Dreams are bubbling

I am tired, but I'm happy.  Life is good and full of new connections.
And I like connections.  They mean more mirrors, more reflections, more truth.
There is so much I want to convey that I run the risk of going abstract.  It happens like that a lot.
But the theme of today was Grounding, so in that spirit I will make an effort to focus my entry a bit.
And besides, I am extenuated.
I just got back from an important meeting.  No, it wasn't a job interview.  It was a preview of a possible future though, a taste in what my life's work could be... of what life could be.

There were 37 of us and we came from many different regions of the province of Québec.  (In case you wonder: that's 1,667,926 square kilometers, which is three times the size of France, and a big 20 percent of the USA.  In short: the province of Québec is LARGE.)

Some of the people there already knew each other through the Occupy Montreal movement, others came form small villages that are 5 hours away from the big city.  Some were veterans of the 70s and the 80s commune experiments, some of us don't remember a life before the advent of the internet.
I didn't know anyone; I had only had a few cyber exchanges with one of two of the organizers.  We came from the four corners and spanned at least two generations, but we all shared one basic intention:  the creation of a self-sufficient and healthy eco-community, according to the principles and philosophy of permaculture.
37 strangers, one utopia.
For where is this place going to be?  Are we talking about one, or more communities?  What land(s) do we have available?  What does the process involve?  What resources do we already have?
Do we mean the same things?

Permaculture means that we recognize how fundamentally interconnected and interdependent we are.  It means we are ready to see, observe, and learn from what's before our eyes: the Earth is wise and she is teaching us about diversity, complexity, and unity.  She's teaching us about relationships, cycles, and change.  She's teaching us about equilibrium.

We have had enough of buying into the false promises of the capitalist system.  We don't want to waste anymore resources and time: we'll create the alternatives.  We'll build new models, propose new ways.

Changes happen at the periphery.  If Darwin was right, the fittest organisms will be the ones living on.

There is so much I would like to revel into while reflecting back on today's experience.  But I want to go sleep for now.  It is only the beginning...

A wonderful experience is in the works...

Sitting on the Dock of the

I wish it was summer outside.  I do.
My strong self knows I can pull this through,
but the truth is,
who wants to live like this?

I miss the sun.
So bad.
The green grass, even the rain.
(forgetting how brutally freezing a San Francisco summer can be)
This grass that's always greener,
on the other side.

I'm listening to Bjork, sitting on a wooden chair in front of this wooden table.  Pedestrians are bundled up outside, the sun is very bright.  My astrological planner to my right, an empty glass of orange juice, the English language, three juggling balls, a cell phone, two bandanas (two?)... and a pile of papers: my ''résumé'', flyers, a map, pamphlets and notes...
What's my summary? My résumé?
How to resume?
I would rather live in the present, with you
Wouldn't you?

It's hilarious, to be staring the process in the face like this.


A New beat generation, traveling through dubstep beats, gathering in festivals.
I must not give up.  I must.  Relax.

The truth is, I love not to work!!
Are you kidding me?  I'm sitting here LISTENING TO MUSIC AND WRITING, and learning and dreaming and watching the sun go around, on a different time wave, that's all.
Like the fool on a hill.
Pierrot la lune.

Et tous les souvenirs.
Ce romantisme chronique,
ces désirs.

Au-delà du romantisme et du nihilisme, je pense toujours à Nietzsche.  ''What would Nietzsche do?''
He would ask if this moment is worth living, over and over again.  He would ask if your heart is open so wide you could explode - or implode, as his did - of this passion for all things alive...
No, he wouldn't do that.  I would.

The truth is that I love to write.  I find the highest pleasure in feeling those waves of thoughts pulsate through my wrist onto the page, or to the very tips of my fingers, when it's a computer.
Otherwise, still.
''You may say I'm a dreamer.''

(Who are your heroes?)

In truth, right now I terribly miss San Francisco.  It crawled up on me last night, as I finally went to rest.  I had a heavy feeling in my stomach, the sudden pull of nostalgia, and my heart filling up with tears.  I didnt quite cry, but I let myself tear up and feel the pain.  I hadn't been feeling it.  I keep myself busy and/so I don't think about everything I left behind.
My life!  A clan of spiritual warriors, those streets and those parks I knew so well, all the stuff I tried so hard not to acquire but did, in the span of five years.  My things, my things I couldn't throw away.
They're in a bunch of boxes in the garage of my former ''boss'', who is also my friend...for we played in the snow and ''crazy carpet'-ed together.

I know that missing San Francisco doesn't take anything away from this new place.  Just as missing the culture of my former home doesn't take anything away from the hearts and mind of the people here.  I love you very much too, med ami(e)s, it's true.  Please forgive my absence then and understand that I am in a whirlwind, and simply trying to keep myself in the middle of the storm until it gradually winds down.

I know the value of time and timing.  I still have no regrets.  (Though in that wave of emotion last night, I did.)
And besides, I've already had a few of those moments since I've moved here... you know, those moments...  of pure grace, of great beauty!?  It's not the place, it's the state of mind.  That's a huge part of my experiment.
Spending my days thinking about the future of financial security, mine as well as the macro-scale's.  Spending my days thinking about what I want to be doing all day.  Turns out, that's what works ends up being: the thing you do all day.  What kind of days do I want to have?  What can we create?
Spending my days with flashbacks, flash cards of all the sublime encounters I have been blessed with.  Wondering if tomorrow can be as bright and light as what I had on the Left Coast.  Wondering about cold and industrial societies, industrious and creative societies.  Wondering about multiculturalism in formation, for ever and increasingly, the planet getting so small and the power of the few, so big.

Do you think that my degree in ''Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness'' might freak out or turn off potential employers?  Could that be it?  What do they think?  What do they know about what it means?  I can barely articulate it myself!!  I wouldn't know where to start.

''Once upon 14 billion years ago...'''

C.I.I.S. meant that we were in graduate school trying to face and cope with the Greatness of the Universe.  We had our own language, our own micro-culture, our shared experiences so that we could talk about what lays underneath it all... And we would smile and say: Namaste.  (Not without an awareness of the cultural appropriation issue it represented- though the school was indeed founded by Indian scholars.  It was 1968.)

Where have I been?  I've been beyond the pre-Socratics to indigenous populations through the earth and the thirteen skies... to the Big Bang that resounded in the Heart of Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu... beyond the first Sound to the eternal OM, and back.  I've been from the Middle Ages to the Far West, between lands and sea, running on a treadmill waiting in a traffic jam.  I've been.

Walking the ancient streets of Istanbul, Byzantine, Constantinople... taking strolls on snaky hilly streets after dark, breathing the air of history, getting lost, feeling the beautiful complexity and the tension reigning and breathing with its people.  Prague, Marseilles, Carcassonne, Granada.

Here.

Queer & Reggae

I've been learning to go out in Montréal.  

In my planner I had written: Reggae Queer! 9pm.  Salon Officiel, 351 Roy. No cover.

It's ten o'clock on a dark Sunday night.  I've been indoor all day, resting my foot and sending job applications.  It's a bit hard to get motivated, but I well know that there is no way I can miss this event...

Reggae + Queer?!  That's HOME!  Yes, those terms are tightly tied to my sense of identity. In fact, it's deeper even than that: those two words evoke images of such freedom...  likes sources connecting to ''the essence... like wells where I get to quench my thirst for pure and simple being-ness.  Reggae + Queer are two homes to my soul.

''Feel like dancing... Dance 'cuz we are free!'' sang Saint-Bob Marley.  

And in queer I do feel free, because it's the epitome of no-boundaries - or I should say: fluid boundaries.

Rue du Roy is not too far, so I decide to take a walk, hoping that a few people might already be at the bar when I get there.  There's something just so absurd about sitting on a stool sipping on a five dollar drink, waiting for a party to begin.

I tend to go warm up the dance floor pretty quickly, since my primary intention for going on is to dance.  With a few friends, it's not too bad to break the ice.  But tonight, I have no friends with me.

I came out alone, which is perfectly okay with me.  For Jah's sake, I've been doing it for five years now.  I don't see why I should change my ways and pass a good gathering just because I have the same accent as everyone else around me. 

Most of the friends I already have in this city aren't going out on Sunday nights anymore.  And they don't go to queer events either...  

I suddenly re-realize, that this is a crucial part of that subtle sense of alienation I've been feeling wary about.

''Looks good in the box...''

Tonight, it feels good to dress up by wearing a button-down shirt and putting on my running shoes. Those are the clothes I like to wear; I feel comfortable, confident, and even beautiful in them.  I'm not thinking about picking up the ladies, though it does highlight a strong yang energy, I guess.  In the end, it's nothing but another costume though, as all clothes are.  Tomorrow, I might want to wear that cute skirt I got before xmas.  But it might be too cold outside for that.

I'm queer; I don't want to deny or forget it.  The danger is there; you hang out with a bunch of hetero-normative folks for a while and you start feeling like them, you want to look as pretty as the other girls around you.  It seems that the other option is to dyke it out so it's clear what you identify as.  Or you might have a job interview and you feel the need to dress the part, to make a good impression, to fit expectations.

I just want to be myself, in all my fluidity and ... repertoire!  That's what I identify as. :)

So I decided I'm gonna have lots of clothes, so I can just pick and choose on any given day or night!  Costumes Costumes...

Sink-side Flirtation:
''I like your haircut.''
''I like your curves.''

Queer reggae wasn't after all particularly queer.  I met some people from Ottawa, some Montrealers, and a Mexican guy.  A beautiful woman was dancing in her wheelchair...
The music was aaawwwwwesssssommmmme!!! :)
It is Sunday night and I am dancing in between, San Francisco (flashbacks of those many Sundays spent at Dub Mission!) and Montreal, man and woman, Franco and Anglo, straight and gay, while the planet we live on keeps spinning on its axis, in the solar system, in the galaxy, in the universe...

wanna write for Examiner.com?

For my US people:
Would you like to share your passion with a broad audience?  Pick a topic and apply to become a writer for Examiner.com.  I did it for some time while I lived in San Francisco, and it was a lot of fun.  No boss, no deadlines, you can write as little or as much as you'd like...

Here's what my editorial looks like: SF Environmental Health

To apply, click on this link.  It's a referral program, so if you join the team, I get some money too!!  Make sure to use this link though!

:)  Happy journalism my friends!

Wise Adolescence.

A bit high on caffeine this morning.  Listening to epic songs from Muse.  Wondering whether I should revise my curriculum vitae, again.
What do ''they'' want?

I'm realizing how much of a teenager I have been.  Not wanting to integrate society, feeling confused and angry at the ways things are done; ; calling it superficiality, hypocrisy... unsustainability.
But those feelings are gently shifting today.  There's been a revolution happening in me since I learned about shadow projection.
Besides,
Collective consciousness is a historicyclical phenomenon.  Those who are able try their best, the others are not responsible for their failures. (Here we get to the problem of evil again, but I'll choose innocence over fear again today.) I've been observing it in myself for a few years now: superficiality, hypocrisy, there's a drop of everything in every single one of us.  Makes me feel compassion (com-passion = feeling with)  It's all rooted in fear and not-knowing.
But what about unsustainability?!  Doesn't that make for right and wrong?  I sometimes think so.  And in true anthropocentric fashion I will say that it'd certainly be a sad-sad thing to see the self-conscious species gone.  But I Love the Creation regardless.  We'll either kill ourselves or we won't.  All of this to say, that the challenge of sustainability is perhaps more like a dance between life and death.  Hopefully humans can hear the song.

Am I buying into oblivion, buying my peace of mind, giving up the struggle?  Who knows?
I feel like growing up a bit, it's true.  I think it's time I stand behind my vision.

Adolescence (to come back to my point), after all, is an in-between time.  It's true I've pretty much always felt in-between.  I couldn't always name it, but that's what it is.  I'm not quite schizophrenic but I'm quite queer indeed.  I even created that condition outside of myself by falling in love with San Francisco: in the end, I could neither be here nor there.
And that's why I chose to move back to Montréal at this time.  I needed to try out this route to my feeling of integrity.  On the great wheel of Life I wanted to move towards more grounding and manifestation.  My heart is full, I want the world to drink from it.  I want to nourish my peers, I want to follow my exegesis of Nietzsche in ''becoming the meaning of the earth".  I think it is time to share some of my wisdom.  I say this in all humility.  By wisdom I mean: a knowing that ''it's all good.''
I've learned that much through thirty thousand dollars of graduate school.

How do I write that in my résumé?

I've been visualizing myself teaching philosophy to teenagers.  It'd be a good way to integrate that familiarity for adolescence all the while stepping into my new found sense of self-authority.
Or I could still work my way towards another credential, in Drama Therapy.
I'll always write, I'll always think.  I want to help things move.  Doesn't matter the title the job has.  Give me a chance to organize a great project on civic participation, or invite me to join your co-op grocery store.  I'm not that picky.

Each thing in their own time.  Other times will mean and necessitate other places.  Things they come and things they go..

For now, I clearly see this propensity of mine, that natural state of mind: in-between.
Like a psychopomp of sorts.  Working the transition.

Wish I could only get a bit of financial validation.  To pay the bills, keep warm, keep the energy flowing.  I'm giving of me and I trust.

Thank you for reading.  Don't be shy, please comment and engage.  What do you think?  What do you feel?  How is your experience similar or different?  This ain't supposed to be a soliloquy.

article intéressant!

Elle vit depuis 15 ans sans un sou.... -- Enfant de la Société -- Sott.net: http://fr.sott.net/articles/show/6553-Elle-vit-depuis-15-ans-sans-un-sou

Arab Winter in Montréal

Calligraphy-Graffiti touches me so deeply!
Arab Winter Exhibition @ Fresh Paint Gallery.

My discovery of the metropolis continues.

I did go to the open house for that physical theater class.  It was good to move in the studio, it was good to emote.  However, I couldn't help comparing the teacher with the one I had in San Fran.  I miss James Donlon!

After the open house, I made my way to another free activity I had read about on the web.  It was called ''Révolution: Bilan et Perspectives,''  and was organized by the Collectif Tunisien au Canada.


For an entire day, Cinéma du Parc turned into a cultural and political hall.  The collective had organized a full program, with conferences and debates, art exhibitions, films and documentaries, food and flags and culture.  I wondered if I might be one of the few white girls in the room.... and I was.
But it was good.


I got there just in time for the second conference, which was entitled: ''Arab revolutions and the international geopolitical situation.''  The panel consisted of three university professors: two in the field of political science and international relations, and one historian.

Serious intellectuals agree to not know what to do.

I sat in the movie theater with my little plate of Tunisian goodies and a cup of black coffee.  Then I got out my notebook and a pen, ready to delve into the topic of Arab revolutions and international relations.  I felt that I was reconnecting with a part of me I seemed to have left behind five years ago, at the term of my internship with Global Exchange.  I felt that I was back in Maine, studying international affairs and working for professor Baktiari, talking about national security and international relations, and going to conferences in West Point and meeting professors and ambassadors... getting a taste of ''the scene.''

I've actually been pondering this previous time in my life, recently, because I'm working on my résumé and all.  Thus I am revisiting, wishing to integrate the political thinker part and the creative spiritual part of me, all the while finding myself back in the region where I existed as a child and a teenager, before I did all these years of university.  No doubt, this is all a big spiral.

The first lecturer didn't move me.  In fact, I had a hard time following his talk.  He sat back and spoke from such a disenchanted place.  ''First of all, I have to state that I'm speaking from a subjective standpoint,'' said he. (Thank you Mr. Raboudi, for acknowledging that).  He explained: ''This is not an Arab Spring, as people say.  It has been a cold and bloody winter.''  He paused.  ''But I guess people need to romanticized whatever liberation movement takes place.  It gives us hope.''  (This is all paraphrased)

Yeah, I remember my bachelors in international affairs.  Disillusion and cynicism show up quickly.  Same old games and manipulations, same old diplomatic paradigms.  Any idealist is bound to hit the wall.  And it hurts so much you have two choices: to harden up, or to walk another path.

Luckily, the next panelist made me feel better.  His voice was much warmer, and he spoke clearly and intelligently.  Yet he didn't deny the stalemate and gravity of the geopolitical situation.  Leaders might have gone but the regimes themselves aren't much different.  Money is lacking; there's that humongous debt still burdening African nations.  As long as business and tourism are the main avenues for profit, power is bound to remain centralized.  The changes that need to happen for people to gain freedom and security are deeper and more radical.
At this point I'm thinking- rather, a voice is screaming in my head: ''Empowerment through decentralization! ...  Micro-financing... of sustainable communities and farming project!  Etc.''
I want to know whether those topics are even on the table over there.  Would I come off as culturally illiterate and a ''first-world-centric'' fool for talking about the potential of co-operative models, and community gardening and agriculture in the Middle East?  Probably.

The third panelist is also engaging.  He says he didn't pay much attention when the rebellions started in Tunisia, a year ago.  As a historian, he saw that ''non-organized, spontaneous movements never created sustainable changes.''  Historically, leaders will first try to repress the protests, and then perhaps make a few concessions. Nothing changes, at least not unless the bigger powers (the U.S.) decide it would benefit them.  BUT, this time, he was surprised.  The departure of Ben Ali had not been planned by the US government.  What happened is that people discovered their own power, and THAT, is revolutionary.

As he explained, ''A government falls, but the dissidents have no alternatives to propose.  In the first de-colonization wave, in the 1960s and 70s, the Left fought for socialism and nationalism.  Today, they have lowered every standard and are asking for a bare minimum.  They want dignity, and basic human rights.''

Arab Winter Exhibition.
180 St-Catherine Est. Montréal

Of course, the question was raised as to whether or not there was a connection between the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement.  Scholars were ambivalent and uncommitted with their answers:  ''There is an undeniable parallel and mutual influence, but we must remember that we're talking about different cultures.''

I personally believe there is much more than a parallel.  The 99% are demanding accountability, equality, and justice.  The 99% are pointing at fraudulous behaviors on the part of the elite, and at the absurd imbalance of power that results from that.  This is not very different from what caused uprisings in North Africa.  We are talking of about neoliberalism, centralism, and fraud and hypocritical propaganda.




It is true, the roaring of ''civil society'' has a different meaning in countries that have been ruled by dictators.  For Tunisians to debate and speak freely about politics is a big deal and it should be celebrated.
Still, the root causes seem to be the same.

Why is it so hard to see, that the counterweight to neoliberalism might be localism-communautarism?  That the continuous use of highly centralized energy resources is bound to centralize power in the hands of the few?

One lecturer said, '' Civil society must organize at a national level to come up with coherent demands and alternatives.''  I disagree.  While cultural nationalism can be an beautiful and powerful thing, I don't believe it is the best solution when it comes to economics.  Bioregionalism makes more sense.



Throughout the day, I thought about what my friend asked me before I left for the event:  ''Ève, can I ask you... what is your interest in going there?''

Houssem and another friend tell me about freedom of speech
in Tunisia, pre-Jan.14 2011.

I went there because I wanted to inform myself on what happened in North Africa, and what is going on now.  I like to try to understand what is going on in the world, and to know what aspirations other human beings may have.  I want to hear about what they dream of, what they think about, what they hope and what they see.  I want to fraternize with people of different cultures, because our home, the planet, has gotten smaller and the family is getting bigger... and family ties can become a powerful thing when calamity arises.  Suffering is an essential part of existence.  We're all in it together.
I went there to expose myself to the debate, and experience that phenomenon: flashes of knowing.  When a statement makes me react at the core, not emotionally though, rather intellectually, creatively.  It's not something I have control on; sometimes my brain synapses seem to spontaneously connect to create new pathways, and visions appear and they make so much sense.  Perhaps not in the immediate future, but in the long run, I can see things unfold.
I went there to gather new perspectives and challenge my own opinions.  I went there to refresh my memory on the realities we have to deal with.  I know I can easily forget the gap between my visions and what life is really like, down on earth.  So I make sure to keep exposing myself to real life, like power dynamics, and the problem of ''evil'' (though I'm not quite able to accept the idea of evil as an intrinsic phenomenon.  I've come to consider that it has its roots in fear.), and the conundrums tied to agriculture in general.
At the same time, however, it's a way to fuel the fire and the flame alive.

This Algerian woman raises the crowd with her rapping and singing!

Please feel free to comment, ask question, enter the conversation.  I might be wrong in many ways... I am asking to be challenged and enlightened... I am hoping to generate thought, in you as in myself...

Thank you.

Centimeters..

Snow has been falling down alllll day.  I had tentative plans on my agenda for the day: 1) call this dude Vahid and go visit an apartment, 2) go introduce myself at the local office of employment.  But with this gentle white blizzard waving at me from the other side of the window, I decided to stay in instead.  (Plus, Vahid postponed our meeting.)
I browsed through a few more job offers, reworked a few résumé to fit the profiles, worked on those cover letters that are supposed to make them impatient to meet me.
People ask me: '' What kind of job are you looking for ?''  I tell them I am open, as long as it is inspiring.  You see, I'm not interested in working at Tim Hortons'.  I'm not going to spend my days like an automaton, just to make ends meet.  I want to care.  I want to grow.  I want to feel connected.
So these jobs I am applying generally have requirements that are a bit above what my experience is.  But I KNOW, they are not above my competency.
Here I am, in that infamous qualification ''ditch'', trying to show that I can climb and fulfill whatever functions these people need fulfilled, trying not to slip to the bottom and lose faith.
It's been less than I week since I moved here, I suppose.  I am trying to be patient.  The old wise woman inside knows it's only a matter of time until I get to shine my little light and take part in some super duper progressive creative community endeavor.  But for now, it's lonely as hell.
I haven't gone dancing in over what... two months?  My foot won't allow me.  The tendon connecting to my heel has a little tear (happened exactly a week before I left home in San Francisco.  Talk about body-mind!) and it wants me to stay in place and be with my emotions instead of going out and dancing them off.  It's hard.  I want to move, get my heart rate up, sweat and shake and feel free... but I can't.



I'm back on OkCupid.  I figured it'd be a good way to meet other queer people.
I miss home.  I miss the sunshine.  I miss creating with Harvey.
But this is not meant to sound down in the dumps or anything.  It's just that it's been snowing all day.  And I long to share my energy with others.

I have some ''meetings'' lined up for the next few weeks.  I found a group of people who are wanting to start a sustainable-living-community-land-ecovillage-project-thing somewhere.  I'm planning on joining the first meeting next week.  I'm also meeting a professor from the Drama Therapy program next week, just to learn about what the scene is around here.  Tomorrow, I'm going to some introductory meeting for a ''young entrepreneur in social economy'' formation.  And saturday, there's an open house at a dance studio.  Don't know if I can dance quite yet, but please foot, let me try out that physical theater class!  Oh, and hopefully, I'll get some calls for interviews soon...

It's cool not to be working, actually.  It means lots of free time.  Besides, I got a bit of a cushion still.  I can handle it.  It gives me time to explore the city.  (I went to a lecture on Mohawk history yesterday, at the McClure museum near McGill university.)  It's just that it ain't that much fun when thermometers show minus twenty (celsius) outside, and you got a sore heel with all the fear (of a chronic injury) it brings..

Montreal walking tour!

Today, I felt like a traveller again...

I joined a small group of couchsurfers, for a casual -and free- historical tour of the city.
I had found the event posted on couchsurfing.com: ''L'histoire de Montréal par ses immigrants''.
''Perfect!'' I thought.  ''This is exactly what I'm hoping to delve into here!''

I wondered how many people would be brave enough to show up for a stroll in the winter cold.  I didn't know what to expect.  I thought it was a nice day out though.  So I just went, hoping I'd be warm enough, and that my foot would hold off okay.
(I have been diagnosed with a plantar fasciitis.  Darn it.  Other story...)

We met our guide Philippe in front of the  Grande Bibliothèque de l'UQAM, and we follow him inside for a look at the map and an introduction to the cultural history of the metropolis.  There was a guy from Lyon, another Peruvian born but raised here, in Laval.  There was a girl from Malaga, in Andalucia!  Another joined us at the beginning of our walk; she is from Guadeloupe (and is white).

I've been to Montréal countless times before.  I came here as a child, on summer vacations with my family. And in the past several years I've spent lots of short stays with my friends who have now settled here.  But I really don't know much about the history of this place.  I'm disturbed because I hear so much English spoken on the streets.  It's irrational; I know it's been a dual occupancy since the beginning.
So I was curious and impatient to learn about that whole cultural process...

Copper apparently changes color with time.
This roof used to be shiny and... well... copper-colored!
(It's just like an oxidized penny!)

I learned that the Natives never had settlements on the island (yes, Montreal is an island), but instead came sporadically, to trade furs and other goods.
I was brought back - in my imagination - to the time where the first French explorers came and created trading posts along the river - rather than ''colonies'' per se.  They were here for commerce, strictly.  Along the St-Laurent - in Québec, Trois-Rivière, and Tadoussac - they were but a small 300 surviving, and trading with the Natives.
They also wanted to convert them to Christianity, of course.  (At that time, France is experiencing a strong boost of Catholic fervor, in reaction to the Protestant Revolution.)

1641.  Eight dreamers set out to build their great project: the ''Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal pour la Conversion des Sauvages  de la Nouvelle-France''.  They have a clear goal: they want to build a walled city, a colony, where they will educate the settlers and the Natives into the glory of their fervent Catholicism.
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve is one of these enthusiastic christians.  Today he is considered the founder of Montréal.  But according to our guide Philippe, we should give the most credit to Jeanne Mance (a nurse), since she was the one who persisted the longest, and stayed long after all the initial utopists had died or returned to France.
Ville-Marie, as it was originally called, was far off into the wilderness back then.  There were Natives roaming around.  There were the rapids of St.Louis (Lachine), which couldn't be navigated but had to be portaged instead.  There were the seasons.
On the island, the population stagnated at 42 people during all of the first decade.  Some left, others died from malnutrition and harsh conditions, a few were killed by local Iroquois fighters.

It's a harsh place to try and settle.

By the late 1650s, there's about a hundred people living in Ville-Marie.  Maisonneuve has returned to the mother land, Jeanne Mance is still here.  The Roi-Soleil, Louis XIV, takes over the French monarchy and decides to centralize his North American assets.  This is the end of the religious utopian project for the Société Notre-Dame.  Ville-Marie is but another piece in the colonial, commercial, battle.

There will be more than forty wars between the Nouvelle-France and the New-England over the following hundred years.  From the start, the Canadiens (I learned that the word originally referred to French settlers, before it turned into French Canadiens and British Canadians.  Only in the 1960s did the identity of Québécois really take shape in the collective psyche.) are outnumbered by a ratio of 20:1.  There are English settlers everywhere.  And in 1760 it's the infamous battle on the Plains of Abraham, and the rest is history.  Nouvelle-France is no more.  Canada becomes a British belonging.
But the first waves of English speaking Montrealers are mostly Irish and Scottish.  They come to take over the fur trade, since there is now a law prohibiting French Canadians to do business.

Our poet: Émile Nelligan,
son of an Irish man and a French Canadian woman.

During the first forty years of the nineteenth century, there are 70% anglos in Montreal.
The Industrial Revolution is shaking things up here too.  The city (which, by the way, is still only a fraction of the island) becomes a port of confluence for trade and shipping.
French peasants go to the United States looking for work.  They go to Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts.  Some will come to Montreal in the 1850s, and the city will expand a bit, east of the Main street: Saint-Laurent.

I learned then, that this is the street that divides the island between East and West.  It's something anyone living here finds out quickly.  I'm glad I didn't have to get terribly lost before learning that fact.

Our guide actually took us for a walk up Rue St-Laurent.  He explained that it shows pretty well the different strata of immigrations that constitute the metropolis.

La ''Main'' is history.

Irish, Scottish... then Germans and Jews (''Germans'' also including Eastern Europeans who then lived under German occupation), as well as Italians, and Greeks... and then Chinese people immigrated.  And Vietnamese people also came, and Haitians (two waves; the first were intellectuals fleeing the dictatorship of Duvalier Père, the second generation, under Duvalier Fils), and Moroccans and Lebanese people, then more Maghrebians, and some West Africans too.  And Chileans (leaving their homeland under Pinochet), and Argentinians, etc.  Portuguese immigrants apparently came from the Azores island (when?), and I know for sure there is also a big Brazilian population here.

You get the idea.  Montreal was always a metropolis!  I think this is both fantastic and disturbing.  And I'm very inspired to seek out more information on the subject, to read historical books and novels, and to talk to everybody about where their ancestors come from...

And to go back to all these old restaurants we walked by, and try it all..

Schwartz's smoked meat sandwiches are apparently an institutions.
Is it kosher?

Chinatown

Also on St-Laurent...

More info on the history of Montreal...

Un merveilleux site web sur l'histoire de Montréal:  ici

snow, mobile

Another winter solstice has come around, and a new year of the Gregorian calendar has begun.  It's a bissextile year this one: we'll get an extra day.

That's one extra day for me to slowly send my roots into new ground.

Sainte-Sabine: a small church, a lake, and countless pine trees.

It has been a different type of in-between.  In one respect, it is a familiar place; it's not the first time I fly back to Québec to spend the holidays with my family and friends.  Though I used to fly back to San Francisco afterwards, and leave the snow behind.
This time, I'm not flying anywhere.  I'm settling in for a winter in Montréal.  I bought my first pair of winter boots in over fifteen years.

This is a new challenge.  Because this time I am not merely passing by; and I have no excuse of being a mere ''resident alien''.   Yet I'm not merely ''coming back'' either.  I am re-inserting the matrix, it's true; but I have changed so much over the past ten years that I'm not sure how it's all going to look.

I'm even surprising myself: I can't wait to start exploring my new ''chez moi''.  For now I'll be spending a few more days at my parents' place, in this suburb of Québec city.  Spending time with them is good; it's comfortable (in one way) and nourishing.  The place is awesome, the sound system is of good quality (I had been craving surround sound while traveling around!), and my mother's cuisine is extraordinary.  But I am waiting for my driving records from the California DMV to come through in order to get my driver's license here, which means that I am currently depending on my parents for transportation...
How radically opposite from the independent space I was in a few weeks ago!






I haven't been able to write as much.  Perhaps it's the holidays, perhaps it's the lack of stimuli, perhaps I am blocked by the idea that I am now much more exposed, since I am not running away anymore.  These people have known me forever; somehow it is much harder to reveal my inner most thoughts and feelings when I know that I have to interact daily with the people who read me.
I find myself in [at least one chamber of] the heart of the challenge: integrating my creativity and my power, my passion, my individuality and my vulnerability into this new life, within the matrix.




Meanwhile, more amazing blessings have kept gracing my existence.  I can barely believe it.  And so... my heart keeps overflowing with gratefulness...

My little friend Claire - with her daddy and mommy - came to Québec city!
How freakin' wonderful is that?
We had five days together: December 26th to the last day of 2011.
I had made a list of interesting sites for them to visit: the Vieux-Québec, but we all rapidly accepted that it would be difficult to delve into the cultural riches of this city, since Claire had no other interests than the white snow covering any given street.  She wanted to step in it, touch it, taste it, pack it, throw it.  She wanted to play in it forever... What a sight to behold!

Snow angel

We all went to Sainte-Sabine, which is an hour and a half south of Lévis.   My aunt and her partner have a cabin there, so my parents stayed with them and Claire's family and I stayed in a vacation house nearby.  The schedule: sliding outside, drinking Unibroue bottles (or hot coco), going for snowmobile rides in the woods, sliding some more, translating between French and English, eating lots of chocolate, sitting around a fire, sliding some more, watching the stars, reading stories in French...

And on new years' eve, they joined our annual party with another group of French-speaking family friends.  How can I describe the significance of this?  These people have seen me grow up since I was Claire's age; they are the village that made me who I am today.  And there they were, welcoming my family from California with such warmth and such love!  I will forever remember the sight:

Claire is exhausted.  Her dad and mom have decided it is now time to go back to the hotel (their flight leaves at eight o'clock on january 1st).  They are putting their winter jackets on, their boots, their hats.  They are telling Claire to say goodbye to everyone.  Everyone is standing at the top of the stairs, waving their hand, fighting a tear.  I, am standing in between the two clans.  I am standing in the staircase, my heart swollen with the love I have for Claire, my surrogate daughter who is leaving me on a jet plane.  Or is it me leaving her?
A goodbye, again.  A goodbye but such a... bridge!  There is such warmth and such emotion in the room.  I'm thinking: ''this intensity and this love, it is who I am and what I want to share.  I'm hoping it reaches and enriches Claire's unconscious.  I hope it can influence her journey in a positive manner.
From a more ego-centric place, I also like to think that these encounters have helped everyone -Québécois and Californians - understand where I'm coming from... that is, where I came from and where I've been.  I hope it fills them all with confidence, that essentially.. it's all good.

I am so excited to see it all unfold.

My dad pulling Claire on a makeshift cardboard sled!
Saint-Romuald