December 5th, 2010

Reverb day 3

More from Reverb (yep, I’m behind now):

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
(Author: Ali Edwards)

Oh, I do *not* like superlatives. I remember being quite annoyed in grade 9 when I was assigned to write a paragraph about the “happiest day of my life” in English class. Who knows the answer to that–hopefully one has enough happy days and alive moments that it would be too complicated to classify them as “first best” “most alive” etc. For the record, for that assignment, I picked a lovely day when I was about 10 or so, and my great-aunt babysat my bro and I in Queens while my folks attended a conference in Manhattan. We went shopping at a small plaza, and ate some pizza. It was very sunny, and I really liked my great aunt–I stand my that choice.

And now, a moment when I felt *quite* alive in 2010:

I went to Montreal for my birthday (Montreal and my birthday being two of my favourite things), and this was the evening before it. I was walking up Union with my travelling companion, around 9 or so at night. We’d been out for a very nice dinner with cool Francophones (I lived in Montreal long enough to feel dramatically inferior to Francophones–whenever one is nice to me, I’m thrilled).

After dinner, I tried to figure out how to get some Bilboquet ice-cream, which is a Montreal-only delight. I had worked in an ice-cream place when I lived there, which has since gone under, and I knew of only one other place who sold it at that time, very far north. Our French friends new of more, but they were all way west, too far to walk at that hour. Though it was very tempting. Also, satisfying to learn that the Bilboquet brand was expanding.

So we were just walking up Union, on this dark warm pretty evening in Montreal, and I was feeling so happy to be back in the city and that it was almost summer and to be with Mark and that I was about to turn 2x2x2x2x2, and then on Sherbrooke, we passed a cafe with a little Bilboquet sign in the window.

It was like the universe saying, “I love you”–because I was already so happy and didn’t need the ice-cream, but what the hell, why not throw all the good stuff we can? I got raspberry and it was divine, and Mark got some chocolatey thing, and we went up to Prince Arthur and there were so many other happy people, and I felt I could have walked a hundred thousand miles.