i've been back for 5 days, and it seems like light years in some ways, and like i just stepped through the security check at dorval in others.
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on the plane from london to montreal, i sit next to a skinny man wearing white and a yellow scarf - gabriel. we start talking about montreal, he's french-canadian, and hasn't been there in 8 years, these days, he lives in the uk, following maharishi mahesh yogi. we start talking about impermanence and change, the vedas, transcendental meditation, hatha yoga and ajurveda. for the entire 6 hours of the flight.
he's really upbeat, and friendly, shares his ghee and the vata pacifying spices with me at dinner time (travel aggravates vata after all). we annoy the hell out of the third passenger in our row.
when we arrive in montreal, he interrupts jack and my welcome to introduce both of us to his entire family.
i'll have to make sure to send him a note to the ashram type community he lives in.
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i walk through the big doors at arrival and have to wait a little while, with another girl, because a large indian family is taking pictures in front of us, and we don't want to disturb them. we both sneak around them, and i scan the crowd, wondering where jack is. i recognize him immediately, standing near, or leaning against a column, even though i had forgotten about his glasses.
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strangely enough, i am not nervous, but happy and all smiles instead. all i wonder is whether he might be dissapointed by me.
between non-verbal welcomes, i keep asking:
"ok?"
"alright?"
he tells me he isn't dissapointed, and during the taxiride home, all we do is grin happily and smile and realise the other one is indeed quite like expected.
it's a clear evening over montreal, and even the auto-route away from the aiport looks good.
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sometime that first night, i get sad.
it dawns on me that as easy it has been the days before my departure, as easy as hopping on those planes has been, this is a life changing trip with major implications. life has already changed in a multitude of ways in previous weeks, and while the happenings of the evening are the manifestation of the change that has already been there, and are very very good stuff, and enjoyable too, it is change nonetheless, that takes some getting used to and adapting to.
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late the next morning, we walk to cosmo's, five minutes down the road.
the day is bright, it's warm, we're holding hands and smiling like lunatics. we sit outside, and because i admit to the waitress that this is my first time there, i get a menu, which amazes other customers - they never knew menus even existed.
jack picks something for me, and it's the greatest brekkie one could long for after a trans-atlantic flight and the other stuff: big, fatty, fresh and delicious. yeah.
sitting there in the sun, with that brekkie and next to that boy, the day ahead of me, and the town mine to discover, there's nothing else i need.
i tell the waitress that the brekkie alone is enough to convince me to move to montreal for good. she tells the cook and comes out again to our table, relaying the cook's message that i shouldn't forget about montreal winters and the icestorms.
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montreal seems like melbourne, just without the bay, and with french. multicultural, unpretentious, friendly, diverse. i hadn't realised how dominant french is, and that it's that dominant by law. i giggle at canadian french, because it's so unlike the soft, flowing french i learned in school. food seems important, and it's dead-cheap, compared to germany. i like habitat 67 (funky, if poorly located and in a yucky colour), and love silo #5, because it's so rundown and apocalyptic, right downtown, - unfortunately the silophone isn't working when we're there. i like the plateau, and how you will find a hip cafe right next door to a portugese hardware store. i love the stairways in front of the houses, and instantly long to live in one of them, even though everyone i tell about my desire tells me they are most impractical during moving, and in winter, when ice covers the steps.
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sometime between friday and saturday, i re-discover how much i like and need pda and being touched.
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i like his blue pt shirt from the regiment. and i look good in it, too.
he jokingly tells me he wants me to have it, but that i should not wear it in public - it's got too much pulling potential.
i wear it as i type this.
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a few weeks ago, when i searched out and found his personals ad, i checked how well i fit his description of the woman he was looking for.
- "smart" - yes.
- "confident" - yes.
- "likes to laugh" - yes.
- "perchance to sing" - uhhmmm...not well...but yeah...yes.
- "strives to be happy" - yes.
the only things i didn't fit was who thinks a huge late breakfast at chez cora or a pint at mckibbins sounds like a great idea.
we go to both places, so i can say "yes" to those two points, too.
they feel special, that brekkie and that pint.
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his bathtub needs a rail one can hold on to. just in case things get too dizzingly good.
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i get to know the people of jack's world. pics of pop and mom and brother and sister and the previous girls in his life. i meet goodbar, and hotrod, and more people from the regiment. i see rocky sitting in his place, and rocky sees me sitting in front of jacks computer wrapped in a sheet.
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before we meet, dzun asks the montreal community at livejournal, for ideas on how to spend a few hours with a german visitor.
someone anonymously replies:
"the last time i hosted a german girl all she wanted was to get laid. didn't know this until after though, so maybe you should make sure your antenna are working."
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i meet dzun and he, too, is much like i expected him to be. we walk along mont royal west, and happen to pass by the shop at which an email-ordered divacup is waiting for me. - which is nothing that fazes a scarleteener.
we walk over mont royal, talk about stuff ranging from scarleteen to public transport and baseball, and i admire the squirrels. it's all good.
on mcgill college, we take a good look at raymond mason's "the illuminated crowd", which i can't take my eyes off. the closer you look, the more disturbing it gets. so brilliant.
dzun and i, we have some alcopops at a downstairs cafe somewhere where the waitress thinks i'm an aussie, before we walk a while to the ethiopian restaurant where we meet his girlfriend and fellow scarleteener rottenfruit. she, too, is much like i imagined her to be. the food is communicative, being served on one giant plate with sour dough bread to dip. it's a first, this dinner and i wonder how many people in ethiopia actually have such an abundance of food, but it's different and good.-----------------------------
i buy hawksley workman's cd "(last night we were) the delicious wolves" and when i put it into jack's computer, the first song that random picks up is "no beggining no end".
you can't be crying now i feel so happy that we're here together
your eyes must be filled with the mist of underwater cigarettes
we've lathered ourselves here now lets go swim in the city's reservoir
don't even think like that right now we'll just be further and further away
cause we're cradled in no beginning and no end
like naked bathtub goldfish shimmering in timeless candlelight
adjust my night time eyes to see you swim like ancient swimmers do
don't even think like that right now we'll just be further and further away
cause we're cradled in no beginning and no end
don't dive shallow in deep dark waters
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i meet fellow scarleteener and web person bettie for coffee. dzun and rizzo have met her before, a while ago, when heather was in town, and describe her as quiet. - truth be told, she is anything but, and funny and pretty to boot, and we get along very well. - she handily lives just 5 minutes away from jack.
after lunch, i get to meet her attractive husband and adorable cat (who's apparently impressed by the catnip mice i brought on heather's recommendation). - all very lovely.
one more meeting that makes me realise that there are real, wonderful people at the other end of that icq window and furthermore, that the mainstream's opinions about sexworkers are indeed totally whacked and wrong (not surprising, really) and that the only downside to meeting people from the net is that it takes fligths to see them again.
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on a beautiful sunny saturday, we go to st.joseph's oratory. the devotion of people walking up the stairs of the oratory on their knees startles me: i have seen it before, in rome, but still.
it's strange and amazing in its size and set out. never seen escalators inside a church ever before. the votive chapel is the eeriest place - thousands of votive candels illuminate a colossal collection of canes, crutches and braces. i light a candle for my grandma, knowing she will be happy to hear about it.
the little chapel in which frere joseph used to pray in all its simplicity, with the simple signs with which people express their gratitute for miracles received, appeals to me more than the gigantic rest. despite liking the oratory in general, i can't help but wonder about the cost of it, and why the catholic church spends its money that way.
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being a tourist, i follow the suggestions of the bloke in our row that gabriel and i annoyed on the plane: jack and i visit pointe-à-callière, montréals museum of archaeology and history. it's interesting and good, but a little bit chaotic because they are changing the set up. furthermore, neither of us is really in the mood for museum-ing. - and for me, a european (just now, from my desk, looking at a cathedral that is 800 years old) it's odd that there's a museum which marvels at stuff that was built roughly 200 years ago.
we have the most fun with the interactive holographic charactersthat answer your questions.
"are you part of the establishment?"
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jack and i, we meet the son of one of my mom's best friends, stephan, and his wife min so that i can give them the big box of choc i smuggled into the country for them on his mother's orders.
we head out to schwartz's for smoked meat. mentally, i really want to try to be vegetarian, but i fear now that i've had it once, i'll severely crave a medium smoked meat sandwich, oh, about twice a year or so. but still. yum.
they perfect the montreal food tour by walking with us to fairmount bagel, where i buy my first ever bagels.
i like them so much that hours before i fly out, we head back there, and i buy a dozen, which travel safely to europe, where they will be sliced and frozen and toasted. half a dozen is still left as i type this. what should i do when they are gone?
i guess that will make just one more reason to head out to montreal again as soon as possible.
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the flying leaves me breathless.
it's rainy and cloudy, but it feels great, flying over plateau mont royal and towards the oratory, over westmount and jack's house, downtown and towards the olympic stadium, through big clouds and greyness. montreal is so well set out, it's so easy to navigate, and i recognize plenty of places where i've already been.
i thought i'd be scared, but i am not, only during the final two 90° turns towards the runway, during which the engine gets very very quiet, so quiet i have to ask jack whether it's alright. he assures me it is, and it really is.
i want more flying. and not just because that involves his voice in my headphones.
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on the way to, and at the airport, it's sad.
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so how can i sum it all up?
it was lovely.
montreal is lovely.
we are good together, jack and i, and i think we're both richer because we met, no matter what happens now.
these upside down, inside out last months, they have been scary and sad and exciting and great. i never expected anything like this, to fall in something this way, with jack. i never expected it would turn into this.
i always knew i would meet jack one day, i was dead sure about that years ago, when we were both still at opendiary.com and when he promised earlobe licking.
and this has been better than anything i could have come up with in my wildest dreams.
i love being surprised this way.
"sometimes the world begins
to set you up on your feet again
it wipes the tears from your eyes
how will you ever know
the way that circumstances go
always going to hit you by surprise"
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