Tableaux
It's late on a Wednesday night, and I'm standing at the top of a small slope, overlooking Montreal's Old Port. Over my head is a statue mounted on a column; behind me is the city's neo-classical, copper-roofed city hall; in front an open, illuminated square nearly devoid of people, lined with the strange mix of chichi restaurants and tourist-trap stores housed in austere stone buildings that characterizes the historic centres of so many cities. The last time I was here, it was tourist high season in mid-August many years ago. The square was packed with street performers, American tourists and wealthy locals. The patios were full. I was 14, and I imagined this area, with its tall old buildings and narrow streets was what Europe looked like. I felt just a little ashamed that there was nothing comparable, nothing as elegant or as old or as grand in the city I live in. I'm a lot older and a little more worldly now, but I can't help feeling the same way. I know there are quarters like this one all over the world, but I can still appreciate how unique it is. I'm still impressed by it, and I little ashamed there's nothing quite as perfectly pretty where I live.
The awards ceremony has just ended in the basement of a downtown hotel. I'm standing in the hall with an old boss and his girlfriend. Once, I knew this guy by byline only. An established feature writer at the alt. weekly I wanted to write for, moving in circles I knew by reputation only. Now we're both veterans of that paper, we've worked on projects together, shared awards and a lot of drinks, too. I got what I wanted -- the bylines and the recognition at the paper. We talk shop a little, but mostly we talk about home, our former co-workers, our mutual friends and acquaintances. Some of them friends of his who've been doing the same thing for years, some of them people my age who came into that world at the same time as me. I think of a hot and dry spring, cutting work early and leaving the warehouse that houses the paper to go drink in the sunshine on 17th Ave., and trying to interview someone who calls my cell phone while we're out. It all seems so small and remote now, in a city two thousand miles from here.
Later that night, I'm sitting in the hotel bar with a university friend, now graduated, and an acquaintance I met at a party over a year ago. We're drinking martinis, dressed in suits, ties loosened, stretched out on leather couches. When we worked together at the student paper, we used to make a point of dressing up on Tuesdays, our production day. We'd wake up after four hours' sleep for the second consecutive night, walk through the cold fall morning and start pumping out last-minute copy, calling writers who hadn't filed yet and frantically work the phones to add last-minute quotes to stories that came in short. The whole time, we'd be waiting for the 7 p.m. deadline, when we could escape to a pub, loosen the ties and discard the jackets. It's been less than two years since we did that, but I feel we've both come a long way since then. Neither of us has much connection to that paper anymore but I sense that we've both created some of our strongest memories there.
The sun is setting on the Niagara River. Everything here is green, a pastoral section of the most heavily populated part of the country. I'm at a wedding at the edge of a postcard-perfect preserved town of 18th and 19th-century colonial buildings, surrounded by vineyards. One of Sadi's best friends has just been married, standing on the lush bank of the river. The reception is in an old stone and brick building that once housed this province's first legislature. I'm sitting outside at a table with Sadi and a group of her old friends, having dinner. I don't think most of these people know the number of stories I've heard about them. I try not to make it obvious that I'm being so attentive, trying to match the person sitting in front of me to the mental images Sadi's given me of them. I think back to a winter, not so long ago, holed up in dingy bars, getting to know Sadi for the first time, and hearing these stories. The contrast between the places where I first heard about these people and the place where I'm finally meeting them couldn't be bigger. One was dark and cramped and overheated; the other large, expansive and bright. For a moment, I'm trying to picture what it must have been like for Sadi describing these people, evoking this place to me in Calgary.
It's awesome when so many pieces of your seemingly fractured life converge in the same place. How in a couple of days, so many memories from completely different places and times come back to you.
The awards ceremony has just ended in the basement of a downtown hotel. I'm standing in the hall with an old boss and his girlfriend. Once, I knew this guy by byline only. An established feature writer at the alt. weekly I wanted to write for, moving in circles I knew by reputation only. Now we're both veterans of that paper, we've worked on projects together, shared awards and a lot of drinks, too. I got what I wanted -- the bylines and the recognition at the paper. We talk shop a little, but mostly we talk about home, our former co-workers, our mutual friends and acquaintances. Some of them friends of his who've been doing the same thing for years, some of them people my age who came into that world at the same time as me. I think of a hot and dry spring, cutting work early and leaving the warehouse that houses the paper to go drink in the sunshine on 17th Ave., and trying to interview someone who calls my cell phone while we're out. It all seems so small and remote now, in a city two thousand miles from here.
Later that night, I'm sitting in the hotel bar with a university friend, now graduated, and an acquaintance I met at a party over a year ago. We're drinking martinis, dressed in suits, ties loosened, stretched out on leather couches. When we worked together at the student paper, we used to make a point of dressing up on Tuesdays, our production day. We'd wake up after four hours' sleep for the second consecutive night, walk through the cold fall morning and start pumping out last-minute copy, calling writers who hadn't filed yet and frantically work the phones to add last-minute quotes to stories that came in short. The whole time, we'd be waiting for the 7 p.m. deadline, when we could escape to a pub, loosen the ties and discard the jackets. It's been less than two years since we did that, but I feel we've both come a long way since then. Neither of us has much connection to that paper anymore but I sense that we've both created some of our strongest memories there.
The sun is setting on the Niagara River. Everything here is green, a pastoral section of the most heavily populated part of the country. I'm at a wedding at the edge of a postcard-perfect preserved town of 18th and 19th-century colonial buildings, surrounded by vineyards. One of Sadi's best friends has just been married, standing on the lush bank of the river. The reception is in an old stone and brick building that once housed this province's first legislature. I'm sitting outside at a table with Sadi and a group of her old friends, having dinner. I don't think most of these people know the number of stories I've heard about them. I try not to make it obvious that I'm being so attentive, trying to match the person sitting in front of me to the mental images Sadi's given me of them. I think back to a winter, not so long ago, holed up in dingy bars, getting to know Sadi for the first time, and hearing these stories. The contrast between the places where I first heard about these people and the place where I'm finally meeting them couldn't be bigger. One was dark and cramped and overheated; the other large, expansive and bright. For a moment, I'm trying to picture what it must have been like for Sadi describing these people, evoking this place to me in Calgary.
It's awesome when so many pieces of your seemingly fractured life converge in the same place. How in a couple of days, so many memories from completely different places and times come back to you.