It’s a quiet evening in the hills of Cannes, overlooking the sea… a view that I have become used to over the last two weeks. The glittering view of the hills encroaching onto the Mediterranean, like fingers desperately digging into the earth, trying to hold on. That’s what it’s felt like these last two weeks for me, which is why I haven’t been writing. I honestly thought that I had changed completely. I would wake up in the morning, unable to recognise myself. I forgot why it is that I wanted to move here in the first place – I seemed so lost, and was struggling to settle my roots even though I’ve been here so many times. I felt isolated up here, surrounded by beauty but completely alone. There are always two sides to loneliness.
One is dark, harsh, a sinking feeling, a suffocation. The other is peaceful, spacious, lots of room to breathe without worrying about the need to pretend to be someone else for the sake of others. There has been a good dose of both, and between the two I moved so fluidly and rapidly that I new a transformation was happening but I just didn’t know what the outcome would be. But finally, I’m here. And this evening, as I watch the sky go dark, I start to feel the familiar magic of the life I’d dreamed here before. It’s been coming back to me, piece by piece, in an even more beautiful way than before.
In this region, I have spent many days by the side of loneliness. From the moment I moved here, without any friends or any French, living life in my little bubble of a flat by the forest. To my days looking over the tourists walking through the streets of Valbonne, where all I could do was watch other people laugh and enjoy their time together. To the countless times I’d returned… my hot summer nights in Antibes, coast side apartments in Golfe Juan, and countless fresh spring mornings when I’d return to Valbonne, again and again in search of I don’t know what. Every single time, I’d seen a different face of what it means to be alone. I suppose that’s what life is in one sense, when we remove the moments where we are distracted by others. Adding up all the times when you take a moment to reflect that you are indeed alone, even in a room full of people… I think it sums up to the bulk of our lives.
This occasion has been no different, and I have learned in perhaps one of the most disorientating ways what it’s been like. It’s certainly not been the worst, and for that I’m grateful. It’s hard to be depressed when there is so much beauty around me. From the garden just outside my balcony, to the old streets of Cannes just by the sea. I have let the heaviness of paperwork for the first two weeks give me a swift bout of amnesia – it’s the only way I can describe it. I felt alienated, like a stranger, lost within the dream that I have fulfilled. I guess that’s why they say be careful what you wish for. When we want something so badly, it can give us a certain amount of shock when it happens. It might cause us to be disoriented for a while or, I think the French actually have a better word for it.
Dépayser… it means disoriented but it derives from the word pays or country. To take someone out of the country where they reside, for a more or less long time. To be “de-countried” in away. Arriving in France as a tourist and arriving as a resident literally feels different because I am aware of how much time I have ahead of me now – it’s not simply a holiday. There is an aspect of commitment to it. The practicality of my dream now weighs upon me – it’s no use only dreaming of it now, I must live it. Or at least, I must try. There is no point in giving it half of my heart, now that I’m here, it makes sense to take the dive. Otherwise, it would be like going to Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower. There would be no point. Except in this case, unlike seeing the Eiffel Tower, it is going to take a considerable amount of investment – of time, money, effort, emotion, expectation. What I have learned though, is that this doesn’t mean that I need to rush ahead and do everything before time runs out… indeed, I have put myself in a position where I actually have time now.
It feels strange. I have time to plan things out, I am no longer fighting against the clock of the “tourist period” when I travel around Europe these days. To some extent, the need to slow down and pace myself has come as a surprise to me. Simply because I’d forgotten what life was like without the pressure of needing to “get out” in time. I forgot what it was like to live life with ease. Time is indeed a luxury, and like all luxuries it can be a little scary after living your life without it for so long. Scary to relax into it: time, love, freedom. All things that we search and long for but are so accustomed to living without, that when it comes knocking on our door we don’t want to let our guard down. God forbid that we actually let ourselves enjoy life for once. It’s a trap any of us can easily become entangled in… but luckily I am remembering, even if it is after two weeks of fear. Finally, I can slow down and enjoy the time I have been given.
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