Montreal Journal & the joys of travel in 2023

I go to Montreal to speak Italian and shop at an Italian grocery store.

And this year, I got to do both when I visited the Francophile Canadian city, while also writing about it! 

Call me an Italophile in French-speaking Montreal, and a grateful traveler whenever I can get there, which is now more often since I live in New England (the gateway to Montreal, in my opinion).

The post-war period saw a surge of Italian immigration to Canada such that the Italian community is slightly less assimilated there -- or slightly better at keeping traditions -- than in the States, and the culture a little more intact than in say New York's Little Italy. Plus, Montreal has had to fight for its Francophone existence in the wider sea of Canada’s English speakers, and now sees the value in safeguarding other cultures, including their languages. So a stroll through Little Italy ("Petite Italie") is often an occasion for Italian language practice.

At a bakery across the street from the Jean Talon market, a young cashier immediately switched to Italian when he saw my shirt, which had an image of the iconic Italian coffee pot called the Moka. His grandfather was from Puglia, in Southern Italy, he told me, and he learned to speak fluent Italian as a child.

As one person in Montreal told me, "We all speak three languages."

Little did I know when I visited as a child that Montreal would eventually become one of my kindred spots (assuming that places can be kindred spirits in the way people can -- sure feels like it).

This notion was especially solidified in my most recent visit over the summer with the addition of biking around the city via the BIXI app, similar to Citi Bikes in NYC. Pure joy = tooling around hipster Montreal on two wheels. Leafy neighborhoods such as Mile End, combined with amazing bike infrastructure (they even have rails to lean on at some intersections so you don't have to dismount).

What makes the situation sweeter, as I said, was the opportunity to write about my love for Montreal in an article for the PBS website, Next Avenue.

Another dose of douceur: I get to speak French in Montreal! By which I mean, I get to stammer out, "Une croissant" or "bonjour." Amazing how much that tickles me.

Places I adore in Montreal:

*Librarie Drawn & Quarterly (local bookstore)

*Multimags (one day, I am going to buy EVERY magazine I want there)

*Beaubien Bagels

*The Metro

*The Museum of Fine Arts

We also made other trips this year, including visits to my second home, the Jersey Shore, where my parents retired (who would retire to the Jersey Shore? My parents -- in a house a mile from where they had their first date. I never thought of them as romantic -- and yet isn't the evidence staring me in the face?).

The house sits a mere three blocks from the beach, in a town I know like the back of my hand, sandwiched in between other towns I know (like picturesque Spring Lake, where my aunt and uncle live, and where my cousin had a fairy tale wedding that required some guests to cross a footbridge over a lake to reach the ceremony) and other towns I am getting to know (victorian Ocean Grove, and hopping Asbury Park).

This past summer, we hosted my cousin, her wife and my godson at the house. Two generations  of cousins together, enjoying the simplest of pleasures: time at the beach, good meals and conversation. And I thought, How lucky I am to have this house (and these people!) in my life. Not any house at the beach – any house wouldn’t do, as much as I adore the beach. This house, I thought, as I jotted down notes in a file on my laptop, my eye shifting between the computer screen and the wisteria spilling over the arbor my father painstakingly built. A glimpse of the wisteria high up on the arbor -- a wild, tangled, purple mess -- tells me exactly where I am, and the lonesome train whistle alternating with the fog horn down at the beach provides a nostalgic soundtrack. 

I think a better writer would be able to parse this feeling properly but all I can say is my heart seems to beat outside my chest when I look around this Shore town because it is the town we visited growing up, the town where my Aunt Mary lived, where my grandparents rented houses, where the whole notion of a seashore and a weekend at the beach was crystalized for me. I look at the beach and it's the same one I saw at age 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 23, 31, 43....and the way that reconnects me to a little girl I once was is breathtaking. Like having it all. You're big now, Jeanne Marie, but with all the thoughts and experiences from before.

The year included a lot of driving, and very often driving to see my mother at her nursing home in northern New Jersey. Sliding into the driver's seat, I used the radio dial as an airplane -- one that zooms me away to 1986, or 1992 or some other year that looms large in my mind. That means listening to WFUV, WKCR and CBS-FM, among other radio stations. If I chanced on WKCR during a jazz marathon, I was golden. One day, they were airing the King Oliver’s Creole Jazz band centennial broadcast and the miles melted away.

We also visited Lake Champlain in Vermont, where we've stayed a half dozen times. Not surprisingly, the spot reminds me of my grandparents' beloved lake north of New York City where we spent endless amounts of time, growing up. While my grandparents' home was separated from the lake by a wide lawn where we played croquet, the cabin we rent in Vermont is perched at the absolutely edge of the water. The room closest to the water is a porch with two walls of windows,  supplying uninterrupted access to the water, visually and aurally.

Most crucially, Lake Champlain is a spot where I paddleboard.

​During our first visit to the lake as a family, I paddleboarded by a staircase to nowhere while circumnavigating a private island where we were staying -- and I was hooked. (I wrote about that, too). This past summer, I finally found another staircase while paddleboarding ... maybe to nowhere, not sure​​. But seeing the wooden frame flush with the rock face was enough.

One night, a sailboat dropped anchor right off the point by our cabin. The next morning, we a​​woke to find it still there, like a temporary nautical neighbor.

My final Lake Champlain Journal entry read as follows: "The last image I have of our trip will be Leo embracing Caramel on the dock shortly before we have to leave ... usually he will come back from errands in a split second but he's been down there 10 minutes or more​."​

Even some day trips this year were infused with the joy of travel. As the school year approaches, I make a list of activities to squeeze in before Leo is home for the summer. This year: a day in New York City. The occasion: a one-day Italian poetry translation conference at Columbia University. 

(Yep, in one room: Italian + poetry + translation. I even met Jonathan Galassi! Delightful man).

As I boarded one of the slowpoke trains that stop in every Connecticut town, I chastised myself for dilly-dallying over breakfast instead of rushing to make a quicker train. Then I thought: 

I AM ON A TRAIN HEADED TO NEW YORK CITY!

NOTHING. IS. WRONG.

And it was true! I was in Manhattan with other translators and lovers of Italian literature, spending a day focused on words. Later as I headed back to the train station, I meandered through Columbia's campus and ogled the stately buildings. Now that I am old, I shiver with emotion when I think about how momentous it would be to study in a temple of learning like that.

So many places I want to go in 2024. Philadelphia to see friends, Boston for the annual bookfair (and to see friends), New York City to come alive by reuniting with my past (and to see friends). Plus a foreign destination might be nice. Italy beckons as always but I learned when we lived in Pennsylvania that there are other countries in the world. Like Mexico! A stunning place; I am happy to say the world is full of them.

-30-