It was only fitting that I left Montreal around the same time of day as I arrived. Unlike two weeks ago, the sun was out and beaming over a city dusted with a couple months worth of snow. Peaking bits of light from the horizon turning the Christmas sky into fluffy layers of pink, orange, blue, and white. No sooner than turning away, can you forget where you are. Caught up, submerged, immersed in a life that isn't quite your own no matter how much you wish it to be. Staying feels selfish, and to go feels like a cop out. Yes, my life in Seattle is easy and cushy, wet but warm, full of friends who I adore to the point that they are family, but when I write the screenplay of my life, Seattle will be apart of my past and not necessarily my future.
The warm and fuzzies I get from walking along the lower mall of Seattle U campus, past the Lynn Building, and the Chapel and our lovely library to C-street will never fade. I hope that at 65 I feel the same way about my undergraduate experience as I do now. Not bitter, but appreciative. Now, I bet you're wondering I thought this post was about Montreal. Well, you aren't wholly incorrect, and I suppose I should get to it.
My second week in Montreal was a week of existential crises, or linguistic crises. It's almost funny the way not knowing a language is like not having a voice. As if suddenly, I'd been rendered mute and everything I said came out in inaudible squawks on the lowest possible decibel level. As I frantically urged, " English?", "Merci", " I'm Sorry, I mean Pardon", I couldn't help but be reminded of the brief time in life when I couldn't read. I taught myself how to read at 3 out of pure frustration with not understanding the world around me. What does that billboard say, or this book, or that magazine, "Ahh...someone teach me." Unfortunately, I had plenty of time to learn how to read so when I begged and pleaded I was written off. Obviously, time was not a factor and I taught myself.Now, I'm looking around at billboards and magazines in a language that I can't understand and get the same feeling.
It is in Montreal that I feel the most challenged, the most humbled, and the most intrigued. Of course, my insecurities abound: Will I ever really learn French or am I really ready at 21 to be an immigrant? Not to mention developing a new idea as to what I should spend my days doing or how I will make money? But like many of the dark tunnels in life, there is a light. A gleaming, beautiful light in which all of the scarier demons that cat call you from inside and tug on your sense of self seem to be drowned out. I found that light in Montreal, bundled up and offering a way out of the cold.
And on that note, I suppose that I should inform everyone that instead of dismantling this blog now that it has served my travel purposes, it will become my immigration blog. So stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment