Montréal, ma ville

Montreal. These streets. Sidewalk stepping, pothole dodging, stride stride strut and look at me. I breathe this city.

The city is full of my ghosts. Here comes one now, sliding down the escalators at McGill metro, dodging the pointy bits, a huge bruise down one leg from poorly timed metrobatics. She owns that metro, that escalator. There she goes, clutching her black box with capital letters F.A.C.E. stamped across the front - quick we're going to be late for choir, don't forget your clarinet, my mom would kill me. Pink shorts and a haircut off to the Imperial for Return of the Jedi (a date? is it a date?) and the happy innocence of ice cream on St-Laurent. Run run run and collapse in giggles in the Carré St-Louis, but be careful there, its dodgy. The city takes care of me. Knee deep in city water, pants rolled up high fishing out money from the fountain in Old Montreal, nobody ever said a word. One day, I made two dollars and 25 cents, which goes a long way at the dep, especially a dep that reeks of old beer and cigarettes and rat droppings. First bicycle, a blue one, secondhand (we were immigrants), 3 speed, but wait, who is that driving the taxi and what does he have in his hand? Don't go closer, must go closer, what is he doing with his hand and what is he asking me, what is he doing with his hand what is he doing with his hand what is he doing with his hand, pedal hard and pedal fast. The city also teaches.

Fast forward and pause. Young, adult and back in the centretown, back on St-Laurent with the cockroach store with the stinky leather jackets and the badass shoes, steep incline, past the trendy sophisticated restos where my bro works valet, a quick nod down Prince Arthur, but focused up the Main past Warshaw (RIP). I no longer live these streets, my hood is elsewhere now, gentrified, middle class, with a driveway. But these streets remember me, and they grit and grind at my passing, recognizing me as a daughter. The city breathes me.

Act the first

A woman sits in a café sribbling furiously and muttering somewhat to herself. Her coffee is stone cold by now, but she's used to it, taking sips gingerly now and again and shuddering with distaste. She's pushed the coffee as far away as it will go right to the edge of the table without actually falling off, but continues to think of it with affection, a rightful participant in the coffee shop ritual, more than a prop, really, a supporting actor, a character actor, even. A time will come when she gives up coffee altogether for the clear taste of Earl Grey tea, but the time is not now, when we meet her, at the cusp of the new millenium, not now, as she sits with edgy energy, nervous, anxious, manic. This energy that she likes so much, that she thinks is cool, post-modern and witty, makes her drink the cold coffee and scribble scribble scribble in her notebook, like an aging Harriet the Spy. There is constant chatter and constant bustle in her head, in the coffee shop, until you don't know which is which anymore. The staff in this particular establishment is the epitome of Montreal cool, moonlighting as barristas in betwen DJing gigs and editing a lounge-lifetsyle webzine, except that this is just before lounge-lifestyle, so the webzine is but a glimmer in their eye as they chat and flirt with patrons and each other. Especially each other. It is that energy. It is that energy that she feels, that she generates, that has no outlet. She watches people walk by on the street in front of the coffee house. Downtown walkers with that dowtown walk. Her longing to be a part of the world is palpable, you can reach out and touch it, it pulsates. And so she drinks her coffee, cold, and scribbles in her notebook, and dreams and wishes, knots twisting in her stomach at the half-formed vision, watching people, watching herself. You just know she's going to go nova.