to cannes in a can

      It’s Cannes time! And I haven’t even made it home from the Berlinale yet. My son Sean and I have been holed up in our house in France since February, writing, playing music and being grateful we are warm. 
      So last night, Sean says to me “Mom, why aren’t we going to Cannes?” “Well,” says I, with the timeless wisdom of mothers, “because.” There were actually other, more long-winded reasons, but it’s enough to know that I hadn’t made plans to go, yet here we were, just a 3 hour and 21 minute drive away, if one is to believe googlemaps, which one should never really do. 
      “We should just go,” says Sean.
      “Accommodation is insanely expensive,” says I, encouragingly.
      “We could sleep in the van,” says he, demonstrating that he is 18 and I am not. The van didn’t even occur to me, and if you saw it, you’d understand. It’s my friend’s band van, a hulking, white paneled, windowless affair with bashed-in sides that stinks of diesel and the sweat of musicians who have traveled 300,000 km in it.  So imagine my surprise when I felt my lips move and heard the words “Yeah, okay,” tumble out of my mouth unbidden. 
      So here we are. On a moment’s notice, we have thrown a mattress into the van, chucked some dry goods into laundry baskets for easy transport, thrown our bikes in (did I mention it’s a BIG van?) and are about to hit the road, headed east, in this giant rolling tin can.
      Yes, we are going to Cannes in a can. Because we can. Maybe we’ll do the can-can. We’re very can-do. (sorry, especially about that last one)
      We don’t know where we’re going to park this monster. We don’t know how we’re going to access anything at the festival, since I missed the registration date by about two months. We don’t know how long our baguette and bag of raisins will last. But we know we’re going to Cannes. 
      This, gentle reader, is indie filmmaking at its finest.