Goodbye to your metro; your busking harmonica player in the corner; your rushing crowds of people surging in and out of doors like an endless wave.
Goodbye to your light and your dimension; to the singing, dancing fountains of Place Des Art; to the dwarfed allies lined with boutiques and taverns along the Old Port; to the towering skyscrapers on Saint Catherine’s Street, reflecting one hundred flickers of light and energy that the city has bottled up.
Goodbye to all your faces; faces from the four corners of the earth, united in the local Starbucks line; faces of stern and apathetic countenance, informing me that they’re only here to do their job; faces who have welcomed me into their lives, their homes, and their friendly hearts.
Goodbye to your snow; blanketing; purifying; starting anew.
Goodbye, Montreal. I’m afraid this post here–written at Gate 59–is it for me. I love you dearly and will miss you sorely. Even when a part of me wants to escape you, I know a bigger part of me will remember you fondly. Because in all your hours of frustration, anger, and homesickness, leaving you is hard.
In your good, your bad, your endless capacity to shock and awe, you will always stay with me, Montreal.
Taking the metro is a part of life in Montreal. No matter who you are and what you do, at some point in time you are going to take the metro in Montreal. In fact, the metro has become such a part of the Montreal experience that its considered by many as one of the most open and widespread expressions of the diversity, ingenuity, and pulsating energy of this city.
Whether its elaborate and beautiful graffiti art, people calling for every cause ON THIS EARTH (no matter the level of insanity), or the hundreds of extremely talented street performers and buskers, if you want to see the real Montreal, in all its hidden beauty, the metro is your gateway.
So today, as I was frantically running around on a million errands, I got off a metro station known as Place Des Arts. Now, obviously, the name is a tip-off (it’s THE PLACE of the ARTS), but, considering the fact that I hadn’t been to this particular station in almost a year, AND was also insanely running around like a chicken with its head cut off (BOOM! CLICHE OF THE WEEK!), I wasn’t really paying much attention to clever plays on names.
ANYWAY! I got off the metro station and in a few short strides my eyes were bombarded with an explosion of color, shape, and all-around VISUAL AWE. You see, just ahead of the gate to/from the Place Des Arts metro there is a high and long wall filled with video screens that project the most mindbogglingly beautiful and interesting graphic creations that I have ever seen.
Amidst the rushing crowd that whisked by me like a quick breeze of animated air, I stood and watched.
I watched a little girl wrap and unwrap a ribbon around a porcelain ballerina between two screens. I watched zigzag lines turn into the faces of a million people racing across countless panels. And I watched Arabic letters transform into geometric art forms that overwhelmed my mind with the possibility of what could be done with a simple, swishing curve of a letter.
I watched and I was mesmerized. In the rushing whirlwind of errands, jobs, duties, or the plain hurry of simply getting somewhere as fast as possible, my mind had been drifting on auto-pilot and I didn’t even realize it. I didn’t realize how linear my thoughts were becoming and how much more time I needed to make just to take a step back and think outside the goddamn box.
Well, apparently, the creators of all these amazing video graphic, FREAKING WALL ARTS had that idea in mind. Basically, they all stretched the limits of what it means to redefine graphic boundaries and imagined a million new ways to see a simple and usually very plain idea.
This specific video graphic was done by the Graphics eMotion team, headed by the “Cairo born and Beirut raised” Hassan Aziz. This piece is entitled Ch-Arabia. I thought it had something to do with the calligraphy in the piece but calligraphy doesn’t start with Ch- so I don’t know.
Anyway, in his TEDxBeirut talk Hassan speaks about the huge capacity we all have for real and original creation if we just “reawaken fascination” and basically allow ourselves to think as openly and immersively as young children might when interacting with the simplest objects they see every single day.
Because the truth is that the most magnificent pieces of artistic and unique expression, that can literally stop your world and make you gape and stare in complete awe, are born out of the simplest things.
I mean, really, in order to create the beautiful and enduring art of calligraphy which is still considered an important expression of Arabic and Islamic heritage throughout the entire world, all you have to do is re-imagine the dimensions of the long and plain letter that the Arabic alphabet starts with: “أ” (Arabic letter for ‘A’ pronounced alef).
So, essentially, to create beautiful, mesmerizing, re-defining art you just have to remember one simple rule:
This is ‘The Green Tunnel.’ It’s official name is Rua Gonçalo de Carvalho, a street found in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. And it has now been internationally dubbed The Most Beautiful Street in the World.
Now, I know, different people have different ideas of what comprises a ‘beautiful’ street.
Some people find a street more beautiful when it is towered with powerful, urban structures that represent the architectural genius it truly takes to turn a high-rise, corporate building into an enduring piece of modern art that bewilders the brain at its own ability.
Others are more apt to find a street with a real cultural and historical identity more beautiful. They enjoy walking down a paved road that they know expresses an important moment in human history, or a street that just breathes with the pulse of life and color and noise and everything that makes this place different and irreplaceable.
People who find ‘The Green Tunnel’ the most beautiful are perhaps the ones who find a tranquil and reassuring peace in, basically, letting the earth adorn itself. They find that walking down a street enveloped in a sea of green the most rerefreshing stroll of their lives. And, obviously, I can see why this particular picture drew so much attention and received such a lofty title by so many people: It truly is overpoweringly beautiful. The trees almost stand protective over these urban dwellers. They stand in perfect harmony with the pavement that they shade. There is just so much serenity emanating from that image IT MAKES YOUR EYES EXPLODE WITH AWE.
But, to me, as beautiful as I find all these kinds of streets, they’re not actually the MOST breathtakingly beautiful in my eyes. Personally, I’ve only ever felt completely enamored by streets that mean something to me and appeal to my own sentiments.
So when I come back to Kuwait after having been gone for several months, The Gulf Road in its endless beach front and the majestic Kuwait Towers looming in the distance are, in that moment, the most beautiful to me.
And when I see the street in front of my Montreal apartment transformed into an absolute Winter Wonderland OVERNIGHT I’m amazed and I am speechless. And, in that moment, it’s the most beautiful to me.
And, pretty much, every single memory that I’ve ever had on a street somewhere in the world, recalled in that right moment of sentimental inhale, is the most beautiful to me.
Montreal is cold. It can plummet to degrees of coldness here that would easily rival the Arctic. Streets become covered in icy slates of slippery death. The trees shrivel of all color and stand as frigid, lifeless skeletons of nature–black and haunting. Montreal is swallowed up by a cape of white and no other color emerges but the graying fog that fills the skies, and the occaisonal purple scarf peaking out from under the heavy winter jacket of a rosy-faced schoolgirl walking back home from the bus stop, muddling across the slushy pavement.
I’ve never been a winter person. Raised in Kuwait, my flesh has always longed for the warm beam of sunlight that penetrates through my blue window-shade every morning. In Montreal, no sun penetrates through my window-shade.
But, sometimes, I look out the window at the stark ocean of whiteness and a warmth radiates in the soles of my feet. I’m moved by the overwhelmingly freezing touch of the window-pane to make a cup of warm tea. I am moved to cuddle up in bed and read Paul Auster’s ‘The Invention of Solitude.’ I am moved to seek out the tiny movements of life that lovingly peek their heads out at the world despite the cold and the lifelessness and the whiteness of Montreal on this winter day.
And whenever I spot the fleeting yellow of a moving school bus, see the shadow of a small girl’s pink parka running across the snow, or hear a dog barking with such forceful glee at being outside despite the whips of freezing wind, I am, for a brief second, a lover of winter and all that it brings.
The surprising jolts of life that push their way through the cruel and graying air make me smile. I’m not sure why, but they make me hopeful. Hopeful of what, I can’t say.
Montreal is cold. Montreal is not Kuwait. But Montreal is the most beautiful in the snow.
So, living in Montreal you’ve gotta be a little weary of what you eat because of the whole pork and halal issue. Cause I’m, uhm, you know, Muslim? (which is LITERALLY my auto-response to all the non-Muslims who dine with me and stupidly go ‘Oh my GOD, why don’t you eat PORK? YOU’RE TOTALLY MISSING OUT ON PORK!”) Anyhow, unless you’re in the mood to constantly ask if the food is halal or kosher (and getting the occasional self-righteous eye roll that accompanies it), your options are basically limited to either shawerma or fish.
Now, I would not consider myself a particularly adventurous kind of eater. I mean, I really do enjoy food and I relish and I savor and I take part in all those appetizing kind of terms people associate to, you know, eating. I look forward to trying new recipes and experiencing exciting new tastes. Really, I do. BUT! Once I’ve made my mind up on something that I am not going to eat then it can be pretty hard to change it. Animal feet? Tongues? Brains? SCROTUMS? (What?!) Never going to happen. Camel and monkey meat? NO (and go watch Tarzan or Mighty Joe Young, you heartless goon!).
Another thing that I used to be pretty adamant about not trying? Sushi.
I don’t know what it is about raw fish… It really puts my gag reflex in motion. I mean, raw fish already smell like armpit anyway. Why would I pay to have smelly armpit fish odors lodged into my taste buds and in my teeth? I’m sorry but the thought never really computed with me. Also, sushi just feels a little under-worked for me. And somewhat unhealthy (HELLO! SALMONELLA IS ON THE RISE PEOPLE.). So, despite the wild popularity of this dish and the constant badgering of all my well-meaning family and friends in Kuwait, I have abstained.
Anyhow, given the fact that my food is usually limited between fish or shawerma, my need for variety overpowered me today. And, yes, after MUCH coaxing and prodding I tried sushi. My sister did all the ordering for me (because she was so excited that I finally took the sushi plunge and just went NUTS) but I think I had a California Roll, a Philadelphia Roll, and a Crispy Roll? Maybe? I’m really not sure. These could just be the only names on the menu that I remember.
Point is I tried it and really only one word comes to mind when trying to recollect the overall taste and feel of sushi… Uncomfortable. I don’t know why but, for all the bad attributes that I associated with sushi before, I always thought it would feel light and succulent. Maybe a little spongy? Like, I imagined it would be one of those foods that goes down easy. Well, with my experience this was not the case. It just felt a little chewy and the taste wasn’t bland per se, it just tasted like fish and rice with maybe a little heavy cheese thrown in. It wasn’t necessarily bad, just… Uncomfortable and not spongy.
Its too bad cause I honestly went into this with an open mind, but, unfortunately, I was not pleasantly rewarded for my little spurt of bravery. I doubt I’ll have any other such spurts in the future.
But, at least now when I go back to Kuwait and I go out to Maki’s with my girlfriends and complain at them offering me a bite of their sushi (“shfeech yuba kila simach! 5ibla entay ti7a6amain ou matjarbeen shfeech?!”) I can at least say that I’ve given it the old try and that I have an uncomfortable (and so not spongy) point of reference.
The first snow of the season arrived to Montreal last night, and today I woke up to a breathetaking blanket of white.
It is now officially winter! Bring on the EXTREME WINTER multi-layered attire, the slippery snow slush, and the hot tomato soup! (you thought I was going to say hot chocolate, didnt you?)
