By the end of high school my patience for Vermont's small town culture had been all but exhausted. I felt misunderstood, isolated, and I was naive enough to believe city life would solve these problems. I had initially wanted to go to New York as I thought it would help me connect with my heritage, something I was interested in at the time. But Montreal made more sense financially and still met my requirement of being a big city, so I went with it. Despite its proximity, Montreal was technically in a foreign country, falling over the Canadian border. Adding to its international aesthetic was the strong Quebecois regional identity that enforced use of the French language. In spite of culture and laws, Montreal was largely bilingual and any of my garbage French was met by replies in English.
Montreal was cold, its winters were long. Its climate partially insulated and protected the city, a shield of frozen snow and ice temporarily staved off the inevitable gentrification of expansion. Most of the city was made of concrete, bricks, or stone, connected by wrought iron stairs and fences, materials that could withstand many seasons. Buildings were connected in long blocks with few alleys to preserve heat. As a result there was nowhere to plow snow to, following storms the snow was scooped from the streets and trucked to the edge of the city to be dropped in the St. Lawrence river (It's easy to forget that Montreal is an island, gifting it a lazy, psychedelic undertone present in Leonard Cohen’s early work.)
The best way to cope with the winter was by staying inside. Because it is an old city, most spaces were small, and although often dirty as well, they retained their comfort by virtue of not being a part of the frigid outside world. Besides the underground city, a conglomeration of malls, hotels, and office buildings, united by tunnels and a subway system of rubber wheeled trolleys, there were a million hole in the wall venues, smokey bars, bodegas, tea bar hash fronts, basement bakeries, cafes, record shops, galleries, bagels pulled from giant steaming cauldrons at 2 in the morning, cheap pizza, falafel, samosas, and of course poutine. I found my favorite art house movie theater, comic and game store, punk bar, dive bar, and restaurants. The legality of alcohol allowed my still untapped alcoholism to flourish, allowing me access to social skills while also robbing me of the memories necessary to retain social relationships.
As a result of the cold, many residents carried themselves with an air of coolness and indifference, as if ignoring the cold negated it. An apathetic hipness descended from ancient strains of ennui brought over from Europe. The youth were all the main character of their own drama, woefully underdressed for the freezing temperatures in stylish black, pushing through crowds on the way to the next thing. Cool, but unable to enjoy it because of their coolness. Oh cruel irony. Adults had no time to talk or look you in the eye, they were also in a hurry. Especially in their cars, which they drove as fast as they could for as long as they could, hitting the brakes hard only when a collision was imminent.
And then, suddenly in the summer the city would thaw into a kaleidoscope of activity, open markets, jazz and comedy festivals, the bright colors of buildings and people bursting forth from the previously obscuring winter gloom. Now adults had time to talk, and the youth were no longer underdressed. The tamtams would start, a weekly gathering of resident freaks and weirdos to the city’s central park on the mountain from which the city takes its name. There, they would picnic and party, juggle, wrestle, roleplay, jump, flip and tumble, wheel and deal, footbag, slackline, and dance to the pulsing beat of hundreds of hippie hand drums. Truly a bohemian shambala paradise.
My time and life in Montreal were very centered around university, and although I spent most of four years there and certainly got out and explored the city, I still feel like I only caught glimpses of what is a much bigger picture. My lack of conversational French made true integration into the community at large impossible but additionally I was overwhelmed by everything. Going from the tranquil forest to an international city was a big change, and my personality and social skills didn’t automatically adapt just because I was there. As far as cities go, I liked Montreal and I could have possibly finagled a way to stay, I know kids who did even without speaking French. But by the end of my time in Montreal I had made my peace with it, learned to navigate, appreciate, and love it, but also, I was ready to leave.