in montreal

Arrived in Montreal Thursday evening after a long 12 hour train ride from New York. The journey went by quickly as I spent most of my time in the food car eating hot dogs and staring out the window at the  Adirondack mountains. I fell asleep with my face on the table listening to the only other two people in the dining car talk about the housing market. I had predicted that I'd spend all 12 hours reading but the truth came to be that I read only 10 pages. I even tried to do the crossword but my focus only extended so far.

My friend and I arrived in Montreal and immediately began to analyze the city as if we had been here for years. Comparing and contrasting it to other places we have been. The first thing that bothered me, which for some reason didn't bother me 5 years ago, was Montreal's clear attachment to France, especially Paris. It smells strongly of desperation here, a desperation to be magnificently and culturally different from its neighbors. For example, Starbucks is called, "Café Starbucks" in Paris, it's just called "Starbucks". There seems to be a dire need to flaunt the city's European culture but there is a strong lack of evidence to prove the city's case. The mom n' pop shops are designed to look like Sweetgreens and no one seems to enjoy having a glass of wine and a cigarette. Not that those things make or break a city but if Montreal has such a strong sense of cultural sisterhood with Paris, or even France as a whole, they have a lot of work to do. Or undo. 

The people in Montreal are all incredibly kind. There is a warm sensation interacting with the people here. It reminds me of Chicago in the way that the midwestern identity humbles the metropolitan culture. There is something strangely rural about Montreal that makes me homesick for the cornfields and eccentricities of southern Ohio. Montreal is not too dissimilar from Chicago and Ohio...it may even have an essence of Grand Rapids. 

I've been sad here. I feel unamused and deflatedby this city. I feel frustrated by the things that are on pause back in New York but also frustrated by the way Montreal functions. I think I need to take a vacation that is either in a more bustling, stimulating, culturally sensational in comparison to New York type city, or, go to a rural, isolating, meditative sort of environment. The original plan was to go to Iceland for a week but my finances escaped me. 

I can't wait to be back in NY. It truly does feel like home. I never get this homesick - usually not even at all. I spent a month alone in Tokyo and not an ounce of homesickness ran through me. I went to Europe for a month and the most homesick I felt was when I heard my neighbor playing piano in Berlin and then I too so badly wanted to play piano. Homesickness for me usually comes about in the senses and I don't really ever miss people. When I was maybe 9 years old at a summer camp in northern Michigan, nestled into the sand dunes and on the shore of a silent lake, I distinctively remember only ever feeling homesickness when Dave Matthews Band came out from the camp counselors private cabin. My mom loved DMB.

 Overall, I am having a good time here. I'm laughing a lot and indulging in things I don't normally. Eating out for breakfast and what have you. 

I went to a thrift store to find my friend a sweater or a t-shirt but I realized I'm terrible at buying people clothes. I ended up buying a lavender turtleneck, for myself. I bought two packs of cigarettes and flirted with the waiter at the pizza restaurant. He flirted back but once someone starts flirting with me I become a mute. 

-m