Montreal in the Summer
My old memories hold bicycles with training wheels, aluminum ice cube trays with levers that cracked the ice, sweaty fingers sticking to the bottom of the thin metal pan like a scene from A Christmas story–that nostalgia-tinged American movie where the little boy licks a metal pole and gets stuck. My older memories have melting icing on a birthday cake, an American flag flapping on June 14th, which was flag day and nothing more. Popsicles made with red dye #3. And oh. This hits the solar plexus. Mom. Dad. Roller Skates, hide-and-seek until the streetlights come on. Fireflies.
My newer memories all have a part where I’m trying to figure out how to use an app on a smart phone. I’m in Montreal for my 60th and Nora and I download the Bixi app on our phones, then unlock a rental bike. There are thousands of these spaced throughout the island of Montreal, and once we finish the tangle of yet another online portal we are free to sail down the protected bike lanes that spider through the city. Again the solar plexus blow. This time my child pedaling ahead along the canal, both 12 years old and in their 20’s angling south through green neighborhoods until we reach the Saint Lawrence river. We rest along the banks, tall grass and a soft breeze, the river coursing past us on the way to the Atlantic ocean. I wonder, could I ever live here, so far from the Great lakes, the only home I’ve ever known?
I’m a snob, I’ll admit it. The only real lakes are the inland freshwater oceans, the only real homes are giant stone houses on the elm lined streets of Detroit, Michigan. But the elms are gone, and I am still here, their absence still with me, somewhere. Could anywhere else be home? We climb back on the bicycles and thread our way back to the Atwater Market, parking the bikes before the deluge hits. We huddle under a sagging white tarp and eat cabbage and peanut sauce with chopsticks. I’m sweaty and soaked, and there’s a curtain of rain blowing on the picnic table, but I’ve never felt so alive
What else am I full of beside this moment, my child,the chopsticks, the rain? I’m full of elms, their shade, and other bicycles, other times. Where are the elms now? I heard my father’s voice on my last day in Montreal. He said. “Don’t worry about things, they’re just things. You are what’s important. You are. Your children. Nora is. And Dyani. My girls.” he said. “Are the important thing”
My Dad is still with me and so are the elms. I have. I have grown into the elms and into my father’s voice. I don’t have to leave anything behind. Everything is still here.
