Thanksgiving

To start with, I'm thankful for the following:

-fresh figs baked with goat cheese, bacon and cranberries

-pumpkin pie

-roasted vegetable salad

-mashed potatoes

-a nice dry rosé wine

-maple-glazed turkey with quinoa stuffing

I should mention as well:

-two aunts, five cousins, and two family friends

-23 degrees centigrade in October

-Parc St. Bruno and Lac Du Moulin, and at least 15 shades of red, orange and yellow autumn leaves

-a nearly full moon

That's just for starters, of course. I'm also thankful for this moment, for my friends in Vancouver and elsewhere, for having an apartment to myself for four months, for having a decent job, and for many more things. But here's something else: I'm thankful for having broken my heel bone three years ago, for having student debt, and for feeling alone sometimes. I'm thankful for the struggles, the pain, and the pettiness that I can sometimes give in to. I'm thankful for all of it, because without yang there would be no yin - and vice versa.

I have been listening, the last few days, to the songs that have defined my life in some way or another. What happens to me when I do this is that I enter another state, and things I haven't thought of in years, recollections of who I am and have been, return. What always happens, inevitably, is that I forget to wash the dishes. Also, this: I remember most vividly the moments when I decided that I never again wanted to take my privileged life for granted. I never wanted to take my family, my friends, my home, the things I eat and consume, any of it for granted; I wanted to engage, always, in this now-recurring theme of gratitude. There's such joy in feeling lucky.

But also, it's so easy to forget that. It's so rational to see the world around you as flawed, destructive; to see the lack and the need, and to feel it in yourself. It seems to me that the most enjoyable times of my life, and the best conversations, made no real sense at all - they were just a blast of energy. They often came out of nowhere, or were the product of pure serendipity. I'm learning to trust that life has its own timing, and when you are focused on the absolute goodness of yourself - paradoxically the most outward, unselfish perspective, as that which is most sublime is most paradoxical - things happen. Good things.

Le Mont

The thing that I thought wouldn't happen happened - I started to feel energized about being here, instead of just lazily soaking up the city's vibrations. I cleaned the apartment. I started to cook again - for real - things with apples, rhubarb, yams, beets, Dogger Pond honey , and lots of ginger. I went to the library and read about architecture. I did stuff.
And so now... here's a story about my day. A story with pictures!

PART 1: Matin

I began this particular day by waking up at 5:47.

Outside my back door, the sky was dark.

So I went back to sleep.

I woke again and it was light.

It was early morning. The room was silent, which hardly ever happens - there's almost always noise from Avenue Du Parc, even first thing in the morning. Occasionally I hear some weird noises from next door. Sometimes someone goes, "mmph mmp" behind the walls, or maybe that's tv. Sometimes also, somebody does something hurtful to society and a siren will go wailing down the Rue. But all of this is basically ok. I'm used to it now.

I slipped out of bed, slid open the back door and stepped outside to feel the air.

What happens when I step outside my door is that the air curls. The sudden change in temperature and pressure in the room causes billions of air molecules to invisibly dive into a swoop, mixing themselves with the air that is escaping from the room. I sometimes imagine these molecules in different colors for different particulates; there are traces of CO (black), NO2 (a sort of light turquoise), Radon (red), sulfur (yellow), chlorine (blue), and dozens of other trace chemicals. Sometimes it smells like daffodils, and sometimes olive paste, and sometimes rust. This morning, I thought for sure I smelled snow.

The autumn moon was still out, low in the sky, and still clear in the daylight.

I stared up at the light in the sky. It was a beautiful morning.

PART 2: Do French people understand money?

I went to the bank. When depositing cheques, in English Canada I never fear that I can just drop my two weeks' pay down a mechanical slot and it will magically appear in my bank account. Here, I'm not so convinced. Having spent some time negotiating Montreal's bike lanes I can tell you that the French just don't seem very organized. I decided to make myself feel better by presenting my cheque directly to a teller.

The clouds were gathering, and it was certainly going to rain. I had decided to leave my bike at home, and I took the metro to the Jean-Talon market, in little Italy.

PART 3: Apres-midi

I had drawn a map of the market and calculated the most efficient route to travel in order to achieve my goal. My goal was:

-eat a Merguez sandwich

-buy pears

-buy a loaf of walnut levain bread and one croissant from the big boulangerie

-buy a small slab of manchego cheese from the fromagerie

-leave.

The map looked very efficient.

But what actually happened was:

The problem with Jean-Talon market is that one is confronted with a terrifying array of amazing things to eat. In September, within an hour's drive of Montreal people are picking pears and apples off the trees, pulling corn off the stalks, tapping maples to make syrup, collecting honeycombs to make honey, milking their cows to make cheese, and all of this arrives at the market with the scent of the countryside still very much apparent. And I mean that in a good way. A very tasty and evocative and expensive sort of way.

And then I realize: I don't need an oil change. I don't need to buy gas or insurance for the car I don't have. And since one does not have a car, and is mercifully spared the expense of an oil change, then one must enjoy the moment. So one buys stuff.

PART 4: Apres-midi et nuit

There is a lovely vegetarian cafe not far from my apartment, the kind of place where you can just sit alone and write letters in longhand or stare at the afternoon light reflected in your water glass. Sitting here, I'm sensing now being part of a community at large. I was expecting Montreal to be something I imagined, and have allowed myself to be disappointed when it's not quite adding up - I'm not walking into dizzyingly elevated conversations and exchanging smiles with strangers, I'm not feeling the intimacy I have never felt in Vancouver and expected here. But then, sometimes things just arrive. I had been hearing the beat of drums outside my window on weekend evenings, and finally the other night I strolled into Parc Mont-Royal, up onto the knoll, and there were dozens of people, of  all ages and ethnicities, beating bongos, water jugs, tin cans, whatever could be used to swirl into the rhythm. Someone had brought a trumpet. There were some who had gravitated into the middle of things and were dancing; at one point three women simultaneously began singing harmony, without a word or a nod to each other.

There are these times, occasionally. The senses are allowed to be feral, and civil. The city is ingested. There is a ribbon of this that winds through Montreal, and sometimes I get to experience it. At other times, it's just me, running through the streets, as if hit by lightning.

or flying.