confusion, envy, all released in sex like catharsis, cacophony.

I wonder to myself often if this means I should be with men or the opposite.

[redacted]

In my dream he was neither gray nor red, he was white and at peace. In my dream we were quieter and kinder. Is this a manifestation of our subconscious selves or just a projection of my own desires? Can I love without this pain?

I would like to watch this movie very much, though I doubt I will for a long time, being in Europe and all. It's been on my watchlist on letterboxd for a long time. I'm glad films like this exist. (We are pretentious whether we say film or not. It's okay.)

As for female friendship, it's been easier for me always, less precarious. I love women in a secure and stable way, of course due to my relationship with my mother! Love feels different to me than friendship, love is blinding, all-consuming, friendship is soothing. Women are not so othered to me, I have succeeded at femininity so I do not need to seek it in others. I have never confused a friendship with love, the lines have been clearly drawn. This, in a way, is me not being able to love anyone fully, hiding from my friends, hiding from my lovers, shirking the Ultimate. I have never been completely not alone. I don't think I want to be.

Are our sexualities defined by our wounds? Are we doomed to subconsciously seek for our entire lives, the love we've been denied? Deven wants a mother and to mother because she was denied that. Nathalia is like me a lot, she loves men who hurt her. Darkness feels more real, more like love. I wish I knew someone who had solved the issues I battle with, I wish I knew a way out to happiness, to living a life less defined by wounds. I am probably not ready.

So last night... I have to capture the details here, as to never forget them.

I ran into Marco who I had met last time I was in Nice, before Cannes, at the Waka Bar which is this bar by the beach where they play remixes of Y2K American music far too loudly. The bar is too crowded to even dance so people just stand there, unable to hear each other, as people push through to go other places, pumping their fists to the incessant beat. I did not like it.

I went outside for air many times, once smoking a cigarette with a boy with an afro from Marseille. This time I was alone and looking out at the beach. Someone was trying to get in the bar. He looked up at me and gestured to the bouncer that he knew me. The bouncer gestured for me to come down and I did, I pretended we were on the same floor at the hostel. He was so grateful for me, he wanted to buy me a drink but I didn't want a drink.

Then, I saw Marco going up the stairs, with his long blonde curly hair. He said want to smoke some weed? Like a miracle. Want to go smoke some weed.

We did smoke weed and said beautiful things and beautiful stories. He showed me his bucket list, which shared some items with my bucket list, like see the Northern Lights and some items that weren't on my bucket list, but now are, like ride a chariot pulled by wolves. He is a true adventurer, an escapist who grew up reading Percy Jackson and Harry Potter. He's one of the only people who left his hick Ontario town, streets lined with Confederate flags--which to them is the symbol of being country! But he left and hasn't been back, camping on the beach, wandering through tiny towns in Spain, checking off his bucket list. We shared this lifelong urge for freedom. What the ocean is to me, the forest is to him. He said, in French, mother and father are mère and père; the ocean and the earth are mer and terre. The ocean is the mother and the earth is our father and they raise us as we grow. He worked on a sailboat once and navigated 12 foot waves. We may go work on a yacht together at some point. When he was in high school he used to smoke weed all day, as in too much all day, and sell drugs, and his mom tried to send him to military school, so he got his act together. He is a carpenter and he likes making things become real and perfect.

We watched many hilarious things as we talked and the night grew later. Two drunk men fighting, one trying to ninja kick the other. It was a war between two friend groups. The drunker one broke a wine bottle and threatened to stab the other boys with it but their girl pulled them away. He said "I'm going to suck your mother. I'm going to kill you."

A group of people wandered onto the beach and a boy threw his drink on a girl and then she stormed back up and threw a drink on him.

Marco went to pee and met a French boy to whom he offered a handshake, but the boy had just peed, and did not want to shake pee hands.

We watched as a boy with six pack abs, fully dressed and holding a bottle, ran into the ocean maybe ten times. And he kept running out. Meanwhile, his friends, the girl and the boy who had thrown drinks on each other, made out on the beach. Marco and I decided that he was jealous, because he loved the girl, and was trying to get her attention by running into the ocean. He was sad. He stood before them, his bottle filled with sea water, and poured the entire thing on his head. His shoulders hung low. Whenever the girl stopped paying attention to him he would run back into the sea. Sometimes he couldn't get up, sometimes he would crawl. At one point we thought he may have drowned. Finally he came on land and we realized he was pee hands.

Some French man sat two feet from us, grumbling about "amoreuse" and threw a glass at us that shattered on the rocks so we left the beach. We saw that people were sitting on the roof so we climbed up the construction scaffolding like monkeys onto the roof. From there we saw six pack, his crush and her boy, get into an uber together. Six pack was still sad. Then the cops came and we had to shimmy down at superspeed and run into the night. What a rush!

We wandered through Old Nice at night, it was bare and beautiful. We saw the Palais de Justice. Four men in an alley laughing invited us to join them, sitting on mattresses, taking shrooms. One man wore a dozen bracelets on each wrist and ankle, a hipster hat that said New York and he had teeth that implied he had taken some kind of drugs too much. They were much fun. They gave Marco two tiny shrooms. They asked if we were lovers and when we said we were friends they laughed and did not believe it. Their friends kept passing even though it was 4am, and joining us. One became obsessed with me and sat next to me touching his leg against mine as I scooted away. He kept sticking a speaker playing reggae in my ear and asking me if I knew the songs. I didn't know any. Then he explained Jamaica to me. I said I know what Jamaica is. I got up and he tried to yank me back down to show me more reggae. I was proud of myself - I said don't tug me!

So me and Marco and two Frenchmen wandered away, leaving reggae man behind, looking for a bar which ended up being closed. One Frenchman twirled and spun of magic and joy. I twirled with him.

Marco and I walked back home, which was locked, so I had to go through another connected hostel, and the guy who opened the door was mad. I went to bed at 4:30AM very happy.

It was nice that he didn't try to sleep with me. So refreshing. Everyone here is always trying to sleep with me. I like when someone cares more for my mind than my body. I don't have to be afraid. He told me he thinks rape is a worse sin than murder. I've always said that.

So everything is better than before, it really is. These days have been beautiful, swimming with my clothes on, talking like it's easy, making my own pasta, eating croissants, crepes, coffee. Friends! Friends! All I need in life, really. I don't fear like I used to, I say hi and then we are friends. This trip is right. I am bliss cat again.