I think back to my grandmother’s cottage all the time. She lives in a little village two hours from Bordeaux, France. The walls echo a state of peace I only remember in the depths of my imagination. The kind of place you forget the comfort of until you’re wrapped up in it again.

Her home feels almost as beautiful as her world does. You can’t put it in a bottle. Trust me. I’ve tried. Maybe if I took bits of that town with me I’d never leave it truly. That’s what I believed before it all slipped out of my hands. I remember the fresh bread from the bakery down the street, the wash basin since abandoned, the sound of few cars and many feet– walking in separate directions with nothing in mind. Mindless wanderers. The culture I love is the one I fall away from, obsessed with the way my past looks, and disdain towards the way the present feels. I stare at those pictures time and time again– I can’t go back– and fall back into that space again. I hated the pictures I took when I was there. They couldn’t possibly encompass the vivid wind, sky, and burst of life all around me. I’m gone now– a 9 hour plane ride away. Those pictures have never been so beautiful. I miss southern France with every bit of my heart, but a life stuck in the past misses the present and loses the future. My culture is missing, my culture is admiration, my culture is wrapped in the fresh linen of my grandmother’s cottage. I’ll be back the next time my eyes are shut.