Just before nine, a misty morning in late May.
Like countless times before, I'm on a ferry bound for France. It's late May, and today the sun is hidden behind an impenetrable veil of cloud.
As the ferry leaves the safety of Poole harbour, I pause for a moment. Looking south, the wide expanse of the channel stretches as far as the eye can see, broken only by the shimmering Isle of White to the east and the chalky edges of the Purbeck hills to the West. Only seventy miles away, lies the northern coast of France.
It's now nearly two years since I moved to France to live full time. Here on this ferry, amid the foam, I gaze back at this familiar shore-line. I can feel my two worlds colliding head on in this stretch of sea separating one home from another.
Sometimes I feel like I am both apple and steam, that I have a natural desire to both drift up and fall back to earth, that both the northern and southern coast of the Channel are my home-shore.
It's now nearly two years since I moved to France to live full time. Here on this ferry, amid the foam, I gaze back at this familiar shore-line. I can feel my two worlds colliding head on in this stretch of sea separating one home from another.
Why does an apple fall down from the tree? Why does steam rise? Because they are quite simply going to their natural home.
Sometimes I feel like I am both apple and steam, that I have a natural desire to both drift up and fall back to earth, that both the northern and southern coast of the Channel are my home-shore.
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