j'adore montreal...

so, matthew and i spent a good portion of last night sitting on the patio at santropol, enjoying the long-awaited arrival of spring, eating giant sandwiches, petting an extraordinarily fluffy and adorable cat (i know, it's a bad combination, but it was a very clean cat!), and discussing the merits of montreal vs. vancouver. i regret to tell you all that montreal won on pretty much all counts.

though it was indeed a cold and drawn-out winter, it was beautiful with the snow, and (within city limits) i went outdoor ice skating, sledding, and even rode a horse-drawn sleigh! (mind you, it only went in circles, and i did it with a sticky and hyper three year old who kept covering my hair and clothes with maple syrup, but still!) and none of these things cost a penny. what does vancouver provide in the winter for free? what does vancouver EVER provide for free? that's what i'd like to know.

i think this is the most important selling point of montreal. it is...affordable. you can get a gorgeous apartment in the most desirable part of town here for less than a shitty one in south van. virtually every apartment has high ceilings and hardwood floors and 'terraces'. this means you can actually use your money to live, rather than merely handing over your paycheque to your landlord each week, and it means you don't have to live in squalor, relegated to the outer limits of the city. you can live like a king on the salary of a servant! or even the salary of a student!

and well, now that the sun is shining it's just so lovely. the city seems to have been built for people to live well, with a garden space out front of each row house, and a city made for bicycles and pedestrians, with so much gorgeous architecture to look at. i have a feeling that the summer is going to kick vancouver summer's ass too. free concerts, streets closed off to traffic for weeks or even months, hundreds of gorgeous patios, and barbeques on the terrace (that's right, we have terraces rather than decks, and they're pronounced with an oh-so-chique quebecois accent), and lots and lots of beautiful people. sure, vancouver has most of these things too, but i'll bet they cost twice as much, require a bus to get to, and most of them will likely be rained out. yes, even the beautiful people.

ok ok, vancouver has its charms. number one being my friends and family that simply cannot be replaced. and there is the ocean, and the beautiful mountains always in the background. and sure, the rain brings good things, like flowers and delicious vegetables, and...and...ummm...

yah, so i guess what this all means is that i am getting incredibly attached to a city that i probably will have to leave sooner than later. right now autumn is a total blank in my mind, an unknown, but chances are that neither further schooling nor amazing jobs will be occurring in this city. alas. so i guess i'll make the most of my summer; savour every locally brewed beer on every warm inviting patio, and save it all up for the inevitable rainy day back home.

cannibalism and other worries...

so, it's my last day of school today, and i'm getting all emotional. here i come big world, again... it's funny, because this has been such a different experience than my bachelor's degree. that was so much longer, and so much more life-changing, and so much more filled with close friends. and yet, despite always being the oldest one in the class, despite annoying group projects and many sleepless stressed-out nights, i'm glad i did this, and i feel sad to leave.

one of my classes just finished up with all the profs putting what we had learned into a framework of real life, and it was in a way helpful to know that i am not the only one who is terribly cynical, but also full of hope for the future. also, apparently i'm not the only one who fears being eaten in the apocalypse (though i bet my profs didn't have to make their significant others promise not to eat them).

anyways, though the people in my class are mainly quite young, and some of them have ideas about the world that are a bit idealistic, a bit simplistic, they also have ideas about the world that give me hope. though there are certainly issues with this program at mcgill (ie: a total lack of female teachers and female perspectives, among other things), there is also a really great mix of disciplines that i think produces more well-rounded people. little renaissance-women and men. well, kinda.

anyways, i'm probably just emotional because i had my third sleepless night in a week last night. but also because i feel such bitter cynicism and also such hopeful hope for the world. how are we going to fix all the things that have gone wrong? i have very little faith that we can, but i also feel that throwing up my hands and giving up would be a disservice to myself and to the world. i guess the question i keep asking myself, now that i'm out of school again, is what is the best way to 'help'? I want to make things better, i want to make the world a kinder place, and i want to avoid being eaten by bloodthirsty corporate lawyers and politicians. but i don't know how.

dag-nabit!

our cute little squirrel ate my bike seat!

and more thoughts...

Food has been on my mind a lot lately. I've realized that most of the things I have taken an interest in lately have been related in some way or another to food. Perhaps this is inevitable - it is really what most of our lives revolve around whether we want it to or not - whether it be the avoidance of food, the obsession with food, working for food, planning food, eating food, growing food, cooking food for ourselves, cooking food for a living, cooking food for pleasure...

I realize that when i think about people i know i can see something of their true selves in their relationship to food: Meg and her amazing cooking skills, her dreams of opening a restaurant named after her mama, her generousness; my dad i think of always in the kitchen, cooking something delicious at the end of the day, his love for my family coming out in this way, and my mom making the same muffins every year for our family christmas brunch. I think of Eben and his seven-hour cooking marathons, looking stressed and rather absurd as he runs in circles trying to figure out what he's doing; I think of Harmony and her meticulous and stubborn methods, her "don't-touch-that-before-dinner-hey-stop-noooooo!", and i think of potlucks with friends, with wine and good food, or at least strange food; i think of abra and her ramen and egg soup for every meal, with half-packages of mr.noodles scattered all over her cupboard; i think of noah and i making up a batch of fresh-picked blackberry jam (and his insistence on pouring in an entire package of cinnamon when my back was turned); i think of emanuel's yummy buttery pie and salty tomato sauce, and his mom's peach jam that i would always steal spoonfuls of when he wasn't home...(see? i even feel like i know his mom a bit, from her delicious jam!) I think of little jacob and i making cookies together, and his hilarious wide-eyed excitement when they come out of the oven... anyways, i could go on and on, but all i'm trying to say is that our lives are tied up in food in ways that go beyond staying alive. i love food culture, and i love the way food creates meaning and love in our lives, and i don't care if that eventually makes me a rolly-polly sentimental person...


and a favorite poem:


A Breakfast for Barbarians
Gwendolyn MacEwan

my friends, my sweet barbarians,
there is that hunger which is not for food—
but an eye at the navel turns the appetite
round
with visions of some fabulous sandwich,
the brain’s golden breakfast
eaten with beasts
with books on plates

let us make an anthology of recipes,
let us edit for breakfast
our most unspeakable appetites—
let us pool spoons, knives
and all cutlery in a cosmic cuisine,
let us answer hunger
with boiled chimera
and apocalyptic tea,
an arcane salad of spiced bibles,
tossed dictionaries—
(O my barbarians
we will consume our mysteries)

and can we, can we slake the gaping eye of our desires?
we will sit around our hewn wood table
until our hair is long and our eyes are feeble,
eating, my people, O my insatiates,
eating until we are no more able
to jack up the jaws any longer—

to no more complain of the soul’s vulgar cavities,
to gaze at each other over the rust-heap of cutlery,
drinking a coffee that takes an eternity—
till, bursting, bleary,
we laugh, barbarians, and rock the universe—
and exclaim to each other over the table
over the table of bones and scrap metal
over the gigantic junk-heaped table:

by God that was a meal

well, it's snowing again. not much to say about that.

i'm thinking about a lot of things lately. i'm thinking about the ever-immanent future, about where i want to be and where i want to go...i'm thinking about the summer as i watch the snow falling outside my window, i'm thinking about where i've been lately. i'm thinking about the macros and micros of life - the things that happen to us as individuals that can change us and shape us, and also the things that can happen to us on a bigger scale. the latter are the things that we discuss constantly in my program - the huge disasters we are facing on all fronts as a world: water shortages, desertification, climate change, an astounding loss of biodiversity... and also all the social crises these will bring (or that are already occurring); water shortages, famines, huge and growing inequalities, and world wars.

my prof brought in a report from the UN which proposed as a possible solution to water shortages... the cutting down of trees. if this isn't indicative of the totally counter-intuitive, anthropocentric, and short-sighted madness of today's way of thinking then i don't know what is. it's sad because these are the kinds of ideas being implemented as we speak. this is the kind of attitude that rules the planet: don't think about changing our lifestyles, don't think about changing our attitudes, don't think about poor people or redistribution - just focus on easy technological band-aid solutions. as if all these things happening in the world aren't a part of our own lives! as if they won't come around and affect us evenutally! but probably it won't affect all the rich leaders of the world who refuse to compromise; whatever changes happen are sure to affect the poor, and then the younger generations. it makes me furious, sometimes, the lack of power we have, and the selfishness of people who are fucking it all up for the rest of us. it makes me sad, and it makes me scared for the future. though i try not to think about it too much, i sometimes have a hard time believing that the world is not going to hell in a handbasket.

but then there's all this crazy wonderful stuff too, that gives me a little hope. there are so many people who are active in the community here. i heard somewhere that this is because of the specific history here; people have more of a sense of involvement and community because of the issues that have faced and continue to face the province. it's interesting to live in quebec, where there is this distinctive identity that people are proud of, and this sense of solidarity. but yeah, they have some great organizations here. equiterre; santropol roulant; eco-quartiers in each neighborhood where you can bring your compost, learn to fix your bike or buy your green bin; the rooftop gardens; the awesome history of community gardens that are protected by the municipality; alternatives; cooperative la maison vert... montreal is great.

anyways, there's that. and then there's my own little life. there's my desires and then there's my conscience. there's my desires and then there's my common sense. what to do when i leave montreal? do i stay in canada and make some meaningful roots somewhere, or do i follow my whim and go off to another country to try to learn something new? do i go back to school next year, and if so where do i focus my energies? oh dear.