Quebecois For A Moment

 The art of solo traveling is that you are alone. Quite literally. You have to plan what it is you're going to do day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Maybe not as far as that, but the point remains. You have to deal with the customs agent wondering why some random American is coming to their country for vacation, language barriers between you and the taxi drivers, not getting hit by a car while you're there (this happened to me last winter in Longueuil), amongst other things.

But once you past that, you're there. Your mileage may vary, but you're there. That could mean a plethora of things. It could mean anything in between you finding a bar that you go to every night during your stay or a cafe that you make your acquaintance to for their fresh western omelettes. The world is yours it seems. Time moves slightly slower. It's as if you're an NPC character that is on the loading screen of your favorite RPG. 

My fascination with Canada, and Montreal specifically, is not nascent. When Trump won the presidency in 2016, I joked with my mum about how we should pack the entire family up and move there. But even before that conversation, there was always this myth and grandeur that flooded my mind about what went on across the border. I've heard horror stories from childhood friends about crossing into Vancouver from Washington State as adolescents and getting chased by border patrol. They're still alive to tell the tale by the way..

It probably all started with me being such a huge hockey fan and following the Canadian teams in the NHL since high school. You start to learn about the legends: Patrick Roy, Gretzky, Jean Beliveau, The Rocket Richard. And the myth grows! Where are these fuckers from? What about their hometowns have made them so legendary? 

Years would go by before I would travel to Canada for the first time, with Montreal being the city that my girlfriend and I picked. The French aspect of the city makes you feel like you are in Europe. Zone Petione. Arret. The old town is straight out of the 1800's for all we know. Le gens are extraordinarily accommodating, having the mental edge of being able to switch effortlessly from French to English for someone who studied Spanish all throughout their schooling. The city itself is, unironically and without trying to sound like a fucking loser, a melting pot. You really just have to get there to see what I'm talking about. 

What in the Helen of Troy is going on?

 Well, well, well...

It has occurred to me that I've been in DC aka the District of Columbia aka Drama City for a little over a year now. How time flies! 

I am going to be honest-- I hated it here for the first few months. Part of that is due to naivety. Leaving a place like New York, you are kind of drunk, for a lack of better words, wherever you land. Wait, beer goggles! That's what I wanted to say. You know, the feeling where you are on top of the world in a sense, and then come back to reality once you snap out of it. That essentially sums up what it was like living here for about 5-6 months. The bars didn't stay open until 4. The people never took off their sports coats. The yuppies never stopped talking about mortgage rates. It's an amazing thing in the worst of ways that you actually have to be here to understand it.

But then you accept the fact that you live somewhere that's different, and that is completely normal. Better yet, that there is nothing wrong with living where you do. I ran into someone from VCU that I hadn't seen since we graduated in 2019, and she shared some of the same pains that I did when she moved to DC in 2020. "Yuppiesville USA" may or may not have been the term that was used in that convo at some point.

It's nice here, ya know, once you can appreciate it for what it is. Unfortunately, the government isn't going anywhere. And by that I mean the (wo)men that parade their $500 suits and speed in the AMGs in residential neighborhoods are not going anywhere. Fine. I never liked them, and I probably never will. But underneath that gaudy exoskeleton of transplants (guilty) that give this place a terrible reputation that it often deserves lies something more universal, even desirable to those who wish to live in a vibrant, multicultural and decently sized place with plenty of shit to do. The amount of ethnic eateries, albeit scattered throughout, is innumerable. Ethiopian. Afghani. Salvadoran. Mexicana. Thai. Indian. They're everywhere! Then there's the people, but not the ones that I mentioned before. Folks that have interesting jobs outside of the public sector or contracting that you see at your local watering hole and speak with you instead of at you. They'll tell you about how they moved here from Syracuse in the 80's and never made it back there for some reason, or revel about their hometown in Czechia while y'all are out slamming beers a day or two before they go back. 

There are worse places than DC. Plenty. On the flip, there probably aren't as many places that can tick as many boxes as DC does, aside from other major cities. Reliable public transit, big city feel with less square mileage, world class museums, etc. etc. I was doing myself a disservice trying to make my neighborhood experience in Northeast like it was in Bushwick. It's just not possible. And admitting that is and was the first step I had to take in order to get to where I am today. Someone who does not only tolerate, but is comfortable and relatively enjoys, where they live, after living in the greatest city in the US. If you were to ask me how I was doing 6 months ago, I would be nowhere near close to even mentioning the word "tolerate". 

So the story goes. I will continue enjoying my personal Paris of the US, my clean Metro, my NB 725s, and all of the things that have gotten me here up to this point. I've no clue when my time here will come to an end, or what's next after this. But I'm over setting timelines on shit like this. They're infuriating and waste time, time that I could be using drinking a glass of $5 vinho verde from Trader Joes. So there's no "au revoir" this time. Simply a "plus tard", again, again, and again. 

And that's, just fine. 

Goodbye...really?

 As of late, I have been thinking "Why did Joan Didion write "Goodbye to all of that"...?". I feel as if this is an archaic idea of mine; she wrote it in 1967, and everyone knows that the gist of the essay/short story/whatever you want to call it is that yes, you can stay too long at the fair. I get that part. Dare I say, WE get that part. So, that's not the part that I've been pondering for what seems like months now. I'm honestly still trying to construe a sentence, a statement, a stream of thoughts that can really describe what I have been thinking, but all I can come up with is "is there really anything to say goodbye to?". It's not elegant. Not at all. But, it's the best that I can do.

A TLDR of her essay is that after 8 years in New York, the city lost it's shine. Her husband had already moved to LA and she'd been to one too many parties. Ok. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she would be able to afford to keep a home in Manhattan while living in California full time. In the literal sense, there was really nothing she was saying "goodbye" to. Instead, it was really a "see ya later". That's too easy of a deduction, and too literal for my tasting for it to be the answer to my question. 

When you leave a place, you never really are gone. The ghosts of your tempered past lie wherever they may. It could be the bridge you walked across to get to work, the coffee shop you frequented on your lunch break, the park you sat in every spring time, you name it. When I think of the few places I've lived after leaving Chesterfield, it's always "I'll be back when I can make it, when I have the time...", but never a cold turkey "goodbye to all of that". There are pieces of you that you leave in those places. My interest in Latin American history piqued in La Republica and Las Condes. My love for skateboarding is rooted in skating around the Chesterfield Towne Center with the Class Fam (if you know, you know). My keen desire to live in a bustling, thriving city where everything is connected one way or another was born in Brooklyn. The trips I took as a kid to see my extended family in Maryland made it so I loved public transit. I can still remember sitting on those dingy plastic-cloth mesh seats that WMATA continues to use to this day. 

You can't say "goodbye" to a place that still lives inside you, at least I think. If you think about it, there's a little piece of every place you've ever been wherever you go. 

So this brings me back to my original question: is there really anything to say goodbye to? There has to be, since most things have a beginning and an end. But when it comes to lived experiences, those moments that are plastered in your mental? Those are forever.