Hoping for a Tail Wind

Bon jour. From basically utopia. Go ahead, combine the best parts of New Orleans, Barcelona and Mexico City into a city I can drive to in under 7 hours (but for some reason don’t nearly as much as I’d like), why don’t ya?!

Montreal’s got the non-homogenous big city vibe. Chocked full of culinary nirvanas — one cannot find something of non yum nature even if you try. Stocked with spaces of suggestively serendipitous loitering — one can comfortably relax outside whilst not participating in a transactional capitalist endeavor. Teeming with some of the most beautiful attractive humans on Earf — I really can’t tell where her parents came from or if she looks better from the back or the front. Then toss in a healthy dose of good old, fuck-the-government, separatist individuality from rest of Canada — for shits and giggles. All this, and a bag of bilingual immersion to boot. I hear French, I speak English. It all just works. Chad agrees. Carmen agrees. Carmen’s two boys agree. Oui.

We roll out packed in Chad’s Subaru, clinging to the hope Canada won’t fuck with 4 skins tones, 3 different decades of birth, and 4 different last names all in one car. We expect to be pulled over, but for how long? Will we break on through to the other side, J-Mor? Chad’s driving. He’s got a French last name. Carmen makes some means French toast. I really enjoy French kissing. They gotta let us in. They do. Without incident. I think we luck out when a couple dumb asses in front of us in line can’t read neither the English nor French signs alerting drivers to “STOP HERE BEFORE PROCEEDING WHEN CLEAR” (Canadian license plates for the record, take that Trudeau or whoever’s in charge. So the bar was set pretty low. The border agent, who’s not on a horse, asks us, “why would you want to go the Montréal”? In a sarcastic tone and it takes everything in my nature to not respond with, “well, I hear Canada is not for sale, so we figured we come rent you for a while”. Instead, Chad replies “because is beautiful up there.” And away we go, without so much as a body cavity search.

We spend two nights up in here, up in here. I do the “why I don’t I live here?” questioning that inevitably comes up every time I visit any of the previously mentioned cities. And if you’re not paying attention that’s: New Orleans, Mexico City and Barcelona. Include Montreal and all of them become less affordable every day. Less tolerant of American expats every moment. Less willing to give me a non working resident visa in five years. The walls of US branded fascism closing in on me, angling to trap me forever. Forever ever? Forever, ever.

We’re part tourists, part refugees, part sustainable travelers. This is the start point for the next long ride. Not too long though. Just gotta go home from here. Chads coming. Carmen and her offspring are taking Chad’s motor vehicle back with them. We’re gonna ride along the St Lawrence Seaway, a waterway which basically ended Buffalo’s hopes of holding any sort of importance as a city on the map. Well that, and a special brand of the disgustingly crippling and blatant racism that has plagued most every other American city. Erie Canal rendered obsolete upon completion? Let’s compound that effect with real estate redlining, worker suppression, and intentional health disparities galore. Freddie Olmstead designed NYC’s Central Park, Mount-Royal Park and Buffalo’s internationally unique parkway system… Robert Moses chose to destroy only one of those three with his dumb fuck highways, separating neighborhoods which once had proud histories and local economic bases, leaving only poverty and disconnection in his wake. Take me to the river.

Nonetheless. We do the vacation things. We eat. We drink. Merriment. 36 hours. Chad and I pick up, preparing to partake in another pedal party. Probably 500-600 miles. Waterfront Trail.

We start by doing what’s necessary. Then what’s possible. Then suddenly we’re doing the impossible. It’ll be fun. I’m a try to do this writing thing and stay alive. Oh Canada.