Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, May 22, 2004 One of the lakes at Parc LaFontaine
Well, it's 11:30 on Saturday morning and finally people are beginning to stir. The world here runs on a different clock: nothing is open before 10, often 11, and shops stay open much later, often until 9 pm, when people go home and have dinner. We made an appointment to meet someone at their house and when they said, 'What time? and we suggested "10 am?" they said fine, but I caught the look of surprise - even shock - in their eyes that someone would even suggest such an uncivilized hour. Lesson learned. The Montreal Gazette carried a story yesterday saying that Montreal ranks at the very bottom among major North American cities in per capita productivity. That could very well be. On the other hand, people here certainly enjoy their lives. This contrast, between our ambition- and efficiency-driven normal existence at home, and the patterns of life we have observed and gradually fallen into here, has taught us the most this month.
I know I could never stop being productive and wanting to write well, for example. I like to work. But I also like and enjoy people. Here it seems that people segment their lives more, perhaps: they work, and then they're at home, and when they're at home, they enjoy themselves through the simple, gracious pleasures that life offers. I'm continually astounded at how much more relaxed people are here, and how much less stress and anxiety seems to enter into daily activity. We have had a little contest to count how many laptops we've seen being carried around the street: the current cumulative tally is three. Traffic moves at a reasonable pace, with little yelling or honking. People walk or ride bicycles, and they don't seem in a particular hurry. In all our time here, I have never seen a parent yelling at a child or yanking them around - not once. Watching G. with her little daughter, it is absolutely clear to me how secure and happy the child is, but also how unlikely it is that, as an adolescent, she'll be "scheduled" every minute of her day. It is much more the way I grew up, fifty years ago, and from a 21st century perspective it seems very old-fashioned - but I think that is part of the attraction. People here have simply said "no" about some major life decisions, and "yes" to others - such as dropping in on one's neighbors for a glass of wine or a conversation, or eating chocolate and cream occasionally, and guiltlessly. At the bakery the other day, I watched as an elderly woman ordered her baguette and a beautiful little blueberry tartlette, just for herself. And the other night, walking back up our street, we passed an older man sitting in a chair on his front steps, all alone, with a glass of red wine which he lifted toward us in greeting. All I can say is, this doesn't happen in my village!
Last night, around 8 pm, G. came up our stairs with Marie to ask if we needed anything at the boulangerie or the epicier (grocery). Diane came out too, and we all said, "No, let's all go together!" So off we went, down the street, as an entourage led by Marie pushing her own stroller. First we went to the bakery where G. works on Sundays. We entered, and the man behind the specialty saucisse (sausage) counter said, "Bonsoir, Marie!" Then the baker said, "Oh who are your friends?" and entered into a long conversation with all of us, holding out a handful of pieces of cake for us to try, as if we were a flock of hungry birds. Meanwhile, another baker was cleaning sunflower seeds out of the glass display case, below, and playing peek-a-boo with Marie all the while. Form there we went to the coffee store to buy coffee for J.; again, everyone knew G. and Marie, and both the proprietaries were delighted to have one of those half French/half English wide-ranging conversations with us as we discussed which coffee to buy, and the merits of the different shiny espresso pots lined up on the shelf above the coffee bins. That shop specializes in coffees, teas, oils, confitures (jams), and chocolates. Diane bought a bar of dark chocolate for all of us to share, at G.'s recommendation: "This one is the best! And," she said, rolling her eyes and raising her eyebrows, "It's good for you - c'est biologique!" (organic)
Then we went to meet the butcher at the shop on the corner - excellent meats, a few cheeses, and entrees that had been prepared that day - served by three delightful men in white coats and little round hats who also knew our hosts intimately and had a little gift of chocolate for Marie. "C'est le monde de Marie," we said, and G. agreed. (None of this, I might add, was any more expensive than back home; it is just a totally different way of acquiring one's food.)
Finally, back to the epicier for mushrooms, and then the walk back up the block to the house, the stroller loaded with bread and groceries, where we all sat on the sidewalk and ate chocolate and drank Quebec-grown grape-apple juice, and talked until a tiny moon appeared in the sky and it was time to say bon soiree.
11:44 AM
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Thursday, May 20, 2004 RAINY DAY IN A NEARBY PARK
A few of you sound like you’ve been worried about my absence from these pages – thank you - that’s what I get for being predictable! No problem – our health is fine now. We’ve been looking at apartments, though, and this has consumed a lot of our time and energy. I’ll write more on that eventually. Also, I heard that there may have been a problem getting this blog to load. Please let me know if you've been having trouble (other than having to wait for pictures).
Spring is in full bloom here, and it is truly beautiful. In the parks, the flowering trees are magnificent, and everywhere in the little residential gardens along the streets there are tulips, bleeding hearts, lilac trees. It’s lovely, especially for those of us who know what Montreal is like in deep winter. The climate here is actually warmer than back home, and certain plants, like some roses and species of trees, thrive here that cannot be grown where I live normally. It’s always a surprise to see large rose bushes in gardens; most of mine die back close to the ground each year. My good friend has been taking care of my garden and plants at home, and today she called and said, “You have a lot of flowers but also a lot of weeds.” I’m sure it’s true.
Today I drove by myself to the big open air market and did the shopping, and it was glorious. Cherries and nectarines, baskets of little fresh carrots, and pots of tender herbs have joined the peaches and strawberries of last week. There were large plants of tomatoes, eggplant, lettuces of every variety, peppers and melons…but with the variety and quality of produce one can buy, the only reasons I can see for gardening here are to guarantee an organic crop, and for pure pleasure. I do miss my own garden, and when I think of “home” that’s what comes first to mind these days, along with my friends who I haven’t seen now for a long time. As our last week here draws nearer, I do find myself thinking of home more often, and beginning to make the mental transition. It will be good to be back in our own bed, and to have a regular stove instead of a single hot plate!
We are marveling at the subtle ways in which people here are different. J. was at the bank today, and the officer he was speaking to came originally from Bangladesh. She was extremely helpful and kind, and when they had finished their business, she initiated a long conversation on quite a personal level, just for the sake of being friendly, telling him about her own story and asking about ours. We have had innumerable encounters like this, where a “business” or routine transaction turned into a much longer conversation, full of curiosity and friendliness on both sides. People go slower. None of the businesses we’ve dealt with have voice mail. It seems to us that people are quite relaxed with one another, and that there is more innate trust and considerably less fear and caution than we’re used to – although of course, we come from New England, one of the most reserved parts of the United States. But we have been quite surprised when, for example, our landlady asked us if we could watch her daughter while she did an errand or some work; we don’t know each other that well, but people live in close proximity and there seems to be a lot of this sort of give-and-take and relaxed helpfulness and neighborliness. It’s nice.
My French is improving rapidly, although I can see now how far I’d have to go before attaining anything resembling true fluency. I am speaking French whenever I can, and the more practice I have, the better it gets. Today I had a long conversation with someone who didn’t speak much English at all, and it was fun to feel my brain cranking really hard to find the right words, the right tenses and genders, and a way to express complex thoughts with the vocabulary that I do possess. It is possible, though, and reminds me of painting with a limited palette – sometimes the result is actually better, and more distilled, for having constraints. (I’m glad I don’t have to write my blog that way, though!)
Talking to little Marie is the greatest challenge. She is sure I can understand her, and when I can’t, she repeats the phrase perhaps five or six times, fixes me with an intense, quizzical gaze, and says “Eh? Eh?” I know when I hear that “Eh?” that I’m really in trouble. But it’s getting better; I don’t feel like a total idiot anymore, and she doesn’t have to resort quite so often to theater.
At noon we were eating in a little Thai take-out restaurant a few blocks away, when someone said, “Oh! So you’ve discovered our neighborhood secrets.” It was Leather Man, in a different Hawaiian shirt, and we had another good conversation before he hopped on his bicycle with his spring rolls and rice to pedal back to his shop.
There are small-scale murals all over this neighborhood, and I’ve started to get interested in them. After a lunch of Asian noodles, I had stopped at a streetcorner to take a picture of this one, which is one of the more artistic and serious, and then continued walking past a man in a Hawaiian shirt who was digging at the small plot of earth around his street tree nearby. He’d shot a few glances at me while I was taking the pictures, and when we went past, he said ‘Bonjour” and then, when we replied, he said, in French, “I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of murals.” I stopped. “In Montreal?” I asked. “Some yes, but mostly in San Francisco.” “Oh, really,” I said, switching to English. He answered in English that sounded pretty American. “Yes…I can show you if you like. Do you have a minute?” We said sure, and he propped his shovel against the side of the building and headed into the leather shop on the corner. “Come on,” he said, gesturing with one arm.
He led us into his “office”, a backroom behind the trendy leather shop filled with one-of-a-kind shoes, sandals, slippers, boots and purses. There were hides of all sorts of animals and reptiles on the high-ceilinged walls, and a great many books, a Chinese tapestry, posters from Montreal music events, some Renaissance etchings, a print of a painting of Salome with St. John the Baptist’s head on the platter, a carved wooden candle stand, more books, a tape player, two low chairs covered in brown velveteen; it was all dusty and unkempt and looked like favorite stuff he had hauled around and had in every shop he’d ever run. An adjacent room – dark - held an old metal Singer and was clearly the place where the leatherwork was done. He got out a folder of color photographs, many taped together to form long panoramas, and proceeded to tell us about each one: it was an incredible tour of the work of mostly-Latino muralists in San Francisco. This man had made a project of photographing them as part of documenting the neighborhoods wherever he’s lived; I was stunned by some of what he showed us. He turned out to be an American who’s been in Montreal for four years (“How did I end up here? C’est un cas d’une femme.”)
A couple of hours later we walked out of the shop, a little dazed, knowing a good deal more about this particular neighborhood of Montreal than we had, a lot more about San Francisco, and a much better sense of the comparison between the two cities. All because I took this picture, I guess, on a good day for gardening.
4:22 PM
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Sunday, May 16, 2004
This morning we had a celebratory breakfast: J. has graduated to soft foods so he was able to eat French toast with buzzed strawberries on top! Fantastic! And for lunch, soup, and a tuna fish sandwich on soft bread – I think I got as much pleasure out of watching him eat as he did out of eating.
After breakfast we decided to go to church, and chose an Anglican parish whose website had resonated with us; they are very mission-oriented, described themselves as ethnically diverse, and have sponsored numerous refugee families over the years. The parish is called The Church of the Advent, and like many of the Anglican churches, it’s located in Westmount. So we left our French neighborhood at 9:30, got on the metro, changed to the green line at Berri/UQAM (that’s “University of Quebec at Montreal”) and headed west. About twenty-five minutes later we emerged into the very different world of Westmount, with its large lawns, flowering crabapples, sleek office buildings and residential towers. The Church of the Advent is located on a quiet street; we were a little late by the time we found it and tried to open the door quietly. Nevertheless, when we entered, just as the sermon was about to start, thirty heads turned round to see who had come in. And those thirty - grey- and brown-haired Caucasians, black women in African dress, Asians, Latin Americans – made up the entire congregation.
As we settled into a back pew and were handed hymnals and an order of service, the lilting, West-Indian voice of the rector began the sermon with the words, “By now, most of you have probably made a decision about where you will go when this church closes.” We were stunned; this wasn’t what we had expected, but as the sermon progressed it became clear that after a number of years of struggle and soul-searching, the congregation had decided to sell their buildings, which they could no longer support, and join another congregation. We found out more later. But we sat and listened to the sermon, which was about openness to learning about faith, even when we are old, and then at the Peace, we were greeted with smiles and warm handshakes by every single person in the sanctuary and by the rector, deacon, and acolyte - a tall adult man. At that point we moved up to sit further forward.
The service was fairly High Anglican, with Sanctus bells, but it was also extremely warm and relaxed. Four children, in the pew ahead of us, sprawled on their parents and quietly played with each other. People came and went, and came back in. Communion was given at the altar rail, kneeling, and there was no question of dipping one’s wafer in the wine; everybody drank from the chalice, carefully wiped each time by the deacon. After the service concluded, there were announcements, and an invitation to the coffee hour, and the clergy walked out in procession during the last hymn, with – to our astonishment – one little girl going up and clinging to the bottom of the processional cross while the acolyte, completely nonplussed, carried it out.
Of course we stayed for the coffee hour, which stretched past an hour, and had a fascinating discussion with the deacon – an American citizen who said he had “Landed Canadian Immigrant” status but had been ordained in California, moved to Canada thirty years ago, and “through inertia” had never left. It turned out that he was a medieval historian, by profession, and had written his dissertation, at Oxford, on the history of the medieval diaconate.
We also talked to the fellow in charge of the transition committee, who told us that they had visited and talked with all the Anglican parishes and only found one who was really sympathetic to their mission focus and willing to absorb both the parishioners and keep the mission going. “You Americans really got us going on that,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “The very first family of boat people to come to Canada, during Vietnam, came right here, to this parish, and we have helped refugee families ever since. Oh yes, we’ve supported them emotionally, physically – some have lived right here – we’ve gone to battle for them legally. It’s what we do.” Later one of the women, with a broad smile and a bright Latin American warmth, told me that the reason the decision to close had taken so long was that they were helping two Peruvian families, with fifteen children between them, and that everyone felt so responsible for them that they couldn’t bring themselves to close the church. Finally the families (I think one of them had been the family in the pew in front of us) had gotten stable enough to manage on their own, and the decision had been made to join with St. George’s parish, a much more affluent and larger congregation in the same area of the city. “Look for us there when you come back,” they said. ‘We’d love to have you worship with us.”
There was quite a bit of interest that we were from the infamous Diocese of New Hampshire and knew Gene Robinson, but the same fellow said, “Actually, this is all a much bigger deal to you in the States than it is to us up here. We’re really quite fine with it up here; somehow Canada doesn’t seem to have inherited the same puritanical streak when it comes to matters of sexuality.”
As we were talking, we heard chanting from the church; I thought it was a rehearsal for something, but when it came time to leave, we had to sneak out through another, ongoing church service – this time a much fuller congregation of Rumanian Orthodox. “They’d like to buy the building but probably can’t afford it,” the deacon told us. “In any case, we’ve been told we can keep our endowment, but the Diocese of Montreal owns the property, so they’ll sell it to the highest bidder – trying to keep it as a house of worship, one would hope.”
All the mainstream churches in Canada are struggling with declining memberships, apparently, and in Quebec the Anglos and Catholics often face off with their buildings as well. “Look downtown, on Sherbrooke,” the deacon told us. “There’s an Anglo-Catholic Church, and a Roman Catholic Church facing each other across the street. The French go to the Roman Catholic Church, and the Irish go to the Anglo-Catholic one, and they hate each other. But the Irish actually believe; a lot of the French hate the church.” We’ve heard quite a bit of that criticism here; our landlady told us, “Les eglises sont tres riches, mais ils sont vides.” (The churches are rich, but they’re empty.) “Still,” she said, “they don’t stop asking us for money. I went to Catholic school, I know about the Church – and I don’t want anything to do with it.”
But Anglicans are still the foreigners in Montreal. “We have a saying,” the deacon told us, as we parted. “There are three places a Montreal Anglican can go. To heaven, to hell, or to Toronto.”
