Land-ing

I woke up here today, in Montréal.
I have slept in this bed before, I have taken this métro.  I have spoken this language and I've seen these people.  This is not new.

But this time is different.  I am especially excited, 'cause this time I get to stay for a while.
Whenever I've come to visit Montréal, I stayed with friends, and for less than a week.  This time, the town is mine for the taking...

Outside of métro Mont-Royal.
(Montréal is full of graffiti too!)

I am blessed to have an amazing friend who's letting me stay with he, in a top-knotch apartment right on the Plateau Mont-Royal, during two months.  I am blessed with a whole group of old friends; people I grew up with, people I've miraculously managed to remain close with, despite all these years away.

Ten years that is.  An entire decade since I lived here permanently.  For Heaven's sake, I don't even have access to my free healthcare - one of the defining characteristic of the Canadian\Québécoise identity - anymore.
I have missed whatever big tv shows, whatever media hype to have entered the collective psyche since I left.  I have kept up with a lot, but I also have so much to discover.
Therefore, I am still traveling.
In fact, I am making a point to keep the mindset, even as I gradually settle down into a more sedentary existence, for the moment.  It's hard to believe I am becoming sedentary.  As my friend said, ''I'll believe it when I see it... in a few months.''
They are gentle, but the voices in me are pulling in opposing (seemingly opposing) directions.  On one hand, I am hoping to remain free, to explore, to connect, to spontaneously follow the rivers of my soul to where they might lead.   On the other hand, I am craving a flat I can call home.  I want to get art supplies, stuff.  I want to have people over, friends, family, couch surfers!  I would like to make a few steps in the direction of some first career.  I am re-writing my CV, I am re-inserting the system.

However, I am hoping to get back to visit San Francisco at some point.  I have a lot of my stuff still there: musical instruments, books, a few clothes.  Most crucially yet: there are a LOT of people in the Bay Area, who I adore with all of my soul.  And the place itself, the farmers' markets, the Pacific Ocean, the revolution...  I gotta give myself some time before I go back, and I just hope to keep myself free enough to be able to travel for a few weeks.
That's the challenge: to experience both mobility and stability.  Freedom, and security.

Though most of all, I want to remain porous, the way I have been for the last three months.  I want to explore, to connect, to learn from the places and the people that will help me grow.  I want to seek those places and make it happen, the same way I have been.
For that, I need to keep coming to my self.
I want to be my own center, that is, in a soft-flexible-changeable way rather than a strong- crystallized one.  It's well known that family - the past - often has the power to pull one back into ''regression''.  Individualization becomes a very strenuous path when one is confronted with the matrix; and especially when one loves the matrix.
I don't want to hurt anybody, but I want to keep growing towards my higher self.
That's the plan.  It's the Hero's Journey.  The pilgrimage is not over.  I will never be.

View from my bedroom in Québec City

So stay tuned my friends.  I intend to keep this blog inspired and lively.  I intend to bring you with me as I discover the majestic part of the world, the great metropolis of Montréal, the great open spaces of the province of Québec, the infinite new worlds of the psyche!

It's particularly awkward to be writing in English at the moment, since everyone surrounding me is Francopohone.  And we have that same eternal debate, over dinner, about the future of French in Québec.
But from where I stand at the moment, I think I can handle this fact of the phenomenon... of imperialism.  I think I can handle writing in the language that can reach the most of you.
I'll just start another blog in French!
In time...

For now, I'll go have breakfast with my mommy and daddy :)

In Catalan...