7th July 11
At the beginning of spring, we decorated the fire escape behind our house with tea lights. We swept up the last of the rotting leaves, left over from Autumn, that the snow had kept hidden through out winter. Our bbq, old and bet out of shape, filled the neighbourhood with the smell of dripping sausages and faintly burned gas. The temperature had finally stuck above ten degrees and after being cooped up in our apartment for four cold months we wanted to breathe in as much fresh air as possible.
My memories of that night blur together and then separate into distinct snap shots like the coloured glass in a kaleidoscope: bottles of Labatt Bleu and Moosehead balanced on the concrete steps, a cake lit up with candles and glowing brighter than the lights spilling out from the kitchen, voices drunkenly singing out of chorus to Mike Snow. And, of course, all of us together, propped up on chairs or perched on the edge of knees and laps, reaching for arms to be pulled into photographs and yelling for more beer.
When it got too cold to be outside in the t-shirts we insisted on wearing, we moved inside to the squashy blue couches. Outside a lone raccoon picked through the scraps of our bbq and I watched him silently through a steamy patch on the window. The streets were quiet and empty and so we fell quieter too. In the crowded space of our lounge, we passed around the last of the wine and beers. We couldn’t all fit on the couches so some spread out on the floor, too drunk or too high to care discomfort. We were still drugged on Montreal and the prospect of a few more treasured months spent in the city.
I propped my feet onto the table and let the conversation of my friends gently lull me into something close to sleep. In another country, in another world we had lives waiting for us to return. But for now, there was wine that needed to be finished.
9th June 11
It was only when the temperature dropped below fifteen that I realised it was June, it was winter and suddenly half the year has slipped behind us. It’s been a year since we lived in Montreal and four months since I got back from Canada for the second time. And maybe it’s the cold weather that has me reminiscing all over again, but I still feel like I’m getting over that time abroad. I feel like we all are still a little drunk on the nostalgia and trying to get past the slight disillusion that 2011 is shaping up to be.
But it’s not all cold, early mornings, nostalgia, memories and regrets. This year has been really good too. I got engaged! Which was amazing, exciting, exhausting, dizzying and still takes me by surprise every day. It takes me back to Montreal of course, and three words written in the snow on a cold February morning. It makes my heart beat a little faster every time I think of it.
We’ve started making engagement party invites and my desk looks even more chaitic than usual!
Winter also means cheap citrus fruits from the markets. Brisbane Square has a market on every Wednesday no matter how cold and windy the weather is. I stock up on citrus and cheap apples for the week so our fruit bowl usually looks like this: (I also have some amazing lemons but they don’t fit!)
Even though it’s supposed to be the dry month we’ve had a few last showers/down pours. But the pots of herbs on our deck are happy and our garden looks so pretty in the rain. Which reminds me, we also moved house. And although it’s smaller we couldn’t be happier. We even have our own avocado tree and apparently, tis the season the season for avos!
So it might be freezing outside, but we’re all warm and fuzzy inside and excited about what the rest of the year has in store for us.
24th May 11
At night, Montreal still slides into our dreams and shifts our emotions. It is the ghost of the lost child we cannot let go. In the mornings I still wake up disorientated and surprised by the bright Australian sunshine pouring through my open window. I confuse the orange blossoms in our garden with snow. Our friendships are now hung up on those memories. In empty bars at 2am, we reminisce over our time in the most beautiful and most difficult city in the world. We try to work out how it is that we are back here, in our empty bars with our empty beers, when we could be back there: in our snow filled city where the skyline was broken only by the spires of a hundred cathedrals.
2nd July 10
for my inability to fall asleep before three AM. I blame you for my inability to fall asleep in silence and that I now have to have my i-pod on. I blame you. But I am still in love with you.
19th June 10
When Montreal ended, when we’d eventually all packed our lives into neat bags and left the city, left our rooms and our fridges and our walls bare, I tried to think of how I could put into words. Each night, after talking to my to all my friends about how much we missed it, I’d attempt to write about it. I eventually decided that I couln’t do it. Instead I was going to leave it be.
But then our exchange coordinator e-mailed me for my testimonial:
“You will be aware that one of the requirements is to submit a 250-word testimonial as well as a photograph of yourself while on exchange. This was outlined in your Response to Offer Letter which you signed and returned. I hope you had a great exchange and I look forward to reading about your wonderful experiences.”
So now I have now I have no choice but to write about it. Watch this space.
